I Always Preferred Japanese Voice with English Subtitles - Same for 3!

[SakuraTaisen]

........... I hope they didn't use the English sub to make the other languages translations.

Honestly, I’ve only been studying Japanese a few years and I’m nowhere close to perfectly fluent, but I could have put out a much better translation than whoever was in charge of 3. They need to get some bilingual playtesters for the next game.

Hopefully they take the criticisms of the English script to heart and ensure the next game has a higher quality script. Perfect world, Sega will publish 4 and take over the localization. But if that doesn’t happen, just please spend a little extra on it, Suzuki-San!

 

[sbkodama]

This is 100% a problem. The translation has really bad mistakes at certain points. They translated はい (hai - yes) as “hello” at one point.

Hahaha ok that will be very funny to play for how bad it is, my guess is the translator heard "hi" so translated it to "hello".

 

[SakuraTaisen]

Hahaha ok that will be very funny to play for how bad it is, my guess is the translator heard "hi" so translated it to "hello".

Yeah, I understand that when you hear both words in a vacuum. But how the hell does it happen when you know you’re translating Japanese?! Whew boy. I lost it when I heard it. Laughing, not with rage lol.

Maybe I should start a new thread with all the most egregious examples and other Japanese speakers can contribute. It’s sort of a pointless exercise since they won’t patch in a script update without re-recording the lines, but maybe it can help the community can get started on a fan retranslation patch for the PC. I’m sure that will happen inevitably, anyways. It’d be good to have a place to start.

 

[Crowza]

But aren't the english subtitles a transcript of the english dub ?

From my experience, they are absolutely not the same. I'll eventually play through with the English dub, but the little evidence I gathered said they were wildly different. In fact, the English in the dub often made no sense at all. The English sub-titles always made sense (I'm half way through the game at this point).

Of course, this could be a placebo effect. I will need to test this out, but from my initial experience I believe they are very different...

 

[mjqjazzbar]

Honestly, I’ve only been studying Japanese a few years and I’m nowhere close to perfectly fluent, but I could have put out a much better translation than whoever was in charge of 3. They need to get some bilingual playtesters for the next game.

Hopefully they take the criticisms of the English script to heart and ensure the next game has a higher quality script. Perfect world, Sega will publish 4 and take over the localization. But if that doesn’t happen, just please spend a little extra on it, Suzuki-San!

It’s sad this isn’t a priority for a story based game with so much dialogue.

 

[staplepuffs27]

I’ve seen people on this forum say that Yu Suzuki prefers the English dub, so it should be included in future titles if it’s apart of his vision

 

[Vasid]

I’ve seen people on this forum say that Yu Suzuki prefers the English dub, so it should be included in future titles if it’s apart of his vision

I'd really like a source on this. All I can find is one mention of it on the forums here from forever ago in a long post (defending the dub) which doesn't go in to detail about the comment and just makes it off hand.

 

[mjqjazzbar]

The original English dub was popular enough in Japan that they re-released the game with the English dub (U.S. Shenmue), but if that were actually Japan's preference, why bother with a Japanese dub at all? I think that's one of those 'facts' that's overstated by people after circulating again and again for so many years.

I just can't be convinced allocating precious resources to an inferior English dub is a smart business decision, especially when I see people regularly complaining about how the game lacks certain other features. I keep wondering at what cost did we get the subpar English dub... If this game were a smash success the world over, sure; throw money at the dub. They're getting by on a shoestring budget and I worry when I see them making foolish decisions. Throws, Baisha, better side stories, better translations -- that's worth the money, IMO. A dub that's regularly cited as being unprofessional or a joke in most reviews? I feel for the people who like it, but c'mon...

 

[staplepuffs27]

It may have been in an old magazine, but I don't have the article on me. I would love to see the source as well. Shenmue: The Movie was advertised to Japanese audiences with the English dub, so that's pretty good evidence if you ask me.

 

[CrazyBob589]

........... I hope they didn't use the English sub to make the other languages translations.

I am Chinese. I speak English and a bit of Japanese. I don't know about other languages, but I am so glad that Shenmue 3 used Japanese sub translation for Chinese version. Unlike Shenmue 1 & 2 HD translated by Sega Europe, Shenmue 3 has high-quality Chinese translation based on Japanese sub instead.

Shenmue 1 & 2 HD used English sub translation and it was killing me because on the one hand, the text didn't match Japanese dub at all (Like, the kid called Ryo "お兄ちゃん” onichan but was translated into something like "Hey, Mister") and plus, while I have never tried the previous two games in English, I can already tell the English text is simply poorly written or unpolished from the translation with so much details lost.

