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Answerman - Where Do The English-Speaking Actors In Japan Come From?

Also relevant: in the early days of game localizations, especially in the PS1 era, they were responsible for providing English voice work for Japanese games. Think Tenchu: Stealth Assassins and Mega Man X4.

Needless to say, those dubs are pretty infamous nowadays.

silly foreigner-themed game shows

IMO nowadays this is inexcusable for two reasons. The first is that with the internet, it is quite plausible to get next day native talent in their native countries by contacting (or even having an established business deal) overseas talent agencies (by the same ticket, some japanese voice actors might get small roles in foreign productions). Why get scraps quality voice acting if you can get dubbing as least as good as what the cartoon network or nickelodeon gets? The second is streaming, when you are making money by selling said streaming rights to foreigners, it is quite disrespectful to have a substandard voice acting in English or Chinese, even if said series are comedies, the joke is not about how awful the voice acting is in other languages.

Worse English voice-acting is probably the scene from Black Heaven,where an African American is voiced by some bored white guy(on top of giving him really bad dialogue).

0nsen wrote:

@Scrap: They don't say "qui", they say "quid". "Quid pro quo". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quid_pro_quo

qui pro quo or quid pro quo is the same.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiproquo

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qui_pro_quo


:wave:

On the other hand, voice acting in Japan is done differently than voice acting in most other parts of the world: In Japan, the animation is done first, whereas in most other places, the acting is done first. Perhaps the animators would be uncomfortable drawing for scenes with the acting already done.

Quote:

silly foreigner-themed game shows

I've never heard of those--I've got to see some! What are some examples?

Well, the fun about listen "weird languages uses" are everywhere. This happens also in many english or U.S. shows

In many tv series or movies, mostly the U.S.A. ones i laugh a lot when a char, mostly to seem intellectual or cultured use the latin formula "qui pro quo"

QUI PRO QUO means " to mistake something (qui) for (pro) another thing (quo)", so it means simply " to make an error" or litterally "mistake this for that" but the english speaking people usually confuse "mistake" with a "trade" so it become in many U.S.A. shows: i give this for that, and it is simply wrong for everyone who knows the latin language.

the right latin phrase for an exchange is DO UT DES: i give (do) in order that (ut) you give to me (des)

this exemple is only to show that people can laugh about the engRish used and the poor use of the english language from the japanese actors and seyuu, but well, it's the same the world over, japanese can't speak english propely in the same way english one can't really speak latin, italian or french and are funny to listen when they try.

When i listen an american actor use latin, not only about the pronunciation but also about the meanings of the sentence, for me it's the same.

(Things like adding sugar to green tea, dumping soy sauce on rice, etc.)