#dub logistics

[yeonchi]

Dub Logistics Part 30: Redemption and Reflection (Retirement Speech Part 2)

“The dub-sub debate and fan base infighting will never end until fans are willing to put aside their differences and unite as one.”

Well everyone, we’ve reached the last instalment of Dub Logistics. I can’t believe how fast the time has gone, but given everything that has happened along the way, I think it’s for the best. Let’s make this final hurrah count.

Before I begin the second part of my retirement speech, I’m going to inform you on what will be happening. Firstly, as I stated in Part 22, I’ll be hiding the links to the Koei Warriors Rant Series and Dub Logistics pages from my Tumblr page at the end of the year; do note that they will still be accessible from the links.

Secondly, The Dub Hater’s Guide to Dual Audio is being discontinued because I want to clean up my cloud drives. Since the guide was just made of arguments and quotes from my rants anyway, I’ve published the arguments from the final version of the guide into Part 25 of the Koei Warriors Rant Series.

Thirdly, I will continue to run the English Dubbed Game News page out of gratitude for the fans I’ve made over the years. Please continue to send me your tipoffs regarding games that have been dubbed or subbed and remember that the page’s post archive is there for your convenient reference.

This year’s Dub Logistics instalments have been a return to the lighter style of discussion (with minimal research) that I intended to make this series since the first few instalments in 2016. Following the events of the debate and feud in 2017, I wanted to end my English dub rants on a lighter note without causing any more dramas.

In Part 29, the first part of my retirement speech, I stated how my experiences with dubbing and subtitles made me a hypocrite. Combined with my reflections of the past few years (in terms of the English dub rants), I’ll be showing my haters and naysayers how their hate, vitriol and trolling was very misguided.

When I started making English dub rants in August 2014, my main focus was on the Koei Warriors games until I started expanding my focus to localised Japanese games and anime in general. Given the reasons that inspired me to start the Koei Warriors Rant Series (see Part 29), some people would assume that I didn’t want to read the subtitles or that I hated the Japanese voices (or some other bullshit reason) when that was entirely not the case; in actuality, I was actually looking forward to hearing the English voice actors reprise their roles in later Koei Warriors games, something that Koei Tecmo has wilfully neglected for a long time now.

My fans have commended me at times for making good points, which is something that I always appreciate. On the other hand, however, I find a majority of the haters and naysayers I’ve encountered are unable to discuss the topic rationally or show compassion for those affected by corporate greed. Some of them have resorted to petty insults to bask in the delusion that they are always right without including evidence to support their points or even trying to make an argument at all.

My views and opinions regarding the dub-sub debate have been shaped over the years through researching articles and weighing the opinions of fans. When writing my posts, I make sure to include links to any site I use for research so that people can see where I got my facts from. If I become aware that something I’ve written is incorrect, then I would acknowledge this and correct it, otherwise I would assume that what I said is correct. If people question the validity of my research, even when it is clearly there, then I suspect that they are just trying to find an excuse to say that I am wrong (see Part 24). I’ve fallen into that trap a couple of times, but now, haters and naysayers need to stop looking for excuses to validate their flawed viewpoints to me and accept that my research is there; you just need to look.

Over the years, I feel that the Dub Logistics series and the #NoDubNoBuy page (also known as English dubs in Japanese games or no buy, now known as English Dubbed Game News) have strayed away from their original purposes. In late-2014, I began screencapping the comments of dub haters and reposting them in an effort to criticise their flawed viewpoints and vitriol, but I guess I met my match when the people on the other side of the feud came along and even then, they were just trolling people who disagreed with them in the name of virtue-signalling. After the feud ended, I realised that I became no better than an SJW or a troll, so I started my plans to change the #NoDubNoBuy page to what it is now (keeping in mind that I had plans to do that a little while before then).

This may surprise some of you, but I was never really a supporter of #NoDubNoBuy despite the page name; in fact, I wrote Parts 33 and 34 of the Koei Warriors Rant Series to criticise the so-called “movement” (and I say so-called because it never really took off) along with its supporters and opposers. Like I said in Part 29 (the first part of the retirement speech), if you have supported me and you consider me a hypocrite because of this, then maybe you weren’t really supporting me at all.

In Part 22 of Dub Logistics, I listed my reasons as to why I wanted to retire my English dub rants. To briefly recap, there was the feud, I lost interest in the fight (along with Koei Warriors games and video games altogether) because of commitments, I started to burn out because I found myself repeating points I made in the past and I started to become out of touch with the current situation (but there is a chance that the haters could be wrong).

Additionally, I’ve learnt a bit about logical fallacies this year and after further research, cognitive biases. I can’t help but think that I’ve likely committed a few of these fallacies and biases (just as my haters and naysayers may have) and as such, I don’t think I can continue talking about dubbing and localisation knowing that I’ll probably commit another one.

My loss of interest in fighting for dubbed games (with dual audio options) mostly stems from the fact that Koei Tecmo have been dubbing less and less games they localise per year (in turn, they have also been publishing and localising more and more games per year). I understand the reasons why this has been happening, but up to now, they have not taken into consideration the dub fans (including myself) who would have liked to hear their favourite Koei Warriors characters in English or my suggestions on how to do so, such as crowdfunding systems (ludicrous though it may be).

I’ve put up with this disgrace for over three years, but Dynasty Warriors 9 was the last straw - when I found out it was dubbed by another studio due to the SAG-AFTRA voice actors’ strike, I felt that the characters in the game were no longer the characters that I remembered and appreciated. Granted, there have been other things that people have criticised in DW9, but given my perspective, the voices were my main concern for this game.

Maybe blaming Insp.Chin, former community manager for Koei Tecmo Europe, entirely for the lack of English dubbing in their localised games was somewhat misguided; I can’t help but think that his role has made him a scapegoat for fan outrage and I took the bait. Other departments are certainly to blame for this and other disgraces to their fans, but until Koei Tecmo properly recognises what harm they have done to their Western fans (particularly dub fans), I wish good luck to the current and future community managers in their jobs - you’re all going to need it.

At this point, I’ve accepted that gaming companies like Koei Tecmo are no better than politicians, so they can do what they want for all I care. If you still believe that they listen to their fans, then you need to wake up to yourself sooner or later because one day, they will do something you won’t like and nothing you say or do will make them change their decision. It’s been happening for a while now with AAA game publishers, so how long will it be until all gaming companies, niche or not, fall into this trap?

Given the increasing prevalence of games being localised without English voices over the years, there are some people who would say that English dubbing is becoming a rarity. Sadly, I would have to disagree. On the English Dubbed Game News page, I usually post about newly released games (with some classics from time to time) and while keeping a constant archive of these posts in the post archive spreadsheet, I’ve been noticing that just over half of the games I’ve posted about have been dubbed. Maybe I’m just cherrypicking or maybe this figure will change in the future, but for the time being, I can agree with the observation that the dubbing of localised games depends on game type, budget, time and scale.

Over the years, there have been a few fans who have inspired me to keep fighting on, but in particular, there were a few people who inspired me to start the Koei Warriors Rant Series back when we were posting on the old Koei Facebook page (I may have mentioned their names previously). Unfortunately, the “original group”, as I like to call them, have dropped out in various ways - a couple of them stopped following me, another one is busy looking after his family and I fear that another one may have committed suicide because of his depression.

With regards to the last one, I’ve had him as a Facebook friend since I started the rants and at times, he would talk about how his life, his family and the world have been causing him stress; he even posted about committing suicide a few times. When he deactivated his account in September 2017, I feared the worst; a few months later, I messaged the remaining person, the “family man”, and he said that he hasn’t even seen him on PSN either. Even one of his other friends made a post recently wondering where he is. Given everything that has happened recently, in real life or on the internet, I think the world was too much for him and at the very least, I hope he is in a better place.

