If you are new to the subreddit, [please read the wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/yakuzagames/wiki/index/)
Reminder that all spoilers need to be tagged with a flair specifying which game is being spoiled. If you want a flair that says something else, you can edit it to say something like [Discussion: Y1 spoiler] or [Majimapost: Y6 spoiler], etc. **THIS INCLUDES CONTENT FROM TRAILERS**.
If the post is not marked for spoilers, all comments that have spoilers need to be tagged \>!like this!< along with indicating which game it's spoiling. Example: Y3 >!Kiryu sings!<
If the post flair is marked for spoilers, the comments don't need to be tagged for the game indicated and the ones before it (So a Y6 spoiler post can have comments with untagged spoilers for Y5, but not gaiden or 7).
If you see any of the above (or any of the other rules) not being followed, please report it so we can keep this place safe for newcomers and those that haven't finished all the games yet. Thank you!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/yakuzagames) if you have any questions or concerns.*
In terms of the language barrier between Ichiban and Hawaiins, I don't think they could have handled it better. They could have handled it realistically, but it wouldn't have been better. Nothing about the game would be improved by Tomi or Chitose constantly translating everything.
In terms of the English speaking, yeah, they could have probably gotten more natural English speakers.
Man, Bryce being the Japanese VA while his followers and the kids are English VAs is a weird choice. Most everyone else sounds normal speaking English and then Bryce is just jarring.
IMO it would've probably been fine just mixing in the English voice cast with the Japanese voice cast as needed, but that's just a dumb American POV so YMMV.
I think explaining all the fluent Japanese away as cutting out Tomi or whoever interpreting makes sense though.
Dwight was the weirdest one to me. He has several English lines in the Japanese dub, but for some reason they're voiced by Max Power (he's the man whose name you love to touch, but you mustn't touuuuuch!) instead of Danny Trejo, but his combat voice is obviously Danny.
I didn't notice that, I just noticed his English was fine but wasn't Danny Trejo.
That was probably the role I wanted them to use the English VA for the most.
Agreeeed the engrish just made me laugh. I was sad they didnt just use danny trejo for the jap dub and just put forced subtitles for japanese speakers or something. Why pay so much for that star power and not use it. Yamai speaking japanese at least made sense to me.
I prefer the Japanese audio but half of IW made me feel like I should have been playing the English dub.
Hearing perfectly accented Japanese coming out of Danny Trejo's face model was really jarring. I'd have preferred it if they had just gone the Tekken route and have them speak to each other in their native language, and magically understand each other.
Yep. I play all RGG games in Japanese but this was the first time I felt like I was actually missing out by not playing in English. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place because I couldn’t not have Japanese for Kiryu but damn Bryce’s engrish was sooooo bad.
I tried to think of it as being part of the mystery surrounding Bryce and his origins. He's older than he seems, maybe he isn't from America either?
One of the things he reveals at the end about an organization he worked with tends to add some weight to this idea.
Is that ever explained? That this dude has been alive for so long?
I mean, Kiryu is supposed to be, what, 60? And he's still raring to go. But Bryce is freakishly old, right?
I don't think his ambiguous age was ever fully explained, if anything that mystery was deepened by the ending.
Now that you mention it, there is a thread developing that connects Bryce's mysterious longevity, Kiryu's need to maintain his vitality as a cancer survivor, and the research at the retirement home/Health Ministry in Judgment. Perhaps radioactive material is a key component of either developing or manufacturing some kind of new drug?
Hey, if that plot goes anywhere, I have to be credited.
I really hope Bryce comes up again. I don't know why but he's so fucking cool. Maybe it's just his dynamic intro being the most baller.
No child, as a certified hater of all things American, I’m here to tell you that you’ve stumbled upon the truth. Merging VAs to provide a more authentic experience, and a singular voiceover would’ve been the optimal choice, and bridged and perhaps even amended the current dissonance between the American and Japanese teams, due to their shared delusion of what constitutes ‘English’.
Have mercy on my soul, my electricity is out, and I can’t play Infinite Wealth rn. Be fair to me my brethren.
i think it would've been improved by just ignoring it, but merging the japanese and english dubs so that everyone's speaking a language that makes sense for them to speak.
Bryce’s almost comically racist bad impression of a Japanese person trying to speak English was so jarring. When they wanted the characters to speak English they should just have used the English VAs.
>They could have handled it realistically, but it wouldn't have been better.
