For decades I would have agreed with you, as I do with this game, but with the recent NieR: Automata I feel the English voices are noticeably better. I think the Japanese voices in that game were a huge letdown.
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Persona 5 - about the japanese dub.
- Thread starter Z..
- Start date
Holy shit, didn't know that! <3
Gotta watch that video again!
IT'S NOT LIKE I HAD TO DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE WITH MY DAY ANYWAYS
Anyone who actually understands Japanese and English knows this is not true. An actual real world example of a game where the English dub is dramatically superior to the Japanese is Ni no Kuni. For the Japanese release, they hired screen actors with little VA experience. The result was panned by Japanese consumers because the performances felt flat and forced. The English dub, on the other hand, turned out very well, and is generally praised.
Any attempt to judge the quality of a dub that does not include the quality of performance is absurd.
While i'll not say anything against this statement, i think hearing all the stuff in japanese enhances the absurdist humor of cromartie, don't ask me exactly why, i think it's the fact that japanese makes it sound more outland-ish.
Yup. There have been more than a few times where I've said the following line to a major revelation and the tone of the character saying said line is EXACTLY the same tone as my reaction. It's an excellent dub.
But man, the names. THE NAMES!
ShadowSoldier89
Member
hey its that guy that showed up in the blazblue thread to tell everyone they were enjoying the game wrong
Dragonslayer_023
Banned
The one or two examples people can bring up out of thousands of games and anime are the exceptions that prove the rule.
They should've just brought back the Teddy/Monokuma guy for Morgana. At least he knows how to do a wacky mascot voice. Current Morgana literally sounds like a 10-year-old kid, and to add insult to injury, JP Morgana does an outstanding job.
and every time Caroline says "inmaTE" I wanna gouge my ears out
and every time Caroline says "inmaTE" I wanna gouge my ears out
Finale Fireworker
Member
Some of you: "The Persona 5 dub is good."
The rest of you: "The Persona 5 dub is bad."
Me, extremely smart: "The only good dub is for the Japanese animated film Akira."
The rest of you: "The Persona 5 dub is bad."
Me, extremely smart: "The only good dub is for the Japanese animated film Akira."
i'm wrong but i'm not wrong
Z..
Member
I hated the dub for P3/4 as well, this isn't a new thing for me.
Sorry, but US dubs for anime products just do not fit. At all. It's clear they are going for the same style of delivery you'd get in animes and unless you grew up with/are used to watching US dubbed animes the tone is just jarringly out of place.
What I don't get is why they can't just dub stuff normally without all the "animu" tropes. There's plenty of great US dubs in jp titles, but as soon as it's even slightly anime in tone it seems all good sense goes out the window, for some reason.
KO Traveling Hobo
Member
I'm only like a month into the game, but so far Morgana basically is a cartoon character. It seems appropriate.
Kagoshima_Luke
Gold Member
After a majority of GAF told me that the P4 Golden dub was not only amazing, but one of the best ever, I've learned to never trust people around here on this. I loathed that dub and it's the reason I will not even consider giving the P5 dub a chance.
Charlouie Jonesman
Banned
I'm glad we got dual audio this time, I really don't like Persona's dubs. Especially after coming straight from Nier Automata...I felt kinda disappointed of the game in general, but if it got one thing right, it was the english dub.
RedAssedApe
Banned
Morgana's dub is super cute. Favorite VA so far (up to dungeon 2). Different strokes for different folks.
phoisgood495
Member
I only know a little Japanese, but I still greatly prefer Subs to Dubs in most games.
For me it's mainly just that Japanese VA's are more expressive than American VA's, because they typically go for more bombastic performances. The VA industry is a lot bigger in Japan, and in general game/anime companies are a lot more willing to invest good money into Japanese voice acting talent.
For dubs we typically where the pool is a lot smaller you hear the same voices a lot, and it's kind of immersion breaking. On top of that especially in a game like Persona sometimes the meaning can be slightly lost in translation, so the actor has to try to adopt the right tone based on a line w/o context leading to some strange dialogue that isn't present in the Japanese version.
Also it's just way easier to pick out bad acting in a language you are used to hearing every day.
Yeah I can see that, although in this specific case its the opposite to me, being able to perfectly understand everything they are saying, even the way they enunciate words makes everything even more absurd and funny to me.
If there are exceptions, they're not rule, this saying is dumb and you shouldn't be repeating it.
And people mentioning "a few" doesn't mean those are the only examples, you can't expect everyone to play or remember every single shitty voiced japanese game known to humankind.
Hell, let's go to the universal example, is there any person living outside of japan that prefers Japanese Adult Goku to their regional counterpart? At all?
charlequin
Banned
This is quite often just factually inaccurate. Pretty much the only way you can actually support a general-purpose argument that Japanese VA is "always" better than localized versions is with a lot of "glorious Nippon" nonsense; in reality plenty of JP voice tracks are poorly directed or poorly acted, and some of those are far improved in English. If you ask game/anime connoisseurs who are actually fluently bilingual (like, say, quite a few of our mod staff) they'll happily tell you this. In reality, the idea that JP voice acting is always better often comes from people who don't speak Japanese at all and therefore can't make reasonable conclusions about the quality of voice acting in a language they don't underrstand.
Nier: Automata had a better script to work with, no weird pronunciation meddling, and some very careful direction to convey subtle meaning through the voice performance. It's probably one of the all-time best JRPG dubs, I think.
Dragonslayer_023
Banned
You...can't tell tone of of language you don't understand?