Look, maybe I was wrong to presume that everyone would read or agree with my rants, or that something significant would happen as a result of them, but the fact that I, at the very least, tried to reach out to Koei Tecmo and other Japanese gaming companies along with their fans, cannot be denied. I acknowledge that the first rant only got the attention it did because a few people (with bigger followings than me) shared it and called out the extreme language used in it. While people not caring may not entirely be part of the problem, people actually pointing out that people are not caring are just as much a part of the problem as sub fans and dub haters because this is basically an ad-hominem attack that does not contribute to the argument in any way. The ridicule and virtue-signalling from the feud mostly revolved around this point along with the ignorant generalisation that all localised Japanese games were subbed.

I’ve tried to see myself as a pacifist between dub fans, sub fans and Japanese gaming companies, but over the years, I realised that some people are too ignorant and unenlightened to even let people have their own preferences or civilly disagree with them. For one, the feud could have been prevented if the people on the other side of it either politely declined without saying any more or had bothered to understand the situation more. We should be criticising the gaming companies about how they have let their fans turn against each other instead of fuelling the fire ourselves.

The idea of “entitlement” gets thrown around a lot these days, particularly in gaming. I find that people who call dub fans out for being “entitled” when they complain about their favourite game not being dubbed are just making up excuses to defend the publisher’s decisions or not participate in civilised debate. That could also be applied to other things in gaming fanbases as well. There are two sides to “entitlement” and as far as we are concerned, we should be only worrying about getting a decent product that (hopefully) caters to all; that’s the kind of “entitlement” I’m talking about.

This is kind of a stretch, but I’m going to propose a theory based on this Jonathan Pie video which was released following the 2016 US presidential election:

The theory is that maybe Koei Tecmo and other Japanese gaming companies are only localising games with English subtitles because their fans don’t know how to debate properly. This isn’t surprising given how long the dub-sub debate has gone on for, but maybe if dub fans and sub fans can at least learn how to discuss and debate respectfully, then the companies may start listening to us. To quote Pie’s video, being offended doesn’t work anymore and throwing insults doesn’t work anymore.

To be honest, I’m kind of glad that my rants haven’t been picked up by anyone “important”, like journalists or YouTubers. The arguments and motivations of dub fans are taken out of context and twisted quite often by opinion-neutrals to fit their views; who knows what they would say about me? Besides this, I’ve caused more than enough drama already out of good intentions and if you’ve been following the recent celebrity and internet dramas, you’ll probably know that fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I’m also kind of glad that I don’t have any white-knights fervently defending me with vitriol because I don’t think that is the way my fans should behave and God knows what would happen if I did actually have white-knights.

There are a lot of people who think they know everything about the dub-sub debate, including why some games or animes aren’t dubbed or subbed. Given this, I would rather hear these reasons coming from a representative of the game developers, specifically someone who is in charge of localisation, translation and dubbing instead of someone who only gets their “facts” from other people’s comments. Granted, I am in this category myself, but at the risk of sounding hypocritical, I’m pretty much the closest person you can get without all the political-style bullshit coming from the developers and publishers. The views and opinions of fans are all that anyone will ever hear about this issue unless someone credible does a “word of God” thing at some point in the future.

So what are my intentions from here on out? Well, for starters, I’m retiring this series and my English dub rants for good (given that nothing major comes up for me to talk about). As for what is going to be happening, refer to the three things I listed at the top of this post.

Following Tumblr’s announcement of their NSFW ban, a lot of people have been inclined to believe that Tumblr is dying. What this will mean for my blogs as a whole is a whole different topic altogether, but for now, what will this mean for my rants?

Well, unfortunately, I regret to announce that in the event that Tumblr closes down (for good), I have no intention to back up my rants or any other post relating to English dubs, video game localisation, Dynasty Warriors or the Koei Warriors series, including any posts from the feud. Ever since I started my rants in 2014, the content of this main blog has mostly been around those things, so if any of my other stuff goes down with them, then so be it.

When some people think of Tumblr, they think of it as an echo chamber for fanboys and fangirls in all the different fandoms, or a safe space for triggered SJWs “representing” various social causes. Given my actions over the years, I’m starting to think that I’m falling into this stereotypical cliché, but again, I’m glad that in the end, I’m not as bad as an SJW. I’m not perfect, but no one else is perfect either.

Up to now, I’m basically the only person who cares about this topic enough to do research for two series of rants; most people get shut down or stop bothering after one post. I don’t want to encourage people to ignorantly follow in my footsteps without understanding everything, particularly because I’ve been beating a dead horse for quite a while now. Whether or not you believe this to be the case, there is a chance that there are still a small number of people who have been inspired by my rants enough to want to imitate my methods. Last year, I used this next video as an interjectory statement for a particular hater who thought they knew everything about me and could take me down with petty actions. This time around, I want this video to be a piece of advice for those wannabes who think they can be like me, because the last few years for me (in terms of these rants) weren’t as easy as they seemed.

The situation I am in is based on compassion and empathy, as I’ve watched and played a lot of dubbed and subtitled works in the past. Even though my current tastes in TV shows basically require me to watch them with subtitles, I can understand why dub fans would want English dubs in some animes and games and vice versa for sub fans. It is rare to find people in the same boat as myself because a majority of commenters I’ve encountered are either ignorant, short-sighted or just unable to understand the bigger picture behind things.

The dub-sub debate has been overblown to the point that it still manages to get overblown now and again. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; we don’t need to be arguing about which voice preference is better. Instead, we need to learn to appreciate and respect both sides of the coin while also supporting those who don’t even get an opportunity to choose what voice they want in their favourite game or anime. If an irrational hypocrite like me can feel compassion for both dub fans and sub fans alike, you can too.

If there is anything I may have missed over the years, then let it be known for the record that I would have liked to write more about those things, but it is a shame that various circumstances have led to me making the decision to move on.

Given that these English dub rants have been a major part of my content since late-2014, it is up to you to decide whether you want to continue following me as I continue to post content that fits with my current interests.

This is not a victory for the sub fans, dub haters or opinion-neutral naysayers, nor is it a defeat for dub fans; this is me announcing my retirement. Once again, a big thank you goes to my fans and dedicated fans for their support. As some people would say, “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”

[yeonchi]

Dub Logistics Part 29: Toxicity and Hypocrisy (Retirement Speech Part 1)

“I may have been a toxic hypocrite, but at least I know who and what I’ve been fighting for.”

I’ve said more than enough about my trolls, haters and naysayers over the years; this time around, I’m going to be talking about myself and the roles I played in the past through my English dub rants.

At the start of this year, I announced my intentions to end the Dub Logistics series and my English dub rant posts with it. Among my reasons, I explained that last year’s feud has contributed to my decision, but it wasn’t the main or only factor. Much as I hate to admit it, the events and aftermath of the feud have affected me more than what I’ve stated; I was understating the effects of the feud in my recounts because I never let my haters dictate my life or what I do with it, whether it be online or in real life. That was true then and this is still true now.

Reeling back from the feud has made me think about how toxic I may have been over the years, particularly while responding to the comments and addressing the hypocrisies of dub haters and opinion-neutrals. More recently, however, I’ve come to realise that my ever-changing views may have made me look like a hypocrite, if anyone hasn’t called me out as such already.

In this special instalment of Dub Logistics, I’ll be reflecting on my toxic hypocrisy and hopefully, setting the record straight for people who may have the wrong idea about me, particularly those who have heard about me from the biased perspectives of my haters and naysayers. It’s going to be long, so you’ll have to bear with me here.