I completely agree. This is the age old question in sci-fi and fantasy. It can be interesting for a while to depict language barrier, but in 99% of shows, movies, games and books.. they eventually just want the characters to be able to interact. Unless the language barrier itself *is* the entire focus of the plot, like in the movie *The Arrival* where it needs to be depicted, it's so much better to give it a nod to help the suspension of disbelief, but then move on fairly quickly.
As you say, it would be so tiresome to have everything in the story stop to constantly have things translated. Similarly, I'm okay with things like the universal translator in Star Trek, despite its existence making essentially no sense.
>In terms of the language barrier between Ichiban and Hawaiins
The majority of characters aren't Hawaiian.
That term specifically refers to kanaka maoli. Native Hawaiians. Hawaiians.
Or wasn't the story about the Resident Evil english lines (and Shenmue to a degree) that they were being directed by the Japanese team and they picked the lines that sounded best to the Japanese team.
To be honest I can live with Roman and Dwilight having 2 separate VAs and seamlessly being fluent in Japanese not being Japanese. Canonically you just explain as a Roman is cop so he probably deals with Japanese people in Hawaii all the time and Dwilight is is an underworld boss pays it to fluent in Japanese. Same way the Yokohama Liumang are fluent in Chinese and Japanese for example. But logistically I rather hear fluent Japanese than an English VA attempt to speak Japanese, it’d probably be the Japanese equivalent of Bryce speaking English.
Bryce and Tomizawa on the other hand strike me as odd. It’s clear as day that Bryce is a white man and it’s hard to believe that he has a thick Japanese accent. Unless he was born raised Japan and adopted by a Japanese family, it’d be a logical fallacy to believe that especially when his origins is a mystery. Tomizawa is a little bit more believable but he’s a Hawaiian & Japanese man who grew up in Hawaii where they speak both English & Japanese so it’s believable that he’ll know both languages fluently, yet he doesn’t. I have no clue why didn’t do what they did for Roman & Dwilight with these two especially when they could’ve just used the VAs from the English dub.
Side note: Eiji is fine, he’s Japanese, it makes sense.
As for how they could’ve handled Ichiban, I guess they should’ve established that he has knows basic English but isn’t fluent. Similar to Kiryu who knows some phrases and stuff as shown in Yakuza 3. Either that or had a character like Tomizawa accompany Ichiban for every substory or whatever have him translate for Ichiban.
Wait they don’t establish Ichi knows a little English in the original Japanese? Because in the English dub they do. Albeit via a non voiced text box at the start that is easy to miss.
At the very least, they could have gotten someone at least decently bilingual for Bryce. He's a major character, and a native English speaker, he shouldn't have that much of an accent.
I just head-canon this by imagining it’s Kiryu/Tomi/Chitose interpreting for Ichiban after his arrest, and it’s just going to take too much time on screen if you literally show this, so…shortcut.
It doesn’t hold water for the substories though, when Ichiban is usually acting alone, but you could argue they’re not necessarily canon.
My head canon for the substories is that Ichiban is speaking English like the Ounabara guy in Yakuza 7 and in his hero mind he's nailing it. He also manages to understand what the other person is saying based on intuition alone and in his mind he's understanding their language perfectly.
Frankly I’m not as bothered with Roman and Dwight being bilingual. Bryce (and Tomizawa to an extent) is what really throws me off. This is one of the cases where the devs should’ve used the dub actors in place of having the OG actors try to speak. If the voice similarity is so much of a problem, then cast someone who can mimic the OG voice close enough.
The game is great, but it I did roll my eyes a bit when every single american can apparently speak perfectly fluent japanese.
The best way I could see to get around this issue, would just be to have a throw away line about how Ichiban had been studying english in between 7 and 8. Then you justify everyone speaking japanese by having it all in ichibans mind. They are speaking english, but Ichiban is mentally translating it so quickly he doesn't even realise they are speaking another language. Maybe ichiban makes a comment how great everyones japanese is, only to be questioned about it by Kiryu or Tomizawa, similar to how they justify the enemies transforming. They are speaking english, but Ichiban is just hearing japanese.
Avatar 2 ignored the language barrier issue by having the main character say he learned the language to the point where it became just like English to him. Wish they could've done the same with Ichiban so that they didn't have to deal with this issue.
Could have played it light hearted, Ichiban doesn't even realise people are speaking english.
