Reason for no JP voices in earlier Atari releases?

CashmanX · Post by **CashmanX** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 4:16 pm

Is there a reason that Infogrames/Atari did not include the Japanese voices in past games?

Was it at the order of Funimation or someone else?

Post by **VegettoEX** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 4:58 pm

I don't know that we'll actually get an answer for that, or that an accurate one could be theorized.

I'll do it anyway, though.

My own personal speculation is that FUNimation did not even want to acknowledge the original Japanese version for the longest time. Consider that the first Budokai came out in... what?... December 2002? The dub of DBZ was still new at that time, and they certainly would not have wanted to take any attention away from it by including Japanese voices, which was basically a spotlight saying "Hey! There's more than just us!"

Also keep in mind that the three Budokai games actually came out in the US before Japan, and sometimes by a wide margin -- 1 was almost a full year later, while 2 and 3 were only about two months. In that respect, there (possibly) simply didn't exist a Japanese voice track to go along with the games yet.

We don't know the full ins-and-outs, but while the games were created in Japan, and new games were indeed re-initiated in Japan (with Legendary Super Warriors on the GBC), the PS2 games seemed very heavily weighed in favor of the American audiences. There's a good possibility that FUNimation (in conjunction with Infogrames) was footing the bill for their creation in at least some capacity. Notice how the first game didn't go past the Cell arc, which was pretty convenient for where they were at the time (of course, it also let them focus in on making a better game rather than being all-inclusive, but whatever).

Once Bandai switched developers for the next series of games in 2005 (Sparking!), we got the essentially-simultaneous releases between the US and Japan (and usually the rest of the world), and the Japanese voices started showing up. This was also around the time that FUNimation started acknowledging and even halfway-promoting that the series was Japanese -- 2005 was the "Ultimate Uncut Edition" era, where the phrase "original Japanese footage" was becoming big shit for them.

What got it going was Budokai 3, which seemed to do well... and they know it would going into it, since they released the "Collector's Edition" of it at launch, which they haven't done with any game since. That game did well enough to hit "Greatest Hits", and when it did, I think we were all shocked (and ecstatic!) to hear that it would be an enhanced port-back of the Japanese version with some extra stuff, including a selectable Japanese voice track. The time table of this all was:

- Original American Release: 17 November 2004
- Japanese release: 10 February 2005
- American "Greatest Hits" Release: 09 November 2005

With the exception of Super DragonBall Z, the North American releases of every console game since then has included selectable voice tracks (as well as the two Shin Budokai games on PSP; all GBA and DS games have been dub-only, though Attack of the Saiyans is JP-only).

mysteriousdbzgt · Post by **mysteriousdbzgt** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:30 pm

VegettoEX wrote:I don't know that we'll actually get an answer for that, or that an accurate one could be theorized.

I'll do it anyway, though.

My own personal speculation is that FUNimation did not even want to acknowledge the original Japanese version for the longest time. Consider that the first Budokai came out in... what?... December 2002? The dub of DBZ was still new at that time, and they certainly would not have wanted to take any attention away from it by including Japanese voices, which was basically a spotlight saying "Hey! There's more than just us!"

Although, for the European release of the first Budokai game, it only included the Japanese dub and not the English, and places such as England was switching backwards and forth between the Funi and Ocean dubs, so I find it a bit strange that they decided to keep it entirely in Japanese when it wasn't being acknowledged at all. I think Budokai 2 and 3 then switched to the FUNimation dub and didn't include the Japanese dub, but the first one was all in Japanese.

Post by **VegettoEX** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:54 pm

mysteriousdbzgt wrote:Although, for the European release of the first Budokai game, it only included the Japanese dub and not the English, and places such as England was switching backwards and forth between the Funi and Ocean dubs, so I find it a bit strange that they decided to keep it entirely in Japanese when it wasn't being acknowledged at all. I think Budokai 2 and 3 then switched to the FUNimation dub and didn't include the Japanese dub, but the first one was all in Japanese.

