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Kojima Productions explains why Japanese Snake voice actor did not change

S

Sn4ke_911

If I ever post something in Japanese which I don't understand, please BAN me.
One fan wanted to know why the Japanese voice actor for Snake (Akio Otsuka) has not changed, while the English actor (David Hayter) has. The host of the podcast, Sean Eyestone, answered:

“This time, the English voice is really driving the animation, is driving the character. In past Metal Gears, everything was done by hand: the animation was done by hand, both the English and the Japanese were dubbed in.”

“This time, the facial performance that is being done by the English voice actor is what is driving the animation, what is driving the character. And actually, Otsuka-san, who is the Japanese voice, will be dubbing into that. So his facial expressions will not be in the game, so it’s just his voice. It’s like what he’s done up to this point. So that’s more or less the reason why this casting decision was made.

I know some people may have reservations, whenever things change, people are always a little nervous. But I think if you just wait and see how things turn out, I think you’ll be very happy with the performance. I think it’s really cool and we can’t wait to show you more.”
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http://metalgearsolid.nl/?p=8231
 
I don't know how I feel about this... wait I do!

Jack Bauer > Japan

JackBauerFlag.jpg




I bet sutherland probably got paid a bit more than Otsuka too lol.
 
Sutherland is doing the motion capture, so what? They could take any Japanese VA by that logic. Oh, since he isn't doing motion capture we will be using the same actor for the Japanese voice.

I guess it's a polite way to say Hayter wasn't good enough anymore for what they had in mind.
 
Fuck you Kojima, I demand you teach Kiefer Japanese and have him re-do every scene in Japanese. Do it or I'll cancel my pre-order.
 
I prefer Kojima's explanation for why they went with Sutherland over Hayter:

"Yeah, basically, we wanted someone who could be subtle."
 
Vamphuntr said:
Sutherland is doing the motion capture, so what? They could take any Japanese VA by that logic. Oh, since he isn't doing motion capture we will be using the same actor for the Japanese voice.

I guess it's a polite way to say Hayter wasn't good enough anymore for what they had in mind.
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Do we know if Hayter is cut out to do motion capture as well as voice over? Sounds like theyre doing more of what ND does with Uncharted than what they used to..which was cram the VAs in a room together and have them read lines to eachother.

Im hopeful that this turns out good.
 
Its a very reasonable response, unless you wanted Hayter to do the facial mocap as well which ... well, Im sure hes a fine actor but yannow, not Kiefer Sutherland
 
L00P said:
All this is telling me is that Hayter was no good.
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Kojima never cast Hayter as Solid Snake. And Hayter never auditioned for the role of Big Boss. He just managed to fall into it, because of voicing Snake. And there's no reason why Big Boss and Solid Snake would have identical voices.

This is just Kojima's pick of who would play Big Boss.
 
Salaadin said:
Do we know if Hayter is cut out to do motion capture as well as voice over? Sounds like theyre doing more of what ND does with Uncharted than what they used to..which was cram the VAs in a room together and have them read lines to eachother.

Im hopeful that this turns out good.
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That's my guess as well. I don't think I've ever seen him do mocap and to be honest his performance voice wise wasn't the best in the latest entries.

I still think this explanation from Kojipro is funny though.
 
Not surprising at all they'd give priority to syncing the English version over the JP one. Japan's used to overdubbed western movies and lipsync isn't any sort of priority in anime. It's not a dealbreaker for that market. In western media, by comparison, proper lipsync is an expectation.
 
I don't care about Kojima or MG, and this sound like BS to me. Or maybe Hayter has some kind of facial problem and they can't capture his face..... lol. They are not changing the Japanese VA because the VA business is huge in Japan and probably it will be seen as a "bad" thing.
 
kojipro doesn't have a "he's too old" excuse Ubisoft had, they're just saying Hayter wasn't good for acting basically...
 
That actually makes sense, and thank God for ignoring Japanese motion actors. I cannot stand their exaggerated movements. Squeenix should look into applying the same idea to their games.
 
Alienous said:
Kojima never cast Hayter as Solid Snake. And Hayter never auditioned for the role of Big Boss. He just managed to fall into it, because of voicing Snake. And there's no reason why Big Boss and Solid Snake would have identical voices.

This is just Kojima's pick of who would play Big Boss.
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Well that's completely redundant, because they do have the same voice. Regardless of any canon biological reasoning, they already did cast Big Boss, and his voice is the same as Solid Snake's.
 
Makes perfect sense. Hayter is not a good choice if he was going to be the one providing the facial animation for Snake, especially if it's for both versions.

StuBurns said:
Well that's completely redundant, because they do have the same voice. Regardless of any canon biological reasoning, they already did cast Big Boss, and his voice is the same as Solid Snake's.
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And that was a huge mistake. It's coming 2 games later but they should have never ever had the same voice. If anything, it should have been the same voice as Solidus, but Big Boss is a very different character from either Solidus or Solid Snake and should have his own voice.
 
StuBurns said:
Well that's completely redundant, because they do have the same voice. Regardless of any canon biological reasoning, they already did cast Big Boss, and his voice is the same as Solid Snake's.
Click to expand...

Canonically, it makes little sense. But when Big Boss and Solid Snake are in the same scene, they have never sounded the same.
 
This is a good thing...I think there was always something weird with Japanese mtoin caputre...the do very Japanese posing and movements like the peace sign and jumping when excited...which is okay for games set in Japan, but very weird with games about americans
 
I think I remember hearing a while back that Kojima preferred the english dub. It's shocking though that that priority meant giving Hayter the axe.
 
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