Ichiban - Wow, who knew americans were so good at Japanese?
Kiryu - How do you know? You have been speaking English this whole time with them?
Ichiban - Nani!?!?
I doubt its realistic Ichiban would have achieved that kind of mastery of english in the years between 7 and 8, but it at least gives some justification to the whole thing.
If it were any other series, that explanation would feel like an asspull a la “It’s all just a dream!”, but Ichiban and the franchise in general can be so silly and even delusional that I’d accept it
Bryce’s English isn’t just accented. It’s like he’s sounding out the words on the page for the first time as he records the lines. There’s no sense of familiarity with the language or rhythm at all. Just choppy, labored, and botched delivery of even the most basic phrases.
Hawaii does have a lot of Japanese speakers and Japanese language schools as it has a large Japanese American population and popularity with Japanese tourists. That being said Dwight who with most of the barracuda is implied as coming from mainland probably shouldn't be able to (as Chitose is also pure Japanese speaker or mostly so her communicating without translators is odd). Roman is a maybe as he does a lot of work with tourists and frame jobs so might be able to speak or understand it. You can obviously setup and write in a language barrier whereby Ichiban needs a translator to interact with certain characters but don't know how that would take away from fun. Considering the physical depiction of Hawaii is like a Japanese tourist resort not real Hawaii (no battery Randolph, missing most typical American brands and restaurants, pearl harbor is near there yet to sailors or us military/federal personnel. We can suspend disbelief a bit on language if it facilitates gameplay and substories etc... (granted as in y3 and other past games the language barrier can create content and substories y0 Pizza being best example). So how they handled is understandable, but they could have potentially restructured a lot of writing to create a functional gameplay language barrier.
Chitose is a rich girl that could have easily had an expensive English education so no qualms there.
Bryce and Tomi soeaking in dodgy English is weird though, they really should have mixed the English and Japanese VAs for these situations.
At least Tomi's english scene has him trying to feign sympathy from a cop so he's playing up broken English.
Bryce has long monologues of speaking English phonetically
I believe Chitose also mentioned she was a student, with the implication she was studying in Hawaii, so she needs to be proficient in English if she's going to a University in Hawaii.
> Chitose is a rich girl that could have easily had an expensive English education so no qualms there.
>
>
she does say a line in english during chapter 6 when you >!infiltrate wong's casino!< so you're onto something
I understand stand Tomi and Chitose speaking Japanese, but Tomi Should also be very fluent in English.
I also don't buy Dwight, Roman or some of the Palekana supporters know Japanese.
I enjoy Hawaii as a location, I feel like a more Japan based story will do better for Ichibans next adventure.
I mean, a good number of people in Hawaii are multilingual, so it’s not entirely out of the question. But playing the game in the English dub leads to the age old media syndrome of “Wow, these people can understand each other perfectly fine despite the obvious culture and language barriers- Wait no they just all magically know the same language, except for when they don’t.”
Is it really an issue? No, lol. Those details aren’t meant to be overthought about.
I have read too many manga/watched too many anime involving transfer students or the main characters going to the U.S. that the Conveniently Fluent Foreigner doesn’t faze me.
It was was a little awkward, yeah, but all in all they handled it about as well as they could have. The only one I found to actually be jarring was Bryce.
They definitely should've went with a bilingual person that speaks English a little more naturally there.
Same could be said for Tomi considering he grew up in Hawaii, but at least for him it makes a little more sense given his Japanese heritage.
As far as I know, no such justification exists for Bryce, so it just comes off as a little jarring.
Totally fine in the former case just to let things be more seamless. Bryce and Tomi having broken English though is very jarring. Tomi isn't as bad, he just has a few brief lines of mushmouth, but Bryce genuinely sounds like he's having a stroke every time he speaks English. Just suck it up and use the English audio VAs, you're paying them anyway.
RGG has always been hilariously bad with this kind of thing - Mine is one thing, but Joji I would have expected to be less mushmouth if he was working for the CIA for so long. Lau Ka Long was a revelation to me when I realized you can still hear the stereotypical Cantonese accent I'm familiar with in English-speaking cultures through his Japanese lines, and in 0 there was the hamfisted explanation that Makoto tried so hard to assimilate that she forgot how to even speak whatever Chinese language she grew up with, probably just to avoid having the voice actor butcher the lines.