The main point that I realised about my hypocrisy is that I am totally fine with reading subtitles when my rants make me look like I don’t like or want to read subtitles at all. This is a common assumption that many non-dub fans make about dub fans without considering some of the deeper reasoning behind their decision. In actuality, I’ve had my fair share with both dubs and subs myself, so to set the record straight, I’m going to be stating a few anecdotes relating to my experience with subtitles and dubbing, along with my experiences of video games, particularly the Koei Warriors game series. In case you didn’t know already, “Azuma Yeonchi” is a persona I use online, I am from Melbourne, Australia and my family is from Hong Kong. You’ll see how this is relevant as you read on.

In Australia, television stations are required by law to provide closed captioning on their programs, which isn’t really a surprise. We also have a public broadcasting network known as SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) that specialises in multilingual and multicultural programming. In addition to programmes from Australia, the US and the UK, they have also broadcast imported programs from other countries with their own English subtitles. Admittedly, they haven’t been doing this as much as they used to, however I sometimes watch the Japanese game show VS Arashi if it’s on.

In Hong Kong, many programs on TVB’s channels are broadcast with Chinese, while some programmes are additionally broadcast with the option to switch to English subtitles. A lot of non-locally produced programs are dubbed and broadcast with dual audio options, namely Cantonese and whatever language the program was originally made in. In a sense, Hongkongers and by extension, other Chinese people (not to make a political statement) can’t get away from subtitles in their media. Likewise, gamers can’t get away without reading the text and/or subtitles in games, Japanese or not.

I’ve played Koei Warriors games, mostly Dynasty Warriors, on the PSP, PS2 and the PC with English and Japanese voices along with English, Japanese and Chinese subtitles. Hearing that WO3U and SW4 wouldn’t be dubbed (despite the 18-month gap since WO3) inspired me to start the Koei Warriors Rant Series in 2014, but when I discovered that Koei Tecmo had cheapened out on the dubs for Dynasty Warriors 9 (among other things, but granted, it wasn’t entirely their fault given the voice actor strike), all hope I had for them was gone and I decided to stop following them on social media for good. This, combined with other commitments and interests that popped up, have led me to lose interest in video games, including the Koei Warriors series.

I’ve watched a few dubbed and subbed animes, but in 2014, I stopped following new animes, again because of other commitments and interests, but also because of the flagrant (female-centric) sexism I noticed in recent anime works. The only reason why I’m still posting on my Facebook anime pages and the Yui Hirasawa Waifu Network nowadays is out of gratitude because some series have served as inspirations for my personal projects.

The void left by video games and anime was filled by Japanese tokusatsu, which I have started getting into in the past few years. Honestly, I prefer watching live-action works, including tokusatsu, with subtitles since it’s pretty much the only way to watch them. I’ve also been watching some episodes raw (without subtitles) right after they’ve premiered in Japan; I’ve come to loosely understand the plot and dialogue thanks to years of contact with the Japanese language and vice versa. I have watched Power Rangers in the past as a gateway into the world of tokusatsu, but to me, it doesn’t exactly fit under the English dubbed category as it is rather an adaptation, mixing dubbed fight scenes with original footage. I still sometimes watch clips for comparison purposes.

If you’re still hating on me without having read everything up to here, or if you’ve read all this and you still consider me a hypocrite, then congratulations for missing the entire point of my argument. If you’ve supported my views and opinions in the past and you consider me a hypocrite now, then maybe you should have a think about whether you have really supported me at all.

Contrary to what some people may have assumed, I never did all this for myself alone. I can adapt my views and opinions to be fair to everyone because I can understand why some fans have their own preferences for dub or sub. Aside from my fans, it is rare to find people in the same boat as myself because the haters and naysayers I’ve encountered are ignorant, short-sighted or just unable to understand the bigger picture behind things.

Given my position towards subtitles and dubbing, it was never my intention to derail the dub-sub debate and demonise dub fans. From the very beginning, I had high hopes and good intentions for my English dub rants and the fanbases involved or mentioned, but in most cases, I’ve either come short or had the opposite effect to what I wanted.

It has been difficult to talk some sense into the haters and naysayers because aside from being ignorant, many of them have been toxic to me or other dub fans as well. Therefore, the only way I was able to do that was by being toxic back at them. I’m not saying that any of these attempts backfired on me, but most of the time, those people just don’t seem to listen because they are unable to listen to the opinions of others without being offended themselves.

It was in that vein that my warped sense of self-justice led me to name-and-shame dub haters by screenshotting their comments and reposting them. This started following the announcement of DW8E being localised without English voices, after it was erroneously announced that it would be localised with dual audio. This practice spread to the #NoDubNoBuy page (now English Dubbed Game News) and it wasn’t until late last year that I realised that it was going against the spirit I wanted to create for the page, so I deleted the name-and-shame album after I ended the feud.

Looking back, I think the events of the feud brought out the worst in me and the other party behind it. During the initial debate, I tried to convince him and his fake sock-puppet accounts that he was missing the point about dubbing and localisation, but he later claimed to his fans/white knights (in an act of virtue-signalling) that I ignored his points completely when that was not entirely the case. And let’s not forget that time when he spread that hoax about that one game under the name of a fake company. Even though the hoax became true in the end (as he claimed), it didn’t excuse his actions on social media.

The turning point for the feud, I believe, was when I did the parodies of iDubbbz’s Content Cop and Content Deputy in an effort to expose him as a lolcow. This was an escalation on my part, and he retaliated by pettily editing the Sea Princesses Wiki and reporting my posts on him along with other unrelated posts (I’ll go into this in the 2018 review post in late December), leading me to be postblocked on Facebook three times. Yes, I effectively copied someone else’s criticism format (while missing the point of it as well) in the hope that it would start a witchhunt, but in the end, I think we both got off lucky since not a lot of people read the posts and nothing major happened as a result.

While I have long moved on from the feud, I must admit that I still feel some guilt over my part in it a year on. The only way that I’ve been coping with it is to convince myself that while I may not always be right, wrong or perfect, nobody else is either and that I should not let this hater affect me any more than he already did (and I never have). As far as I care or know, the feud is over, the page where the debate started was deleted (which was ironically karmic to see) and we have both moved on to other endeavours (though like Keemstar or RiceGum, I doubt that he really learned anything from this).

When we ended the feud, we agreed that while we would never mention each other by name again, we would be allowed to maintain our own views and opinions on it and that any posts that have not been taken down or deleted already will be kept up or deleted at our own discretions. This applies to my Content Cop and Content Deputy posts as well, because I want him to remember that he is not immune from criticism regardless of what he thinks.

There was another feud I had with the Undub page, but it was never really a feud with the page directly; it was more like the childish prattling of their ignorant fans/white knights who associated English dubbing and its fans to politics, political correctness and SJWs, which were totally irrelevant to the topic. When the Undub page first noticed us, they accused us of copying their posts, which in reflection, I believe is bullshit because of reasons which I outlined in a post at the start of the year. However, they came to accept us at the start of 2018, particularly following the rebranding of the #NoDubNoBuy page to English Dubbed Game News.

Speaking of SJWs, I’ve never considered myself to be one of them, but after reflecting on everything that has happened, I came to realise that I was no better than an SJW in denial. In regards to other political references, I’ve been called a “nationalist”, a “Trump supporter”, or even an “alt-right” when I don’t identify with those groups. These are merely buzzwords that people learn from the news and on the internet to insult people they don’t like, but then again, I’ve called dub haters and opinion-neutrals “cucks” twice this year. But hey, why don’t we go out with a bang by forcing a meme to associate people with!

