All good if they have to put down the controller to use the keyboard, would kind of be unnatural otherwise... Having 4 hands and all...

I have no doubt that playing with the controller is just as effective as with the keyboard, I've probably teamed with enough JP players who use the controller and didn't even know it, however, the translator works only to a certain degree and there ends up being little conversation (meaning even if they were selecting letters one at a time with an analog stick it would make little noticeable difference).

I just want to know whether or not the keyboard is mandatory, that way I'll be ready for people going "tick tick tick X, tick tick X, tick tick tick tick tick X, ect." in order to form one word, and eventually a full sentence, while the rest of us wait.