Western voice actors

[Carl the Llama]

Ok I honestly don't know what the big deal is with people shunning western voice actors, I am always seeing people saying "-names- voice actor was pants ect" is it really that bad? I personally have never had any issues with western voice actors and I have no idea why alot of people think that the Japanese have better voice actors then the western counterpart, what is the big deal, if you speak English and you want a language 90% of the people who moan about the voice actors can't even understand, I know some Japanese but I'm no where near fluent enough to understand a whole game of said language.

Its the same with anime too, anyone seen Fist of the North Star (film not the live action movie which was complete pants) they will have to agree that the English version is not only better (having seen both the English and the Chinese counterpart) and the ending itself is better, but lets not go off track. not many would have seen FotNS but a shedload of you have seen Dragon Ball I'd wager, have you ever seen it in Chinese? Goku's voice actor was terrible, so much so that I can't bring myself to watch it.

So in short, why do so many people hate the western voice actors? I think they are great. I have never heard a voice that made me think "what the hell were -company - thinking in hiring them?"

[Roto13]

No More Heroes 1.5 is on YouTube and it's heartbreaking how boring Travis' Japanese voice actor is compared to his English one.

[NorthernChaosGod]

People like to be elitist little pricks.

Localizations are superior in that they actually allow conversations to make sense, rather than literal translations in which all inflection, context, humor, wordplay, and flow are lost. Why is being closer to the original preferable? Literal translations are an approximation of meaning, subtitles can rarely express puns or culture specific terms or verbal gestures that have no equivalent meaning, the more literally accurate you attempt to be in a translation the less likely you are to convey the intended meaning.

[Roto13]

[NorthernChaosGod]

I have one, too.

[McLovin']

The guy who does the voice of Spike Spiegel is a damn fine voice actor. And the guy who does the voice of Yu-gi-oh! Can't imagine what he'd sound like in Japanese lol.

[JKTrix]

You know how they say, 'different strokes for different folks'. The first version of something that you hear usually leaves the biggest impression on you too.

Part of the 'Dub vs Sub' debate goes back several years to a time when it was actually relevant--when anime came out on video tape. This is long before console games ever had a considerable amount of voice acting, so I'm coming at this from the perspective of anime. Back then, you could choose whether or not you bought an English dubbed tape or an English subtitled tape (for the most part--if it was a kid's TV anime it was always dub only). The thing is, I think sub tapes were actually more expensive and in shorter supply than the dub counterparts, so back then it was even more of an elitist thing. And back then, many of the dubs really were just plain horrible.

Now with most DVDs (though I can't speak for kid's TV anime) you can just switch the language, and dubs these days are overall of pretty high quality, so as far as anime goes it's less of an issue. Except that people don't buy DVDs, they just stick to their illegal fansubs.

My personal opinion may be a little different than most others who generally prefer original Japanese voices. I understand some Japanese and some of the culture and inflections and what have you, and I also am familiar with many of the Japanese voice actors. FF13, for example, had a good handful of relatively popular Japanese voice actors, so I'm most interested to play that in Japanese.

Funny that you bring up Fist of the North Star, since a PS3/360 game just came out which includes the Japanese language option. The thing about that is, none of the characters in that are voiced by their original anime actors, and are instead replaced by some of today's 'hot' anime actors (Kenshiro is voiced by the guy who played Kamina in Gurren-Lagann, for example). It's just not the same as the old cast that I had become so familiar with.
---------------------
As for games, I don't know. Japanese RPGs tend to have juvenile stories with juvenile characters and writing, so it may be difficult for English actors to convey the same level of juvenile enthusiasm in their acting. So it may just come off as awkward. Some people recognize this and are numb to it, especially compared to bad anime dubs in the past. Others may just be trying to nitpick at different things.

One thing that does confuse/irritate me though, are when games do include the Japanese voices and it exposes how off-the-mark their text is. This was really noticeable for me in Muramasa the Demon Blade for Wii. Since I could generally understand what they were saying, the text that was on the screen often only matched the spoken words at the basest level. The text in that game did not convey the personality that was being put into the original voices--'country' accents and word puns (though puns are hard to localize) and some more poetic dialogue were all translated as dully as possible.

Fist of the North Star is getting into some of that too, with its between-the-chapter narrations in Japanese being a little more flowery than the text on screen. This isn't as big of a deal there, since it's just straight narration and not really anything to do with characterization or personality. For example, the narrator would say (in Japanese) 'The people had forgotten how to smile', while the text said 'People were in despair'. It means the same thing, and is more direct, but it's a little less interesting.

But yeah. Most people just like to complain. They should be exposed to some of the really bad dubs from years/decades past, maybe it would give them some perspective on how good they have it.

[Roogle]

A poor localization of a video game will force Western voice actors to deliver stilted, awkward lines that resonate poorly with the audience.

It can be difficult to work with material that comes from another country and adapt it to a point that makes sense for Western audiences; additionally, the localization process does not usually make hard changes to a game, and voice acting will have limitations because of that. For example, a cleverly delivered scene in Japanese with quick comebacks may sound awkward in English because the same intentions cannot expressed so quickly.

You may find that you have less of an issue with Western voice actors if you watch animated series or video games that were produced in English first. Would you say that Batman: The Animated Series or Gargoyles had poor voice acting? I certainly would not.

[Aerith's Knight]

Western voice actors have the men down, that's for sure. But the women? I mostly just want to tear my hair out if I hear Vanille or Aeris speak another word.

[Roto13]

I hate a LOT of Japanese voices for female characters. Especially the "energetic", "cute", or "shy" ones. (Read: moe)

[Madame Adequate]

Primarily because Star Ocean: Til The End of Time.

[Shiny]

I prefer American voice actors to Japanese voice actors. Not because they speak English, but but because I think that a majority of the time, their voices fit the characters better. This especially true in video games where a lot of the characters are clearly not Japanese or even Asian at all.

[Aerith's Knight]

To be honest, I prefer to read/listen to any media as it is in its original language. If I watch anime, I want it in Japanese. If I'm watching a movie, I want it in English. If I read a book, I want it in the language it was written. It makes more sense, both in content and pleasantness of voice.

It does give a lot of translation fail if you don't understand the language though.

[Depression Moon]

If I read a book, I want it in the language it was written.

You must be omnilingual. I don't think I ever played a game where I thought the voices were just awful. Well, not all of them. In SSF4 I keep the shotos minus Ken and Dan on Japanese along with E. Honda and I flip back and forth with Chun Li and Sakura's. Chun's English voice is okay. Sakura's is annoying, but funny at the same time. Fei Long's is bad too, but I think that was intentional since he is a Bruce Lee parody. I also Keep Ibuki, Makoto, and Gen on Japanese as well.

Aside from that I can't recall any others that annoyed me. Oh no wait, there was Aeris in KH and Vivi too.

[Laddy]

I hate how I'm culturally insensitive when I want to watch a Caucasian American speak English.

Some voice actors are absolutely brilliant and deserve true recognition (Vic Migogna, Travis Willingham, Laura Bailey, Greg Ayres, etc.)

Hetalia: Axis Powers is a far superior show in English dub. Plain and simple. Each character is based on a nation and in English the accents and little quirks come out more. Let's be fair, Americans are as a whole tighter with nations such as England, France, Canada, Spain, Germany, Italy, and such culturally than Japan, so the English dub brings out more inside jokes. (This dub, as are most English dubs, is American.)

Not to say all dubs are good per se, but I hate the otaku elitism. Acting is always more effective in your own language, and with all the non-Japanese characters speaking perfect Japanese with no accent, it sort of requires too much supsension of disbelief.