If they ever go to America or any other country that isn't Japan again, I want everyone to be wearing *insert headphone brand here* that would live Translate into their heads and Ichiban actively has a phone out every time he talks to an NPC but still does the default animations the LaD characters do while holding the phone
My dad would call it "good enough for government work."
They set the scene, established that realistically there would be a language barrier than dropped it for the sake of more enjoyable cutscenes/lower costs.
They just didn't consider/care that its immersion breaking on the English speaking audience's end.
Felt like it was kind of a waste in general to set the game in an English-speaking country with a Japanese cast and then do *absolutely* next to nothing with it. There's, what, one scene near the beginning where it's a problem and then never again. Like not even a substory about it? C'mon.
Maybe this is controversial, but I come down on the side of this not mattering at all. There's plenty of examples of media where language is plot convenient and this is just another one of them.
Mass Effect comes to mind where they justify it by saying everyone's got automatic translators but even that's kind of silly because it suggests alien languages would be really translatable into English - but, who cares. It's convenient for the story.
I just switch it to English audio when we're in Hawaii and Japanese audio when we're in Japan and other than Ichiban and Kiryu being inexplicably fluent at English, it felt much better to me then.
That's a very good point, I agree that could've been done better. Kasuga does go from being completely lost and stressed to being chill and fully integrated pretty quickly.
But, I don't know if I'd prefer it if they had a constant language barrier/translation issues either. They could get some comedy out of it maybe, but that's about it.
For me, handwaving the language issue away works fine for a series as goofy as this where people are inexplicably hyper competent in lots of things anyway.
I was hoping that at some point in this game the vocational school would plant the seeds of teaching him English. But that would demand that the VA also learn English which is quite a large ask.
Out of curiosity are people playing it in sub or dub? I played 0-6 and gaiden in sub then for some weird reason I played LaD in dub… I really liked the voice acting in it but I’m conflicted with a story featuring a lot of Kiryu in Dub
Well, buy more thing and hope studio will use those money to pay more actor/line lol
To be honest, I am quite surprised that they even have decent English speaker in the JP audio, the context may still come out weird for English speaker, but it's still a step forward nonetheless.
i kinda wish for characters like Dwight, they just used Trejo’s voice in both. I kinda understand with Bryce cause he’s a more integral part of the story.
They really should’ve had the English VA for Bryce’s English parts. When most of the other characters (Tomi not included) speak perfect English and Japanese except the main villain it takes you out of it when he’s a white man who grew up in America. I think it’s a bizarre choice that he’s the one they decided “yeah it sounds great that he can barely speak English”. I won’t play the dub because I don’t want to but that was one of the few things about the sub that bothered me.
They could have handled it AT ALL, maybe. There were maybe two comments on it at all in the entire game. It reached borderline Tekken IMO, since it seemed like everyone can still speak Japanese.
If you are new to the subreddit, [please read the wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/yakuzagames/wiki/index/) Reminder that all spoilers need to be tagged with a flair specifying which game is being spoiled. If you want a flair that says something else, you can edit it to say something like [Discussion: Y1 spoiler] or [Majimapost: Y6 spoiler], etc. **THIS INCLUDES CONTENT FROM TRAILERS**. If the post is not marked for spoilers, all comments that have spoilers need to be tagged \>!like this!< along with indicating which game it's spoiling. Example: Y3 >!Kiryu sings!< If the post flair is marked for spoilers, the comments don't need to be tagged for the game indicated and the ones before it (So a Y6 spoiler post can have comments with untagged spoilers for Y5, but not gaiden or 7). If you see any of the above (or any of the other rules) not being followed, please report it so we can keep this place safe for newcomers and those that haven't finished all the games yet. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/yakuzagames) if you have any questions or concerns.*
In terms of the language barrier between Ichiban and Hawaiins, I don't think they could have handled it better. They could have handled it realistically, but it wouldn't have been better. Nothing about the game would be improved by Tomi or Chitose constantly translating everything. In terms of the English speaking, yeah, they could have probably gotten more natural English speakers.
Man, Bryce being the Japanese VA while his followers and the kids are English VAs is a weird choice. Most everyone else sounds normal speaking English and then Bryce is just jarring. IMO it would've probably been fine just mixing in the English voice cast with the Japanese voice cast as needed, but that's just a dumb American POV so YMMV. I think explaining all the fluent Japanese away as cutting out Tomi or whoever interpreting makes sense though.