You know how opinion-neutrals always tell dub fans that they are entitled and that they should be grateful to the producers for localising the games in the first place (among other things)? Yeah, in my opinion, these are the traits of an NPC and if you think that’s dehumanising, then you have missed the point behind my argument and you are part of the problem. Even if you try to deny that you’re being like an NPC, then you’re just making up excuses to defend the publisher’s decisions or not participate in civilised debate (like a cuck).

I have unironically advocated suicide to some parties in some of my older rants. I understand that suicide is a problem and wishing harm on others is wrong, but I just can’t respect people who make no effort to understand why people think the way they think. Luckily though, I decided to stop doing that at the start of 2018 following the Logan Paul suicide forest incident because regardless of how much respect I have for people, I wouldn’t want someone like Logan Paul laughing at your corpse either.

If you have ever thought anything negative of me because of my posts and rants, you are part of the problem as well. I’m not going to apologise to the haters and naysayers (or their white knights) I may have offended because I think it will only validate their flawed opinions or vitriolic insults. The onus is on them to enlighten themselves and learn that there are people who disagree with themselves or the status quo. Luckily however, I’m going to be nice and give you a few tips about how to do that, which I will cover in the next and final instalment. Our negative criticism should be directed at the gaming companies for letting their fans turn against each other instead of fuelling the fire ourselves. If you’re looking for an apology (or maybe even forgiveness), then the best thing to do is to forget about me and move on, knowing that I will do the same for you as well.

In Part 22 of Dub Logistics, I used this quote from The Dark Knight to refer to gaming companies in general - “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Portions of the past few years have been downward spirals for me and in thinking about everything I’ve done during that time, I must admit that this quote is starting to apply to me as well, though I wish my haters and naysayers (and maybe their white knights as well) could feel the same way about themselves. Aside from that, this is my way of atoning for all the drama I’ve caused and leaving with my head held high in the knowledge that my fans will remember me for my efforts.

If you have heard about me from the negative opinions of others, then I recommend that you take their words with a few grains of salt and see for yourself how I have been trying to help Japanese anime and video game fanbases get over such a trivial and prolonged problem. If you then find yourself agreeing with those negative people, then you should realise that you are becoming part of the problem. Or, like I said, you could just let go of your animosity towards me, because I’m a busy person myself and I don’t want to have to deal with anyone’s bullshit, let alone be the target of a petty witchhunt.

This was a particularly deep instalment for me to write, but I’m kind of glad that it’s nearly over. The second part of my retirement speech will be in the next and final instalment of Dub Logistics.

[yeonchi]

Dub Logistics Part 28: Wrapping Up with Assorted Miscellany

“Here is a bunch of assorted discussion topics that were either on the backlog or not worthy of a full instalment.”

The ride has been treacherous, but we’ve come to the home stretch now. Since Part 22, I’ve been asking you all to send in any final topics you would like me to cover. While I haven’t gotten any requests of the sort (which is a relief since I’ve been focusing on other things this year, no pessimistic comments please), I do have a few potential topics that I will be addressing in this instalment (with brief responses, however) before I finish my rants for good.

Right now, I’m pretty sure that I’ve exhausted the pool of potential discussion topics regarding dubbing and localisation, so chances are that there won’t be any more rants or discussions of the sort once the series ends. Even if a topic comes up and I decide to write on it, it’ll probably be a rare occurrence, so don’t expect too much.

“If a game is localised with only subtitles, then the subtitles should not be ‘dubtitled’, or translated as if the game were dubbed.”

If you compared a dubbed track to the original track and/or the subtitles, you would likely see that some liberties have been made in the translation somewhere. In my opinion, it’s okay to do that as long as the overall meaning of the sentence is kept. However, I’ve noticed here and there that there are some sub-only games that are subtitled as if the game were dubbed. Honestly, if you’re not going to bother dubbing the game, then why put all that effort into the subtitles? You might as well make them closer to a literal translation.

“Songs don’t have to be dubbed or replaced unless it is necessary to do so through copyright restrictions or creator requests.”

Remember last year when a definition for “English entitlement” popped up on Urban Dictionary? The definition included a reference to “foreign music”, which I thought was just as bullshit as the rest of it. As I said, people aren’t likely to complain about a song being in English and that chances are that they wouldn’t have heard about or understood the song in the first place.

Songs are a part of what makes something iconic. Making a fan cover of a song in another language basically means you have to write the lyrics again, because the original lyrics aren’t always something you can just directly translate. Also, if the version of a song in a localisation is (radically) different to the one used in the original, people aren’t necessarily going to like it. If another version of a song exists in a different language, whether it be official or fan-made, then hey, good on them and good on you if you happen to like that version as well.

If, for some reason, an original song cannot be used in a localisation, then it’s easy to replace it or leave it out. Even then, that doesn’t change anything about the original, so as always, if you like the original version, then go for it.

“Politics and political ideologies should not be forced into anime dubs as they are irrelevant to the subject matter.”

In recent years, I’ve discovered a new excuse for not preferring dubs - because dub scriptwriters have been shoehorning buzzwords relating to SJW culture into the dubs of anime. You can find some examples in this Reddit comment here. I haven’t been following anime myself for years now, but I’ll give my thoughts on the subject anyway.

I stated at the start that scriptwriters would take liberties with the translation while writing and producing the dub track. In regards to that, there’s a difference between making some lines more appealing to the audience and trying to push a political agenda. I don’t think this rule has ever been stated before, but it should be an unspoken rule that translators should keep their translations in the original spirit of what they are translating. Even if you’re trying to make sense of Google Translate, you try the best you can to understand the result without forcing irrelevant subject matters into it.

Speaking of this topic, I should talk briefly about Funimation’s response to the whole situation in case someone asks. Basically, they didn’t address the situation properly and considering their situation, why wouldn’t they? This is a “damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t” situation - they were going to get criticism from any sector of the community regardless of what they said. They are like politicians in the way that they try to please as many people as possible.

I know that this is something from last year - I was busy, goddammit.

“If a crossover game features more characters from dubbed games/franchises than subtitled games/franchises, then the game should be released with dual audio, or at the very least, partial dubbing.”

On the English Dubbed Game News page, I’ve calculated the dub-sub ratios on three crossover games, and they are as follows:

J-Stars Victory VS+ (subbed) - 16-all

Warriors All-Stars (subbed) - 7-6 dub

BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle (dubbed) - 3-1 dub

Yeah, I know three games aren’t enough to make a good enough statement here, but come on, why not? People should be able to choose whether they want to hear their favourite characters in Japanese or English, and if they can choose different options for each character, then that’s even better.

“Minimising delays is not a good excuse to not dub a game.”

This goes back to some of the points I made during my early days in ranting - you can release a game subbed with the intention of patching the game with a dub track later. If they did it with the Japanese voices, then why can’t they do it with the English voices?

If it becomes inevitable that the game needs to be delayed, particularly for the production of the English dub, then fans need to be patient and understanding to the situation. If they enable publishers to localise games without dubbing, then they might adopt it as the norm for future games, given that other factors don’t have a role to play in their situation.

“Sub-only games should be sold at a lower price to dubbed games or games with dual audio.”

My response to this statement is mostly based on conjecture, so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

There always seems to be a baseline price when it comes to pre-ordering or buying newly-released games, particularly the more hyped-up ones you see in advertisements, news articles or social media posts. Then I look at Japanese games localised with subtitles and I see that they are sometimes more expensive than popular Western games.