 

[Hazuki X]

Boy I'm struggling to endure this English dub. At first it was nostalgic to hear Ryo again but man, 25 hours later... It's really not great. I don't think Ryo has ever sounded flatter. I'm sticking with the English VO until I complete the game but woof!

 

[RyoHazuki84]

I’ll admit the English version of 3 is an improvement over Shenmue 2’s (which I played for the first time last year on the remaster, never got the XBox version because I didn’t have one), but the Japanese version just feels natural. However, I do like Briana Knickerbocker as Shenhua. She’s probably the best actress in the dub. Then again, I was already a fan of Briana even before her casting as Shenhua.

 

[Sh3ppy]

I found myself unable to play through S2 on the Xbox primarily because of the English dub (bloom effects were way over the top too, but that’s another matter). It really sealed it when I first heard Joy, who sounds absolutely horrendous in the Xbox S2. That’s when the Dreamcast came out of the drawer and I went back to PAL S2.

 

[Vasid]

I found myself unable to play through S2 on the Xbox primarily because of the English dub (bloom effects were way over the top too, but that’s another matter). It really sealed it when I first heard Joy, who sounds absolutely horrendous in the Xbox S2. That’s when the Dreamcast came out of the drawer and I went back to PAL S2.

The bloom and the motion blur effects were so bad. I only recently got to play Pal S2 and man was it just an all around better ride.

 

[Rakim]

This is 100% a problem. The translation has really bad mistakes at certain points. They translated はい (hai - yes) as “hello” at one point. I don’t even understand how that happened. There’s so many instances where the responses Ryo has make no sense in English but the Japanese ones are fine. There is another one that stood out when Ryo wants to stop chopping wood. I don’t remember the exact phrasing in English, but it was so disjointed compared to what the shopkeeper said. In Japanese, Ryo says やめておきます (yamete okimasu - I’ll quit/I’m gonna quit/etc) and it was translated completely differently.

I love the game, but it’s really rough if you are relying on the subtitles. I understand the appeal of the corny dub, but I can’t support bad translation. You can have the cheesy English acting with a script that actually makes sense.

I didn't play in English so I didn't know about any of this. I just watched the woodcutting thing on Youtube and they translated it as "No, I'm good." Pretty bad seeing as he wasn't responding to anything. They should have went with something more along the lines of "I'm done for now."

Do you remember the context of that "hello" translation? 自分で確認したいですぅ。

I might have to do a playthrough in English to see if the translation is actually as bad as people are saying.

 

[Sh3ppy]

The bloom and the motion blur effects were so bad. I only recently got to play Pal S2 and man was it just an all around better ride.

My first experience with Shenmue was playing through S2 in Japanese with English subs on my Dreamcast. Fell in love with it and bought S1 on DC. Was highly disappointed there was no Japanese option on the western version. Still, S2 English dub was unplayable, whereas I still really enjoyed S1 despite the dub. It was nice to finally get to play the original in Japanese last year when the PS4 HD versions came out though.

 

[Lan Di-sama]

I switched to English on a whim and don't mind it. It's certainly not WORSE than 1 or 2 (2's dub was abysmal)

But I definitely plan to switch it back to Japanese...if I can remember to in the main menu settings.

 

[ARokitLawnChair]

A lot of navel gazing going on this thread. People have a preference, your preference doesn't mean you should look down on or diminish those who prefer it a different way.

 

[Vasid]

A lot of navel gazing going on this thread. People have a preference, your preference doesn't mean you should look down on or diminish those who prefer it a different way.

No one's looking down on anyone that I've seen aside from Dub fans telling people they have their "heads up their asses" in paranoid self defense. All I've seen so far are people pointing out how legitimately the English dubs for the games are poor translations that change the script of the game in addition to being very poorly acted and universally panned hurting the critical reception for each game.

I do wish dub fans would quit coming in a pro-original voice over thread and crying victim like people talking about how the English dub is bad is personally hurtful to them. Get over yourselves and stop looking for things to be offended about. It's absurd coming in here crying "people should be allowed a difference of opinion" but the whole reason you're upset is because people aren't agreeing with your view.

 

[staplepuffs27]

lmao people in this thread have literally called for the English dub to be excluded from future titles, so of course dub fans are going to clap back. I thought the whole point of two dubs was so that each side could have their preference. That's why it was one of the earliest Kickstarter stretch goals, and I didn't see much pushback to an English dub back in the early Kickstarter days. But now that the game is out, it's a problem for some reason.