Slight observations about the Japanese dub of Gameoverse
I watched the pilot in Japanese after watching it in English and I wanted to share the little things I noticed (mostly about pronouns). To clarify, I know little to no Japanese, I'm just a translation nerd. I'm probably getting some stuff wrong, so I would love for more knowledgeable folks to correct me! Learning about this stuff is cool!
For folks who don't know, Japanese pronouns work very differently from English. There's a shit ton of 1st person pronouns (English only has "I"), they're not gender-locked (certain pronouns are primarily associated with one gender, but they can still technically be used by anyone and fem/masculinity of a pronoun changes depending on context), and they communicate far more about a person's/character's personality. It's also common for people/characters to change the pronoun they use for themselves depending on context. I've written down all the pronouns I could hear the Gameoverse characters using, and my observations about them, below:
Kit generally uses "Watashi" to refer to herself, which is common for women in casual contexts (in professional contexts, "Watashi" is gender-neutral). However, when Kit is having a breakdown at the midpoint of the episode, she uses "Atashi" instead. "Atashi" is usually used to emphasize a speaker's feminity, but in this context with Kit, it sounds more like she's slurring her words. Like, she's freaking out so much that she can't say "Watashi" right. Especially since she's speaking so fast, she just has to shorten it to "Atashi".
Kaboodle only refers to himself with "Ore", but I think it means something slightly different depending on who he says it to. "Ore" is a very masculine pronoun and generally used by men in informal contexts. When a man uses "Ore" with someone he's never met before, it makes him seem confident and rude. However, when a man uses "Ore" with someone he knows really well, like his best friends, it conveys familiarity instead. So, Kaboodle using it reads differently, depending on whether he's talking to Kit or Gobbles/Snappers. With Kit, he uses "Ore" because he sees her as family, but with Gobbles/Snappers, it's because he doesn't respect them. He also uses the 2nd-person pronoun "Omae" to refer to everybody, which basically means the same thing as "Ore".
Gobbles uses "Boku" to refer to himself. There's 2 forms of Boku that are pronounced different and mean different things. "Bo-Ku!" with a spikey "k" sound is a childish pronoun commonly used by young boys. "Bo-ku", with a more flat pronunciation, is used by humble and respectable adult men. Gobbles uses the adult version, which I think is common for male teachers (for example, Dr. Maruki from P5R uses it like that). It's cute :)
Flappers actually uses the other version of "Boku", which makes him sound childish, innocent, and sweet (As an example, I believe SpongeBob uses it this way in the Japanese dub of his show). But interestingly, Flappers uses it more than you'd expect.
Japanese is a very context-dependant language, meaning that pronouns are often inferred in a sentence rather than directly used (for example, if you wanted to say "My name is Suzuki Sora" when meeting someone, it's common to just say "Suzuki Sora". It's natural to assume that you're saying your own name, so you don't have to use a personal pronoun. This isn't just a casual speech thing, it's grammatically correct). So characters don't use their pronouns super often either. In the pilot, Miss Info/Fold only use their pronouns once, and Gobbles/Kit/Kaboodle only use theirs about 3 or 4 times.
But Flappers uses "Boku" 7 times! It stands out a lot. Specifically, Flappers uses "Boku" to refer to himself about 4 times at the end of the episode, when he's talking about his world being destroyed. I have 2 theories for why that is:
A) The irregular speech pattern implies that he's distraught. He's not speaking normally because he doesn't know what to say.
B) He's emphasizing his role in the destruction of his world. He referring to himself over and over again, like "I beat Snappers, I doomed my world, I did this". He's saying it's HIS fault.
I think Theory B is more likely, but I would love to hear insight from someone who actually knows Japanese. Also, in case you didn't know, Flappers is played by Jun Fukuyama in the dub. Also known as JOKER from PERSONA 5! He does an incredible job, it's just...surreal.
Snappers refers to himself with "Ore-sama", which is a pronoun exclusively used by fictional characters! "Sama" is a respectful honorific that's only supposed to be used for other people, so using it for yourself would be super, SUPER rude. No Japanese speaker would actually do it in a real life conversation. A character referring to themselves with "Ore-sama" shows that they think they're hot shit (Wario from the Mario series also uses "Ore-sama"). Snappers does it when he's doing his whole "Who dares enter my lair" thing, but he also uses it when talking to Warrick at the end of the episode. It sounds like he's trying to be intimidating.
The syntax crew barely use pronouns, but I picked up on a few.
Fold refers to himself with "Ore" once when talking to Flappers (when he's saying "Yes, I am Mr. Paper"). I'm not sure if he'd use this all the time, but I highly doubt he'd use it with Warrick (it's pretty rude to use it with your boss).
Miss Information uses "Watashi" when she's talking to Warrick once, but it's not clear if she'd use it casually or only when she's talking to her boss. Interstingly tho, the Japanese dub changes her name slightly. Instead of being called "Miss Information", Warrick calls her "Miss Info". I assume the change was made because "Info" is easier to pronounce for a non-native speaker.
Unless I misheard, Warrick doesn't use a pronoun at all. But he's voiced by Vegeta's Japanese VA, which is pretty sick.
Finally, the best character: Crab Gurl. Almost all of the characters in the pilot keep their names, but they're pronounced in a more Japanese way ("Kit" is "Kitto", "Gobbles" is "Gobblesu", etc). Crab Gurl is the only one with an outright name change! She's called "Kani Musume" (which just means "Crab Girl" in Japanese). She refers to herself with "Atashi", making her sound cutesy and feminine <3 She's also played by Jun Fukuyama (JOKER PERSON 5) and I find this very funny.
These are all really small details since I don't actually know Japanese, but I thought they were still interesting. If anyone reading this knows Japanese and would like to correct me (or point out something else cool about the pilot) please please please do so! It would genuinely make my day :D
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