It is then that I wonder - should an incompletely localised game be sold at the same price to a game localised with English dubbing and/or dual audio? Here’s my two cents - you deserve an A+ for effort (everyone deserves that), but you don’t necessarily deserve to be paid that much for a game where corners have been cut. There will always be sheep who are willing to pay full price for such games, particularly if the game’s franchise is a cash cow for the publisher.

(I don’t have to mention any particular company for you to know what I’m talking about, but if you know another company who is like this, then this can be said for them as well.)

I understand that this is on a different calibre to anti-consumer practices, like completing unfinished games with DLCs. However, with all the paid content that publishers are putting out following the game’s release, you would think they would have earned more than enough revenue from the game even with a lowered retail sale price.

“Should games and animes focusing on Japanese history and culture be dubbed?”

In the case of games such as Samurai Warriors, Yakuza, Utawarerumono, Toukiden and Hakuoki that contain themes relating to Japanese history and culture, some contend that these games should not be dubbed in order to retain the authenticity of these themes. However, I contend that players should be able to choose what language they want to play a game in and not have that decision forced on them if it can be helped. Having the belief that “everything set in or based around Japan should be subbed and not dubbed” opens up a slippery slope that could be expanded to all Japanese games and animes, regardless of genre or theme.

If you want to experience the authenticity of the Japanese themes in the game, then by all means, play the game with the original voices. However, it should be noted that even if you play it with subtitles, the translations in them are basically the aggregated opinions of a few people regarding what a line of text or dialogue means in English. Chances are that it’s not going to be a perfect translation of the original and hey, it’s not like the dub track will be any better or worse because it’s basically another version of the translation. Therefore, if you really want to get all up in this “originality” thing, then you should be playing the original Japanese version of the game, with Japanese voices and texts.

As people have said in the past, dubbing or localising something doesn’t ruin the original, so if a company wants to dub a game during localisation, regardless of the contents’ nature, then they should go for it. This extends to animes as well.

“The intentions of the creator should be respected regardless of voice preference.”

In some cases, there is no specific voice option that a game or anime should be played in - that is, unless a certain option is not available for various reasons, thereby “forcing” fans to enjoy the game or anime in whatever language is available. In rare cases, however, what if that option was imposed by request from the creator, who says that fans should play it that way? In that case, fans should be more understanding to the creator’s decision. However, if the game is dubbed anyway, that “decision” becomes a recommendation and at this point, fans should make their own decisions about which voice track to listen to.

That is all for the normal portion of the Dub Logistics series. The last two instalments will be dedicated to my retirement speech, in which I reflect on the past few years and give my final thoughts on the whole dub-sub debacle.

[yeonchi]

Dub Logistics Part 27: Working Together

“If game publishers, localisers and voice acting studios worked with anime licencing companies like Funimation, then more games would likely be dubbed.”

This is an extension of Parts 3 and 5 of Dub Logistics, which in turn is an extension of Part 54 of the Koei Warriors Rant Series.

Before I start, I’d just like to quickly address a comment I found. So a fan shared the previous instalment in a Facebook group for dub fans and someone commented, “Didn't the Tumblr website say it's close to dying soon? So therefore, Tumblr is no longer relevant. No longer reliable.” Well, since I haven’t heard any news about Tumblr actually dying, so I can presume he was talking about me.

First of all, I’m not “close to dying”, but I am ending this series (and hopefully, my English dub rants) at the end of this year, which is something that he would have known if he had at least read Part 22. I’m not sure about the second half of the comment, but I can guess that he was playing on the stereotypically generalised cliché that Tumblr is a cesspool of intolerance, SJWs, fanboys and fangirls. I’ll come back to this point in Part 30, but what I’ll say for now is that I don’t consider myself to be in any one of these groups and that the commenter shouldn’t have generalised me that way.

Now, I’m not entirely versed in the ways of localisation and voice acting, but through the research I’ve done for these posts in the past few years, I’ve got a bit of an idea about how it happens. Of course, like many other things I’ve suggested, there isn’t much of a chance that they will be actually implemented for various reasons. Anyway, here goes.

Some time after I started my English dub rants, I thought that Japanese gaming companies should work more closely with their Western divisions so that more games can be dubbed. Recently, I realised either it might not be enough or I may have missed the point. So I thought, “What if Japanese gaming companies actually worked with companies and/or studios like Funimation?”

Think about it; games adapted from dubbed animes (such as Attack on Titan) could have been dubbed as well, but their publishers never thought about reaching out to them. Really makes you think, doesn’t it? This idea could be expanded to accommodate collaborations between different voice acting studios, but I imagine the workload and difficulty of the project would increase.

Anime licencing studios working with gaming companies can also help their merchandising portfolio as well, even if at base value, it only equates to one extra product (the game) being available for purchase.

Now, what if the scenario was reversed so that companies like Funimation actually reached out to game companies to help dub a new anime for Western audiences? Since there is less work involved with dubbing an anime than localising a game (I’m not saying that one is easier than the other since I probably imagine that they’re just as difficult), this would be a more likely scenario. If the game is dubbed, then getting the English voice cast back would mean not having to cast new actors (provided the localisation was released before the anime’s release in Japan). If the game isn’t dubbed, then that’s a different story.

See, I believe that if an anime or game is dubbed, then any spinoffs and adaptations made (including anime and game adaptations) should be dubbed as well, preferably with the same voice cast from the original work (if it is the case in the original Japanese audio, then it should be the case in the English dub). If the original work is subbed, then I don’t really have an opinion on it, although I think that dubbing spinoffs or adaptations in this case would make the franchise’s dubbing record seem inconsistent.

One example that comes to mind is the Senran Kagura game series. While the games are localised with subtitles, an anime adaptation premiered in 2013 and was dubbed for a DVD and Blu-ray release in 2014. Judging from a few comments I’ve seen on Reddit, the dub wasn’t that good, but that’s beside the point. If the dub was successful, however, then I don’t see why the cast can’t be carried over into localisations of future games in the series.

However, given the SJWs’ obsession with feminism and “rape culture”, I feel like I have to go on a tangent and make this counterpoint about how such a scenario would actually turn out. At face value, I think the series would be praised because the characters are predominately female, but then I realise that it would be severely criticised for the amount of fanservice shown. I think fans of this series already know about this problem, because the creators have been praised for stating that they would not tone down the content of the games in response to these concerns. Honestly, I think the fans of the series should be lucky that Marvelous, Tamsoft and Xseed still get to keep doing what they are doing, because God knows what will happen if they cave in to the SJW bandwagon, but I digress.

This is where I expand the scope of this instalment’s statement to cover this lingering issue. When it comes to games such as the Koei Warriors series that have at least a hundred characters to be voiced (and that’s not just the main character roster, either), one must wonder how the original Japanese version can be fully voiced while Western localisations can get away with skimping on lines or not dubbing the game at all. Here are my thoughts on this debacle.

In Japan, voice acting is such a prevalent aspect in their media due to the prevalence of anime and video games, while in the West, licencing and localisation are, in a way, feeding off of this in an attempt to emulate that prevalence. It’s no surprise that the voice recording process, whether the original or the dub, is different in Japan than it is in the West. I’ve been unable to find a lot of significant information on the Japanese side of things, but my theory is that there are more voice acting studios in Japan, centred around Tokyo and Osaka, than there are in North America, the main ones being in Vancouver, Los Angeles, Dallas and Houston.

I’ve touched on the location theory in an earlier instalment of Dub Logistics and I got to wondering, “Is it possible for voice acting studios to collaborate with each other?” I thought it was a bad idea since it would be too complicated for the different studios to coordinate their work (particularly if it is a video game), but then again, how else were Koei Tecmo Japan able to voice over a hundred characters in a crossover game and/or with as little double-up roles as possible? I believe that studio collaborations are a way that voice actors can do roles that they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise, particularly due to location issues.