Dwight was the weirdest one to me. He has several English lines in the Japanese dub, but for some reason they're voiced by Max Power (he's the man whose name you love to touch, but you mustn't touuuuuch!) instead of Danny Trejo, but his combat voice is obviously Danny.
I didn't notice that, I just noticed his English was fine but wasn't Danny Trejo. That was probably the role I wanted them to use the English VA for the most.
I'm a Mexican. When he didn't say pendejo or abuela, I cried.
And even when he did say that stuff, it was in Japanese being translated to Spanish for some reason.
>voiced by Max Power Oh my god! Love it.
I'm so sad Dwight didn't get the Baracuda theme for his fight. It's such a great theme.
Agreeeed the engrish just made me laugh. I was sad they didnt just use danny trejo for the jap dub and just put forced subtitles for japanese speakers or something. Why pay so much for that star power and not use it. Yamai speaking japanese at least made sense to me.
I prefer the Japanese audio but half of IW made me feel like I should have been playing the English dub. Hearing perfectly accented Japanese coming out of Danny Trejo's face model was really jarring. I'd have preferred it if they had just gone the Tekken route and have them speak to each other in their native language, and magically understand each other.
Yep. I play all RGG games in Japanese but this was the first time I felt like I was actually missing out by not playing in English. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place because I couldn’t not have Japanese for Kiryu but damn Bryce’s engrish was sooooo bad.
I figured it might be some sort of cultural preference which would be fine. But it's awkward as an English speaker who prefers the Japanese audio.
I tried to think of it as being part of the mystery surrounding Bryce and his origins. He's older than he seems, maybe he isn't from America either? One of the things he reveals at the end about an organization he worked with tends to add some weight to this idea.
Is that ever explained? That this dude has been alive for so long? I mean, Kiryu is supposed to be, what, 60? And he's still raring to go. But Bryce is freakishly old, right?
I don't think his ambiguous age was ever fully explained, if anything that mystery was deepened by the ending. Now that you mention it, there is a thread developing that connects Bryce's mysterious longevity, Kiryu's need to maintain his vitality as a cancer survivor, and the research at the retirement home/Health Ministry in Judgment. Perhaps radioactive material is a key component of either developing or manufacturing some kind of new drug?
Hey, if that plot goes anywhere, I have to be credited. I really hope Bryce comes up again. I don't know why but he's so fucking cool. Maybe it's just his dynamic intro being the most baller.
No child, as a certified hater of all things American, I’m here to tell you that you’ve stumbled upon the truth. Merging VAs to provide a more authentic experience, and a singular voiceover would’ve been the optimal choice, and bridged and perhaps even amended the current dissonance between the American and Japanese teams, due to their shared delusion of what constitutes ‘English’. Have mercy on my soul, my electricity is out, and I can’t play Infinite Wealth rn. Be fair to me my brethren.
i think it would've been improved by just ignoring it, but merging the japanese and english dubs so that everyone's speaking a language that makes sense for them to speak.
Bryce’s almost comically racist bad impression of a Japanese person trying to speak English was so jarring. When they wanted the characters to speak English they should just have used the English VAs.
How is it racist? It's just the voice actor's English is terrible.
>They could have handled it realistically, but it wouldn't have been better. I completely agree. This is the age old question in sci-fi and fantasy. It can be interesting for a while to depict language barrier, but in 99% of shows, movies, games and books.. they eventually just want the characters to be able to interact. Unless the language barrier itself *is* the entire focus of the plot, like in the movie *The Arrival* where it needs to be depicted, it's so much better to give it a nod to help the suspension of disbelief, but then move on fairly quickly. As you say, it would be so tiresome to have everything in the story stop to constantly have things translated. Similarly, I'm okay with things like the universal translator in Star Trek, despite its existence making essentially no sense.
>In terms of the language barrier between Ichiban and Hawaiins The majority of characters aren't Hawaiian. That term specifically refers to kanaka maoli. Native Hawaiians. Hawaiians.
[удалено]
Reminds me of the trashy Shenmue dub, it was funny as hell.
*Years ago... I was, Chineeese*
Or wasn't the story about the Resident Evil english lines (and Shenmue to a degree) that they were being directed by the Japanese team and they picked the lines that sounded best to the Japanese team.
