Forum - View topicEnglish speaking characters in anime.
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Nom_Anor
 Posts: 246 |
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Is there any reason that anime never seem to have English speaking characters speaking English with Japanese subtitles.
The main example that comes to mind is Negima(?)!, in which Negi speaks English with a clearly Japanese, and not British, accent, and when talking with his English speaking sister in England, is speaking in Japanese. It just seems to hurt the realism a great deal(I personally find it exceptionally distracting). I would guess the most likely culprit to be price, because I would expect bilingual VAs to be much more expensive than regular VAs. Is there a reason I'm missing? Do Japanese people have something against subtitles? |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18551 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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American productions aren't much less guilty of this. It's just a convenience for purposes of simplifying understanding for the target audience.
And there are some anime out there which do have American characters speaking in English even in the Japanese dub, with provided subtitles; Place Promised in Our Earlier Days and Barefoot Gen are two titles that immediately spring to mind, but I know I've seen that in several other cases, too. |
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Azathrael
 Posts: 745 |
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I don't see any reason to emphasize the particular realism of having fluent English speaking Japanese VAs in Japanese animation. Why is there a need to require English speaking characters in anime to be actually fluent? It's a cartoon (in the crudest sense) and there's no practical reason to pay more money for bilingual VAs when the characters only speak one or two sentences at most in English, and only to establish the fact that they can at that. Not to mention that the target audience is Japanese, or people who will have a better chance at understanding Japanized English than fluent English.
But I guess the answer you're looking for is "financial and practical reasons". It's simply more reasonable (again, considering the target audience) and cheaper for a VA to speak broken English than to pay a fluent English speaker and add Japanese subtitles. |
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indrik
 Posts: 365 Location: yonder |
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The original Blood the Last Vampire OVA did that, too. It got kind of confusing, but I don't exactly remember why. I think they were talking English on an American base, but they were Japanese characters talking English in Japan, so they were speaking with normal Japanese accents, but a good amount of the dialogue was in English with subtitles. I seem to recall an American VA doing the part of... an American person?
I could look this up. Yeah, Steve Blum's in there for the Japanese cast: anime#7 |
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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In episode 23? of Samurai Champloo, the Americans speak english with japanese subtitles.
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DKL
 Posts: 1962 Location: California, USA |
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I remember hearing someone speaking (and acting) in competent English in the subbed version of third Patlabor Movie...
It was awesome. Oh yeah, and there's Blood too, which was also a great way to approach the whole "language" thing. |
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d.yaro
Posts: 528 |
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Didn't Blood go as far as having the fluently bilingual person play the school nurse in addition to Kudoh Yuki as what's-her-face? Sorry, it's been that long since I watched the show and I've flushed the TV series out of my mind. I don't know. I suspect with one liners in TV shows they just ask dig up any old Caucasion person and have them do a quick walk on. My favourite recent instance was episode 20 of Ghost Hunt where a fellow with a blatantly flat North American accent declares he was asked to play the part of an Englishman as part of a ruse. That's something the Japanese will virtually never catch onto. Going slightly off topic there's Wings of Honneamise where they got foreigners to read random Japanese, with "beginner's accents", as the dialogue for the foreign enemy nationals. At least that's the story I recall.reading somewhere.
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Isikari
 Posts: 118 |
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I can think of myriad genres, not just anime, in which for the sake of the target audience conversations occur only in the primary language. It makes the show easier to understand, and particularly when dealing with anime the viewer already have their 'suspension of dis-belief' hats on (Giant Robots come to mind...), so why not?
~ Isikari |
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Amasa
 Posts: 340 Location: Japan |
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I remember that scene well actually, it surprised me at how coherent the "english" voices were compared to the baseball episode in Samurai Champloo in which I need subtitles for the english speaking because it was so difficult to understand. There's definitely attempts at having english in anime but it usually is easier and more sensible to just have it in Japanese but in an english context (Red Garden). It would be interesting to have American or foreign voice actors appear in Japanese produced anime, I've never seen something like that before however. I guess it's just convenience and budget. The characters in Red Garden all speak Japanese even though they're American, and honestly I do believe they're American when I watch the show. They act so un-Japanese and the setting is so believable. I think the only time I thought that they mixed the Japanese and American was when a character bowed or something. Well my point is that it's not necessary to add confusion by including english speaking, as long as the context is suitable. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18551 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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In Place Promised they actually had native English-speaking VAs do the English-speaking roles in the Japanese dub (those are definitely not Japanese names for those characters in the credits). How well they did the parts is another story; the VAs used for those roles in the English dub were a significant improvement, IIRC.
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Rozzer
 Posts: 344 Location: So Cali |
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In the anime Beck there were a couple of American guys speaking English in the Japanese sub. Although I cannot remember if they put any Japanese subtitles for them since it's been awhile since I've watched the series. Also the character Ryusuke Minami, who happens to be Japanese, did have quite a few English speaking parts. And as mentioned above, Samurai Champloo did have English speaking parts during the Baseball episode, which I thought was hilarious.
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Yoda117
Posts: 406 |
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One of the best I saw IMO was during the KOR series. The American characters spoke English well, and carried it off with little accent, the Japanese characters speaking English spoke it in a manner which you would expect it of someone using it as a second language. All in all, not badly done. |
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IchigoK90
 Posts: 1634 Location: Scarborough, Ontario |
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Well just remembered this but some anime don't even speak any actual english but are said to have spoken english in the series. One such character was Yukari-sensei from Azumanga-Daioh. Though she was an english teacher in the series when she actually spoke english to a foreigner it was just a bunch of jibberish. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not but i'm leaning more towards it being intentional.
"YA~HA~!" "Believe it!" - IchigoK90 |
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DuelLadyS
 Posts: 1705 Location: WA state |
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I don't remember if it was subtitled or not, but in Legend of Black Heaven an American street punk does a few lines in surprisingly good English. It sticks in my mind becuase he swore quite a bit in those few lines. I suppose it was techincally realistic, but hearing 'f**k f**k f**k' in an anime was pretty surreal.
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10円
Posts: 605 |
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The English dub of Azumanga really fell apart during those scenes, even though they were really funny with the Japanese track. |
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