I haven’t followed anime for years so as I said at the start of this, I’m not exactly someone who has a decent grasp on the topic. However, I am interested in hearing your thoughts on this, so feel free to do that if you want.

UPDATE - 14 September 2018: A fan on the English Dubbed Game News page asked, “Don't they have to collaborate with the companies anyway to make sure the material in the game is consistent with the anime?” and pointed out that the Funimation logo is on the box of the One Piece Romance Dawn game for the 3DS, which is voiced in Japanese. After briefly checking, I can confirm that to be true for the US version, but I still don’t think Funimation had a part in localising this game, putting aside the fact that this is a 3DS game and not a PS4 game.

First of all, the credit on the back of the box says “Licence coordinated by Funimation”. That doesn’t really say anything to me about them having any contribution to the localisation, particularly given the fact that their logo doesn’t appear on the European or Australian boxes.

Secondly, yes, there would obviously have to be some collaboration with the publishers, but you would think that they would have reached out to the original creators rather than localisation or licencing companies. Inevitably, with a dubbed anime, there may be some terms which are different to the original release, but any translator working on the game would probably have seen the dub already and took care to take any localised terms into account. This is not exactly “dubtitling” per se as long as the subtitles are not heavily localised to the point where it might as well have been dubbed. I’ll be touching on this in the next instalment.

Thirdly, even if Funimation actually had some part to play in the localisation of this game, then the point that I was trying to get across in this instalment was that they could have done more on their part in regards to providing a dub for the game. That’s assuming that this is actually true, which is unconfirmed and likely not the case.

In summary, this doesn’t really change any of what I said in this instalment. Yes, I still agree that game companies collaborating with companies like Funimation could help with the funding and production of a dub. If Funimation are already helping in the other aspects of localisation, then they could certainly do more to help.

The Dub Logistics series is reaching its end and I’m pretty much done with my usual way of writing English dub rants (mostly involving research and observation). Parts 29 and 30 will be dedicated to my retirement speech (which mostly involves reflecting on the past), so the next instalment (Part 28) will be dedicated to discussing any remaining statements I have, given that I have had no special requests from my fans over the past 6 months. Although I am open to discussing this topic outside of this series, this will be your last chance to have your question or topic answered or rather, featured, so if you have something you would like me to cover, don’t hesitate to send it to me.

[yeonchi]

Dub Logistics Part 26: We’re Not Illiterate, You’re Just Stupid

“It’s not that dub fans can’t or don’t want to read subtitles, it’s just that they have their own way of reading them.”

We’re in the home stretch now with five more instalments remaining (including this one) until this series finishes. Once again, if anyone would like me to discuss anything related to Japanese game localisation or the dub-sub debate, then don’t leave it too late for me to address.

So, I saw this meme a little while back and decided to talk briefly about it:

If you replaced “can’t” with “don’t want to” in the meme’s statement above, it would still have the same meaning, but without the bullshit assumption that dub fans are illiterate. For the purposes of this instalment, I’ll be addressing both versions of the statement.

Now, regardless of which way you look at it, this is a pretty generalising statement commonly made by dub haters towards dub fans. Given the number of reactions, comments and shares that I saw on the original post, it was obvious to me that whoever made this meme wanted to bait dub and sub fans alike and they did a pretty good job at it.

The meaning behind this instalment’s statement is that dub haters (and maybe opinion-neutrals) will judge dub fans at first sight without fully understanding why they prefer watching dubbed anime or playing dubbed games, which makes them look ignorant in my view.

Let’s face it, assuming that you are a normal person and you can read, you can’t even get away from reading even if you wanted to, because writing is just everywhere; it’s second nature to us. Making fun of people for not being able to read, regardless of whether they can actually read or not, is a form of elitism.

I don’t know how many people are actually aware of this, but the thing with dubbing a localised game is that the text is translated as well, so when you play the game, the audio and the text will be in English. Of course, this also allows for the inclusion of the original Japanese audio for dual audio options, but it would mean that the English text would basically be “dubtitles” and not (necessarily) a direct translation of the original Japanese script (which would be so if it were a sub-only game). Regardless, there obviously will be some things in the game that you’ll probably have to read anyway. Some games will let you advance the dialogue once you’re done reading (and/or listening), but at other times, the dialogue will automatically progress or disappear as required. Maybe some people can focus on multiple things happening on the same screen, but some others can’t.

More often than not, every dubbed anime title that comes out on DVD or Blu-ray will have the original Japanese audio and the English subtitles as well. I have read of some titles where the dubbed dialogue is subtitled as well, but it’s not that common. Choosing whether to have the subtitles on or off is a matter that can be solved at the press of a button or two.

What about the people who can’t read fast enough or have (actual) reading difficulties? And just for the heck of it, what about the people who watch dub just to hear their favourite voice actors reprising their roles or compare them to the original Japanese voices? It wouldn’t be fair to criticise them that way.

Sometimes, people have their own way of doing things that will lead to the same outcome, so let them do it. To that end, don’t criticise people for reading subtitles too slowly or not wanting to read at all. You would be unfairly blaming them because you would be overlooking the circumstances behind their preferences, not to mention that you would also be showing your elitism and making yourself look like an ignorant dub hater.

So coming back to the meme, have I made you change your mind?

[yeonchi]

Dub Logistics Part 25: Equity vs. Equality (with extra: Correlation and Causation) in Localisation

“True equality in the dub-sub debate comes with equity by means of dual audio options.”

When we buy a localised Japanese game, we are being shown equality in terms of audio options. But then, why do people complain that a game doesn’t have an English dub or the original Japanese audio? In my opinion, this is because we are not being shown equity.

I briefly mentioned about this in Part 20, which was the instalment talking about people with (actual) reading difficulties or people who might take a little longer to process information and thus, read a bit slower than the rest of us. These are the disadvantaged people I’ll be referring to in the below examples.

As you can see in the above image, equality is giving people the same things while equity is showing fairness to the needs and wants of other people. Of course, that is assuming that there are enough boxes in the first place to warrant it, but I won’t go deeper into any hidden subtext shown.

Let’s say the guy in the blue shirt is fine with playing the original game in Japanese, the boy in the red shirt is a sub fan and the boy in the purple shirt is a dub fan. As for the people who are fine with either way, they’re the ones in the audience who are not relevant to this example.

Here’s my take on how the logic of this image works in terms of localising Japanese games - equality is like giving everyone a localisation with subtitles only, while equity is providing the option for players to play with either the original or dubbed voices, or rather, allowing players to play the untranslated game from Japan if they so wish.

Unfortunately, the current situation with many companies and games is that there are only one or two boxes in the picture and there’s (sometimes) none for the little guy on the right. This is the problem that I’ve been seeing throughout Japanese anime and game fanbases and I believe that it is one that some dub fans may be able to sympathise with.

Now, I’m presuming that no one’s complaining in the picture about their situation because up until here, I’ve assumed that the three of them have the capability to read subtitles if they wanted to. Let’s say that the shortness of the boy in the purple shirt is a metaphor for (actual) reading difficulties, like those I stated in Dub Logistics Part 20, which is linked above. In this case, equality isn’t going to work entirely if you’re trying to make your game more accessible for people with reading difficulties. Understandably, the proportion of gamers with reading difficulties is in the minority, so they can be easily mistaken for people who are capably fluent in reading, particularly on online forums and social media. As such, developers usually assume that their fans don’t have such problems - to them, it’s easier and cheaper in the long run.