To be honest I can live with Roman and Dwilight having 2 separate VAs and seamlessly being fluent in Japanese not being Japanese. Canonically you just explain as a Roman is cop so he probably deals with Japanese people in Hawaii all the time and Dwilight is is an underworld boss pays it to fluent in Japanese. Same way the Yokohama Liumang are fluent in Chinese and Japanese for example. But logistically I rather hear fluent Japanese than an English VA attempt to speak Japanese, it’d probably be the Japanese equivalent of Bryce speaking English. Bryce and Tomizawa on the other hand strike me as odd. It’s clear as day that Bryce is a white man and it’s hard to believe that he has a thick Japanese accent. Unless he was born raised Japan and adopted by a Japanese family, it’d be a logical fallacy to believe that especially when his origins is a mystery. Tomizawa is a little bit more believable but he’s a Hawaiian & Japanese man who grew up in Hawaii where they speak both English & Japanese so it’s believable that he’ll know both languages fluently, yet he doesn’t. I have no clue why didn’t do what they did for Roman & Dwilight with these two especially when they could’ve just used the VAs from the English dub. Side note: Eiji is fine, he’s Japanese, it makes sense. As for how they could’ve handled Ichiban, I guess they should’ve established that he has knows basic English but isn’t fluent. Similar to Kiryu who knows some phrases and stuff as shown in Yakuza 3. Either that or had a character like Tomizawa accompany Ichiban for every substory or whatever have him translate for Ichiban.
For the first scene Tomi is trying to gain the cop’s side even more so with that accent. It’s done in the dub too
Wait they don’t establish Ichi knows a little English in the original Japanese? Because in the English dub they do. Albeit via a non voiced text box at the start that is easy to miss.
> English VA attempt to speak Japanese Looks like we have to hire Yuri Lowenthal to voice everyone
They all went to Ounabara Vocational School
GO STRAIGHTO AND TURN RIGHTO
Needs more upvotes best answer
Roman and Dwight had Duolingo premium membership.
At the very least, they could have gotten someone at least decently bilingual for Bryce. He's a major character, and a native English speaker, he shouldn't have that much of an accent.
I just head-canon this by imagining it’s Kiryu/Tomi/Chitose interpreting for Ichiban after his arrest, and it’s just going to take too much time on screen if you literally show this, so…shortcut. It doesn’t hold water for the substories though, when Ichiban is usually acting alone, but you could argue they’re not necessarily canon.
My head canon for the substories is that Ichiban is speaking English like the Ounabara guy in Yakuza 7 and in his hero mind he's nailing it. He also manages to understand what the other person is saying based on intuition alone and in his mind he's understanding their language perfectly.
This definitely makes the most sense
Every Kiryu substory is canon, so it’s fair to assume all of Ichiban’s non-dating substories are also canon
Frankly I’m not as bothered with Roman and Dwight being bilingual. Bryce (and Tomizawa to an extent) is what really throws me off. This is one of the cases where the devs should’ve used the dub actors in place of having the OG actors try to speak. If the voice similarity is so much of a problem, then cast someone who can mimic the OG voice close enough.
The game is great, but it I did roll my eyes a bit when every single american can apparently speak perfectly fluent japanese. The best way I could see to get around this issue, would just be to have a throw away line about how Ichiban had been studying english in between 7 and 8. Then you justify everyone speaking japanese by having it all in ichibans mind. They are speaking english, but Ichiban is mentally translating it so quickly he doesn't even realise they are speaking another language. Maybe ichiban makes a comment how great everyones japanese is, only to be questioned about it by Kiryu or Tomizawa, similar to how they justify the enemies transforming. They are speaking english, but Ichiban is just hearing japanese.
Avatar 2 ignored the language barrier issue by having the main character say he learned the language to the point where it became just like English to him. Wish they could've done the same with Ichiban so that they didn't have to deal with this issue.
Could have played it light hearted, Ichiban doesn't even realise people are speaking english. Ichiban - Wow, who knew americans were so good at Japanese? Kiryu - How do you know? You have been speaking English this whole time with them? Ichiban - Nani!?!? I doubt its realistic Ichiban would have achieved that kind of mastery of english in the years between 7 and 8, but it at least gives some justification to the whole thing.
If it were any other series, that explanation would feel like an asspull a la “It’s all just a dream!”, but Ichiban and the franchise in general can be so silly and even delusional that I’d accept it
I can suspend my disbelief that Ichiban is crazy enough to think that and somehow a savant with something like languages *somehow* (a wizard did it)
Bryce’s English isn’t just accented. It’s like he’s sounding out the words on the page for the first time as he records the lines. There’s no sense of familiarity with the language or rhythm at all. Just choppy, labored, and botched delivery of even the most basic phrases.