Japanese Goku is the way the character is meant to be. Maybe you prefer badass English voice, but that's not the character. It's not even a matter of better or worse, it's the thing versus not-the-thing. Some people care enough to want the thing as it was made, some people don't. Nothing wrong with that of course, there's no wrong way to enjoy something. You just shouldn't go around making statements like "it's better," because it's not.
Yup! You said it better than me.
Teddie was really fun to listen to, and Morgana feels like a 90's-generic-radical-kid voice to me. :/
Yeah, I suppose it has it's fans. Again, I'm not saying the VA is "bad", but I didn't like the take on the character so far, compared to the japanese one.
KO Traveling Hobo
Member
P4G can't be one of the best dubs ever because it had False Chie. Now, the original P4 dub on the other hand - that's a god-tier dub.
Z..
Member
Original is always better in the sense that it is the only voice cast the directors/creators had any input on and anything else is always just an interpretation, regardless of quality. There are some cases where I too preffer the dub, but by definition they can never actually be better because it's merely someone else's take on it.
Iva Demilcol
Member
The Japanese cast is amazing, in fact is one of the best I have ever heard. The English dub is actually good until you hear them pronouncing Japanese names, it's so bad that you want to slap the person behind that decision.
Regarding your question about "dubtitles" OP, yes, they are only for the NA script so there's a lot of text that doesn't match the actual content of the Japanese script and sometimes it can be really awful, although in general the translation goes for similar ideas than the Japanese version.
Regarding your question about "dubtitles" OP, yes, they are only for the NA script so there's a lot of text that doesn't match the actual content of the Japanese script and sometimes it can be really awful, although in general the translation goes for similar ideas than the Japanese version.
molnizzle
Member
Dub is more than competent for the most part for the 20+ hours I've played. Meh, not worth getting worked up over.
Best one I've heard in a looong time.
"Shut up, shut up, shut UP, SHUT UP!"
Best one I've heard in a looong time.
"Shut up, shut up, shut UP, SHUT UP!"
petethepanda
Member
I think most of the voice acting from the leads is actually pretty good in 5, but yeah, it's that awkward translation that drags it down. Started to get used to it after a few hours, though.
That was wrong, because the best dub ever it's from Soul Hackers.
But I'm a bit biased for Laura Bailey, so...
Anyway, I like japanese audio too, but I recommend to people who say P5 dub is bad, to hear some lines from Revelations: Persona. That is a classic example of 90 bad dub.
Primethius
Banned
I like the English dub way more. I listened to Kamoshida in JP a bit and it was all sorts of weird. The English VA destroys the JP one. I'll take the small hit here and there in English if it means better VA for the more important stuff.
Lumination
'enry 'ollins
I can't believe someone needed to say this.
shnurgleton
Member
ShadowSoldier89
Member
I despise the voice direction for JP morgana. I'll take a realistic but childish voice any day over "JP Mascot voice"I acually think Morgana's english VA is one of my favs so far...
'Meeow? Meeeo-rreroow?'
Sugita sounds like he's eating something while recording in P5
Yusuke should've been Miyano anyway
It's hard to ignore japanese tones when everyone hams it up like William Shatner on caffeine, but what i doubt you can tell (if you don't understand the language) is the quality of the shatnerian yells, you're confusing being able to tell the emotions, as per the hamtastic acting, with being able to discern quality, again, because you likely have been exposed to too much subbed anime and have accepted the pact to just take the Anime acting as the standard.
Like i have alluded to in this thread, im not from the USA, our [mexican] goku doesn't sound "Badass", he sounds light hearted and goofy like an easy going guy which pretty much fits his character entirely as per what we see in the screen and story, what he doesn't sound like tho, is a squeaky child, much like japanese goku sounds.
I think the overall recordings in general sound kind of weird. Not entirely sure why.
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
I am all-in original dub with subtitles for movies, games and tv shows, and i started to play in english because the jap DLC was not included in the base game, but i ended lovin the dub. I think they made a great job.
Also very correct. It just feels like shallow vindication for those people who laugh at 'weebs'. I've heard tons of great dubs from both anime and games alike, certain ones i'd also say were better than the original performance in japanese. So to say its better just because its 'the original' is pretty short sighted, but its something i hear a lot these days.
Nier 1 and Drakengard 3 had good performances, 8-4 kinda 'gets' this series and how YT rolls by now.
Was that in "meat box"? Yeah...
I think Ray chase did a better job just being a rageaholic Eve than he did as Noctis, but that's my personal view.
KO Traveling Hobo
Member
Spukc
always chasing the next thrill
This
Sugita voicing Yusuke makes me sad because although I love the dub so far, Sugita is one of the fucking GOAT and it's a shame I can't hear him. Mercer is ok as Yusuke so far but it feels a bit too hammy. I probably just don't like this type of character. No real person speaks the way he does.
The dub is great, I feel like some people are just really fucking picky. There's nothing wrong with Morgana, it's a fucking cat. I CAN understand if you prefer the Chopper voice though. Justine, Caroline, and Yusuke are the only ones I feel are a little hit or miss. INMATE is the best though.
RedAssedApe
Banned
hate reading subs so i'll always go with dub if available.
Dragonslayer_023
Banned
Well if nothing else this gave me a really good laugh, so I'd say the thread is a positive.
charlequin
Banned
This isn't even actually true.
Yes, and those people learn the original language to make it possible to do this. If you're reading translated text you aren't getting the thing as it was originally made.
sensui-tomo
Member
if you exclude how botched the character Zero was, yeah they did a fine job in the dub. But her character was wrong in the english version. Thankfully they didnt mess up nier 2's main characters to that extent.