Dub-sub arguments happen because gaming companies exercise equality by not including English dubbing or the original Japanese voices when a game is localised. While this situation can’t be helped in most cases, it can be prevented with the right budget and resources; exercising equity by means of implementing dual audio options is always the best way to go.

If there are dub fans or sub fans who still complain even after their favourite game has been localised with dual audio, then I don’t know what to say; that’s what options are for, really.

Now for a little bit of filler to conclude this instalment.

“Japanese voice options or DLCs do not imply that the entire fanbase prefers Japanese voices over English.”

Towards the end of the feud last year, one person who was involved in the initial debate, but not in the ensuing feud, sent something to my page about Xenoblade Chronicles 2 getting a Japanese voice DLC, saying that the release of the DLC proved to the developers that their fanbase prefer the original voices over the dubbed voices (or something along those lines). Coincidentally, I was postblocked at the time (no thanks to his “friend”), so I wasn’t able to refute his point there and then. Instead, I just banned him from my page and deleted the post. I was going to hold off addressing this lingering statement until the second-last instalment of Dub Logistics, but I decided that I would do it now as filler.

Honestly, seeing the person post this, given that he was somewhat respectful to me during the debate, made me lose any remaining respect I had for him and proved to me that he was no better than the people on the other side of the feud. To his credit though, he wasn’t as bad as the perpetrators on his side, but enough about that.

To answer his statement, no, the inclusion of Japanese voices does not imply that a game’s fanbase prefers Japanese voices over English. This is a generalised statement on a subjective topic made without any solid proof, or rather, based on the opinions of a number of fans. If it were the case, then the developers and publishers wouldn’t have made the effort to record the English voices in the first place.

For the record, I’d probably only be okay with this (as would some people) if the entire fanbase prefers Japanese voices and the developers have acknowledged this (properly). On a side note, the argument that the developers and publishers are lazy for not dubbing the game would be invalid as well.

The purpose of language DLCs and dual audio options is to give gamers options on how they want to play the game. They should not be used as an indication of preference unless it’s something on the calibre of a Yakuza-type scenario or something like that. Even then, such use in this manner should be acknowledged in order to reduce complaints when a sequel to the game is localised without dubbing.

In the end, people’s opinions on various things, even language preferences, will vary and developers should respect them when making or localising games. Now, I am speaking on this topic in general, so where the statement lies in relation to the entire Xeno series is entirely up to the individual.

[yeonchi]

Dub Logistics Part 24: The Versatility of Voice Actors (with extra: Haters Can’t Face Facts)

“If Japanese seiyuus can voice their character in a sequel or an adaptation of a particular work, then why can’t Western voice actors receive the same treatment?”

Admit it, you’ve experienced this situation at some point - your favourite anime or game has been dubbed, then there’s an announcement that there will be a game or anime adaptation of said work coming out soon. The adaptation gets licenced or localised, but you find that either the game isn’t dubbed or the dub voice actors in the anime adaptation are different to those in the original game, yet in the original Japanese dub, you find that the seiyuu have reprised their own characters for that adaptation. Lack of English dubbing in localised games aside, there are various reasons why voice actors for some characters can change - reasons such as actor availability, budget reasons or contractual reasons. 

One reason for maintaining a fixed cast list for a work and any subsequent adaptations is because of the voice actors’ familiarity to their characters. Is it better to have the same voice cast in each sequel or adaptation, where they will have had sufficient experience voicing their respective characters, or to have a new cast each time, where chances are that they haven’t heard about that particular work or even if they have, are trying to imitate the previous voice actors for their characters?

Of course, there are understandable reasons why voice actors need to be replaced, but production companies and/or the voice actors themselves need to make them as transparent as possible to the fans so they can understand as well. If it’s because the previous voice actor passed away or is very ill, then the announcement that comes from it should be news enough for anyone.

I’ve touched on this way back in Part 51 of the Koei Warriors Rant Series. This also touches on and expands on points I’ve made in some of the first instalments of Dub Logistics, mostly regarding sequels, collaborations and adaptations. The underlying principle I am trying to get across regarding casting is consistency (where possible). That’s all it is.

Now, I could have published this post up to this point and go back to my roots (as it were) for this series, but I saw this tweet recently and realised that I could apply a similar logic to it for the dub-sub debate (I was going to make this a separate post, but I guess I needed some filler since the first bit of this instalment was short):

“If a dub hater or opinion-neutral says they want you to back up something you said with facts, they're lying. They want you to waste your time on an explanation they will neither consider nor accept. If they liked facts, they wouldn't be dub haters or opinion-neutrals.”

The original and satirical tweet regarding Trump supporters was written by John Hartzell of Middle Age Riot, though after reading some comments in the Twitter replies, the repost on his Facebook page and the submission on the r/PoliticalHumor subreddit along with some more tweets from him, I started realising that there might be some truth to his satire (then again, when isn’t satire based on news and current affairs, particularly with regard to politics?).

With this in mind, I think the above statement does highlight a common factor I’ve (honestly) missed during my dealings with some of my haters and naysayers; these guys are much more likely to flex over my dead body saying that their opinions were right than ever admitting that they were wrong in the first place.

I run on a belief of compassion; as long as you are able to sympathise with others who are not in the same situation as you, you can give them support when they need it. I believe that localised games and licenced animes should be released with dual audio options (where possible and if not, with an apologetic explanation) so that dub fans and sub fans can coexist peacefully in the fanbase. However, the comments I see from the uncompassionate (including dub haters and opinion-neutrals) are making it hard for this dream to ever come true.

If you’re not indoctrinated enough in your dub hate, then there is still some wiggle room for you to turn back and at least learn to accept fans whose preferences are different to yours. The same can be said for other dub haters, but I doubt whether they have the heart in them to redeem themselves.

Remember, just because you think you are right doesn’t mean you automatically are. Understandably, the same could be said for me as well, so seeing it come from me, considering my past with these rants, would probably make me look like a hypocrite in denial and thus, make this point moot.

Until recently, I was so obsessed with proving my naysayers wrong, I had lost sight what the pre-rebranding English Dubbed Game News was meant to be. Does that mean my naysayers were right all along? No, of course not, because during that time, I had already proven that some of them were morally worse than what they made me out to be. Was it a waste of time? If you’re talking about arguing with dub haters, then maybe yes, but if you’re talking about me calling out the hypocrisy and logical fallacies of the opinion-neutrals, then no, it wasn’t a waste of time.

Once again, this is the usual reminder that Dub Logistics will be ending with Part 30 at the end of the year and if you have anything you want me to cover, feel free to send it to me.

[yeonchi]

Dub Logistics Part 23: The Hypocrisy of Greed

“Why is it justified to call out anti-consumer practices in games, but greedy to call out the omission of dual audio options in Japanese games?”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned last year, it’s that there are fans of Western games who claim to be against “unfinished video games” which can be “completed” with pre-order bonuses, season passes and DLC while also being against the inclusion of English or Japanese voice options to compliment whichever language is in the game first. These are the types of hypocrites who should probably never touch a Japanese video game lest they embarrass themselves with their hypocrisy.

This seemingly irrational paranoia comes after a debate and feud I had with some people in that exact category last year, who I will not be mentioning by name. The fact that they disagreed with my views and opinions on game localisation, yet being against corporate greed in the gaming industry, was strange to me at the time, but in reflection, the events of the debate and feud were no better than mere pettiness, sock puppetry, baiting, flaming and virtue-signalling on both sides. Some of the points they made, though convincing, were questionable at best, so if you decide to revisit my older posts and see what they said, then I recommend that you take their points with a grain of salt.