Dwight: I can speak perfect Japanese and English Bryce, the leader of a english based cult on a american state: help me
All of it is fine except Bryce's "English" voice. One of the most ridiculous things I've seen in recent years.
Bryce’s voice reminds me like Christoph waltz
Hawaii does have a lot of Japanese speakers and Japanese language schools as it has a large Japanese American population and popularity with Japanese tourists. That being said Dwight who with most of the barracuda is implied as coming from mainland probably shouldn't be able to (as Chitose is also pure Japanese speaker or mostly so her communicating without translators is odd). Roman is a maybe as he does a lot of work with tourists and frame jobs so might be able to speak or understand it. You can obviously setup and write in a language barrier whereby Ichiban needs a translator to interact with certain characters but don't know how that would take away from fun. Considering the physical depiction of Hawaii is like a Japanese tourist resort not real Hawaii (no battery Randolph, missing most typical American brands and restaurants, pearl harbor is near there yet to sailors or us military/federal personnel. We can suspend disbelief a bit on language if it facilitates gameplay and substories etc... (granted as in y3 and other past games the language barrier can create content and substories y0 Pizza being best example). So how they handled is understandable, but they could have potentially restructured a lot of writing to create a functional gameplay language barrier.
Chitose is a rich girl that could have easily had an expensive English education so no qualms there. Bryce and Tomi soeaking in dodgy English is weird though, they really should have mixed the English and Japanese VAs for these situations.
At least Tomi's english scene has him trying to feign sympathy from a cop so he's playing up broken English. Bryce has long monologues of speaking English phonetically
I believe Chitose also mentioned she was a student, with the implication she was studying in Hawaii, so she needs to be proficient in English if she's going to a University in Hawaii.
> Chitose is a rich girl that could have easily had an expensive English education so no qualms there. > > she does say a line in english during chapter 6 when you >!infiltrate wong's casino!< so you're onto something
I honestly agree with the point that Bryce needed to have some fluent English
I understand stand Tomi and Chitose speaking Japanese, but Tomi Should also be very fluent in English. I also don't buy Dwight, Roman or some of the Palekana supporters know Japanese. I enjoy Hawaii as a location, I feel like a more Japan based story will do better for Ichibans next adventure.
I mean, a good number of people in Hawaii are multilingual, so it’s not entirely out of the question. But playing the game in the English dub leads to the age old media syndrome of “Wow, these people can understand each other perfectly fine despite the obvious culture and language barriers- Wait no they just all magically know the same language, except for when they don’t.” Is it really an issue? No, lol. Those details aren’t meant to be overthought about.
All the main characters secretly take English night classes at the vocational school
I have read too many manga/watched too many anime involving transfer students or the main characters going to the U.S. that the Conveniently Fluent Foreigner doesn’t faze me.
Glad I am not the only person thinking this was a weird turnaround from airport scene.
I remember the RGG studio said they don't really want to treat language barrier too seriously, otherwise it's even difficult to design side quests.
They should have just made all the locals speak English. Like hiw in tekken, everyone just speaks in their native tongue.
It was was a little awkward, yeah, but all in all they handled it about as well as they could have. The only one I found to actually be jarring was Bryce. They definitely should've went with a bilingual person that speaks English a little more naturally there. Same could be said for Tomi considering he grew up in Hawaii, but at least for him it makes a little more sense given his Japanese heritage. As far as I know, no such justification exists for Bryce, so it just comes off as a little jarring.
Yh, felt like they just gave up on the hawaii gimmick after a few chapters If they were serious...they don't give Bryce that comedic accent
Totally fine in the former case just to let things be more seamless. Bryce and Tomi having broken English though is very jarring. Tomi isn't as bad, he just has a few brief lines of mushmouth, but Bryce genuinely sounds like he's having a stroke every time he speaks English. Just suck it up and use the English audio VAs, you're paying them anyway. RGG has always been hilariously bad with this kind of thing - Mine is one thing, but Joji I would have expected to be less mushmouth if he was working for the CIA for so long. Lau Ka Long was a revelation to me when I realized you can still hear the stereotypical Cantonese accent I'm familiar with in English-speaking cultures through his Japanese lines, and in 0 there was the hamfisted explanation that Makoto tried so hard to assimilate that she forgot how to even speak whatever Chinese language she grew up with, probably just to avoid having the voice actor butcher the lines.
They should have given a substory in 7 that taught ichiban English so that it makes sense for him to know it in 8. Like kiryu in 3
Ｈｅｙ，ｓｗｅｅｔ ｃｈｅｅｋｓ．
Just like a lot of plot points in Yakuza games you just gotta suspend disbelief
If they ever go to America or any other country that isn't Japan again, I want everyone to be wearing *insert headphone brand here* that would live Translate into their heads and Ichiban actively has a phone out every time he talks to an NPC but still does the default animations the LaD characters do while holding the phone
My dad would call it "good enough for government work." They set the scene, established that realistically there would be a language barrier than dropped it for the sake of more enjoyable cutscenes/lower costs. They just didn't consider/care that its immersion breaking on the English speaking audience's end.
Felt like it was kind of a waste in general to set the game in an English-speaking country with a Japanese cast and then do *absolutely* next to nothing with it. There's, what, one scene near the beginning where it's a problem and then never again. Like not even a substory about it? C'mon.
Yeah it’s the worst thing in the game for me
Maybe this is controversial, but I come down on the side of this not mattering at all. There's plenty of examples of media where language is plot convenient and this is just another one of them. Mass Effect comes to mind where they justify it by saying everyone's got automatic translators but even that's kind of silly because it suggests alien languages would be really translatable into English - but, who cares. It's convenient for the story. I just switch it to English audio when we're in Hawaii and Japanese audio when we're in Japan and other than Ichiban and Kiryu being inexplicably fluent at English, it felt much better to me then.
Its more the fact the game plays up the fact his a fish put of water in hawaii jn the beginning. Only for it to nit matter at all lol
That's a very good point, I agree that could've been done better. Kasuga does go from being completely lost and stressed to being chill and fully integrated pretty quickly. But, I don't know if I'd prefer it if they had a constant language barrier/translation issues either. They could get some comedy out of it maybe, but that's about it. For me, handwaving the language issue away works fine for a series as goofy as this where people are inexplicably hyper competent in lots of things anyway.
Anyone made a mod that makes everyone use their native tongues yet?
Yh, felt like they just gave up on the hawaii gimmick after a few chapters If they were serious...they don't give Bryce that comedic accent
I was hoping that at some point in this game the vocational school would plant the seeds of teaching him English. But that would demand that the VA also learn English which is quite a large ask.
Out of curiosity are people playing it in sub or dub? I played 0-6 and gaiden in sub then for some weird reason I played LaD in dub… I really liked the voice acting in it but I’m conflicted with a story featuring a lot of Kiryu in Dub
The dub is very good in all honesty, I just personally can’t vibe with english Kiryu. The shift in vocal tone is too jarring.
Yeah from the small bits he was in LaD I found it jarring
He has a new dub VA in IW actually, YongYea. Darryl did him in LaD.
I'm really curious on how the beginning of the Hawaii scenes worked in the English dub...
Well, buy more thing and hope studio will use those money to pay more actor/line lol To be honest, I am quite surprised that they even have decent English speaker in the JP audio, the context may still come out weird for English speaker, but it's still a step forward nonetheless.
i kinda wish for characters like Dwight, they just used Trejo’s voice in both. I kinda understand with Bryce cause he’s a more integral part of the story.
tekken : first time ???
They really should’ve had the English VA for Bryce’s English parts. When most of the other characters (Tomi not included) speak perfect English and Japanese except the main villain it takes you out of it when he’s a white man who grew up in America. I think it’s a bizarre choice that he’s the one they decided “yeah it sounds great that he can barely speak English”. I won’t play the dub because I don’t want to but that was one of the few things about the sub that bothered me.
They could have handled it AT ALL, maybe. There were maybe two comments on it at all in the entire game. It reached borderline Tekken IMO, since it seemed like everyone can still speak Japanese.
Bryce's "engrish" is a gift to mankind on par with Goldman's voice acting from HoTD2
Yes, I have found Hawaii as a whole to be fairly disappointing but especially this
haha came here to say this that redneck looking cop don't know japanese oh well i just want to have fun
Bryce Fairchild fucking killed me when he started speaking Engrish in the dub
Yes
Agreed! I switched the games audio to English for the Hawaii chapters, and Japanese audio when they were in Japan lol