This instalment isn’t about those guys, however. I couldn’t care less about them now and to the other party(ies) from the debate, I’m sorry if you were expecting to see more inflammatory comments about you being “dub haters”, but it’s not all about you - chances are that there could be other people who share the same hypocritical views you do. Just between you and me, however, I’ve heard about the recent Count Dankula case and sentencing. While it is great to hear that he only got fined £800 instead of being sentenced to prison, the fact that he had to go to court over a joke about a political ideology that should have gone extinct after World War II is absolutely outrageous. In spite of what happened between us, I think we should be grateful that we’re not in the UK, we’re not that famous (let’s face it) and that our feud hasn’t escalated to a point where either of us have to be put on trial for our bullshit. There are many other famous people who are worse than any of us and I think that the world should be focusing more on them and not on any petty things like these. That is all I am going to say.

Anyway, back on topic now. In the past, I had learnt that Western gaming companies, like EA and Ubisoft, are just some of many other culprits involved in anti-consumer practices like micro-transactions, season passes and “essential” DLCs for the sake of having a “complete gaming experience”. However, I honestly thought it would never happen to Japanese games until I learnt that Dynasty Warriors 9 and Dissidia Final Fantasy would be getting season passes. That is how blissfully ignorant I was until recently, when I realised that all gamers should be united against corporate greed in gaming, whether it be in the game itself or in localisation. The fact that people are still dividing themselves and others over voice preferences today is absolutely insane.

The reason why I wanted to write this instalment was because of a couple of posts I did in February regarding Dynasty Warriors 9. A week after I posted my crosspost from the English Dubbed Game News page, a fan of mine (and yes, if you, the people on the other side of the debate and feud, are reading this, I actually do have fans, contrary to your “popular” opinion) sent me a link to Jim Sterling’s video titled “The Dismal Degradation Of Dynasty Warriors” and I wrote a little follow-up post on it. In the video, he mentions Koei Tecmo’s negligence of English dubbing in their newer localisations along with the “money grubbing” DLC in Dynasty Warriors 9. It should also be noted that Jim has posted some videos regarding his views on corporate greed in the gaming industry.

At the end of the post, I said, “On a side note, it’s a shame that some people (or should I say, hypocrites) will agree with some points in Jim’s video while disagreeing with other points.” Someone who read the post was seemingly confused by it, thinking that I said that it was hypocritical to not agree with everything Jim said in the video. Though it was partly true, I clarified to him my view that people who are against “money grubbing” DLC, while also calling other people “greedy” for wanting games to be localised with an extra English or Japanese voice option, were hypocrites. The other person replied saying that even though both cases were related to the umbrella category of “corporate greed”, they were very different things - the former was about getting consumers to pay for a more complete gaming experience and the other is just the company being cheap in a way that doesn’t cost consumers any money.

Here’s my understanding of this logic - the original release of a game, whether it be in Japan or any other region, is the actual game itself, while localisations are considered re-releases of the game with “extra features”, namely extra subtitles or voice tracks. Realistically, publishers can go without localising some of their games, but I feel that in recent years, publishers are forcing themselves to localise as many games as they can in the shortest amount of time possible. This results in corners being cut from localisation and as a result, we get games that aren’t dual audio, aren’t fully dubbed or aren’t translated up to par.

And look, I get the argument about budgets and that, but that’s not the point here. The point is that localisations, translations and voice actors can have as much significance in a game (or anime or whatever) and its respective franchise as a whole. If it weren’t for that logic, a lot of games (and animes and the like) wouldn’t be as popular as they are today and a lot of English voice actors (and by extension, Japanese seiyuus) wouldn’t be revered today for the characters they voiced recently or even years ago.

Some people believe that voice languages are a minor aspect of the game and that they will play with (realistically) any language that the game gives them. Like with dub preferences, the choice is entirely personal, but when opinion-neutral people try to tell others that “the language doesn’t matter”, this is teetering on fanboy cuckoldry because it disregards the arguments made by people on each side of the debate. Just because you are okay with what you are given doesn’t mean everyone should be okay with what they are given as well. For everyone’s sake, people should be fighting against corporate greed of any kind in gaming, whether it be in regards to DLC or localisation.

I’m going to play devil’s advocate here for a bit. Let’s say that Western gaming companies are claiming, or allowing their fans to imply, that their budget has become a bit tight lately, so they have to cut corners in their games or result to money grubbing measures like implementing micro-transactions or releasing “extra” game content as DLC and letting fans imply that buying that DLC will give them a more complete experience. You’re not happy with the company doing this, so you make a habit of complaining about it on social media. Later, you find that some people are calling you greedy and entitled and that you should be grateful that the company has made the game in the first place. This is the kind of stuff that dub fans and sub fans are getting on social media just because we are asking for fair representation in the form of English or Japanese voice options.

Before you derail this topic with the typical cuck response, “But nobody owes us anything, so game companies don’t owe you anything as well,” just stop for a moment and think about this. Humility is a good concept to know, but it shouldn’t be taken literally on everything because you’ll never be happy if you don’t enjoy the things you like. It would be nice if people were humble enough not to chase up the debts of others, but I’m sure that when you lend something to someone, you would expect them to give it back to you. If someone does a favour for you, then it is in good faith that you pay that favour back at a later time. As for humility in the aspect of materialism, then it is expected that if you decide to buy something, then it will be of good quality and worth of its use until you decide to buy a better version of that thing later.

When you are a fan of something or someone, you would expect to be impressed with what they put out every time. You have a right to make compliments when they do something right and you have a right to make criticisms when they do something wrong. However, something that may be considered wrong by one person can be considered right by another and thus, that is how conflicts start. If you are a fan of something that receives a lot of criticism, think about what they may have done to disappoint you or the rest of their fanbase. I’m not giving any examples here because you need to think for yourself in order to do this; being part of the sheeple will not help you in the long run because one day, you may be disappointed over a thing that you like.

If “game companies don’t owe their fans anything”, then fans don’t owe game companies anything either. The mentality that fans are expected to support everything that someone does (whether they see it as good or bad) has the potential to be toxic and so, should be discouraged. On the other hand, some responsibility also lies on those who make stuff for their fans, including game companies - they are expected to maintain their fanbase by going the extra mile to keep them impressed.

If you like an aspect of something but not another, don’t put down other fans who may like the thing you dislike. Everyone is entitled to something, even their own opinion. That being said, if you like Western games and Japanese games, then maybe supporting fairer game content while acknowledging that not all companies have the money to dub, sub, or licence the original voice track of a game is not a good idea because you’re just going to end up sounding like a hypocrite. If you’re one of those people who like to think that way, then maybe you should refrain from talking about Japanese game localisations.

If complaining about any form of greed is a form of greed in itself, then the concept of being against greed is absolutely hypocritical.

Just another reminder that I will be ending the Dub Logistics series with Part 30 at the end of the year, so if you have something you would like me to cover before then, please inform me as soon as possible.

The fact that this instalment was posted one year on from the initial debate that sparked the feud is completely coincidental. It’s really funny that I never thought to talk about this hypocrisy back then, but better late than never, I suppose.

With regards to the Count Dankula case I mentioned earlier, feel free to read up on it and do some research, because I feel that this case has set a precedent for free speech in the United Kingdom and possibly, the world. The pettiness that led to Dankula being put on trial in the first place is the same pettiness that is causing YouTube videos and Facebook pages (along with memes) to be taken down in the name of “offensive content”. The reporting systems on social media have already been abused enough in the past few years; we don’t need petty things like this to be taken to court so that victims can suffer for a long time while they await their sentence.