That's actually a good head-scratcher for the first game. If Amazon UK doesn't lie, the game came out over there in November 2002... right about the same time we got it in the US.

OK, yeah. That's puzzling. Clearly the Japanese voice track existed for the game an entire year before its release in its home country.

I still think the rest of my arguments hold some amount of water (especially since FUNimation really has no say over that area [did AB come into play in any capacity...? The regional-ownership for these types of creations goes beyond human comprehension], but that's a doozy.

mysteriousdbzgt · Post by **mysteriousdbzgt** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 6:10 pm

VegettoEX wrote:
mysteriousdbzgt wrote:Although, for the European release of the first Budokai game, it only included the Japanese dub and not the English, and places such as England was switching backwards and forth between the Funi and Ocean dubs, so I find it a bit strange that they decided to keep it entirely in Japanese when it wasn't being acknowledged at all. I think Budokai 2 and 3 then switched to the FUNimation dub and didn't include the Japanese dub, but the first one was all in Japanese.
That's actually a good head-scratcher for the first game. If Amazon UK doesn't lie, the game came out over there in November 2002... right about the same time we got it in the US.

OK, yeah. That's puzzling. Clearly the Japanese voice track existed for the game an entire year before its release in its home country.

I still think the rest of my arguments hold some amount of water (especially since FUNimation really has no say over that area [did AB come into play in any capacity...? The regional-ownership for these types of creations goes beyond human comprehension], but that's a doozy.

However, even today some European releases of Dragon Ball games such as Super Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Z: Harukanaru Goku Densetsu are only being released in the Japanese Dubs (which I'm not complaining about) without the option of changing it to a English dub, and Dragon Ball stop airing years ago, so everyone knows that the English dub exists.

It also makes me wonder what fans of the TV version of Dragon Ball, which only consists of an English dub, think when they buy the video games, and it only has a Japanese speaking track. They must get very confused.

Big Momma · Post by **Big Momma** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 6:23 pm

VegettoEX wrote:
mysteriousdbzgt wrote:Although, for the European release of the first Budokai game, it only included the Japanese dub and not the English, and places such as England was switching backwards and forth between the Funi and Ocean dubs, so I find it a bit strange that they decided to keep it entirely in Japanese when it wasn't being acknowledged at all. I think Budokai 2 and 3 then switched to the FUNimation dub and didn't include the Japanese dub, but the first one was all in Japanese.
That's actually a good head-scratcher for the first game. If Amazon UK doesn't lie, the game came out over there in November 2002... right about the same time we got it in the US.

OK, yeah. That's puzzling. Clearly the Japanese voice track existed for the game an entire year before its release in its home country.

I still think the rest of my arguments hold some amount of water (especially since FUNimation really has no say over that area [did AB come into play in any capacity...? The regional-ownership for these types of creations goes beyond human comprehension], but that's a doozy.

This may be a stretch, but any chance they just used lines from the actual show? The script the game couldn't have been that different, could it?

Post by **VegettoEX** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 6:32 pm

Big Momma wrote:This may be a stretch, but any chance they just used lines from the actual show? The script the game couldn't have been that different, could it?

Nah, it was all newly-acted in both the English and Japanese language tracks.

Supa Saiya-Jin Tullece · Post by **Supa Saiya-Jin Tullece** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 7:14 pm

Yeah, the games each have new scripts.

I guess.

Maybe.

I mean, it's the same things happening in the same order to the same people in every game. Just different wording.

However, many of the ingame voice clips (grunts, attack names, ect) are reused. I know Goku and Freeza's introduction clips in Raging Blast are the same as the ones in Sparking!. I don't mean they use the same script (though Budokai 3 has the same intro, I think), it's the same exact voice clip.

EDIT: Mr. Satan post. Awesome.

Adamant · Post by **Adamant** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 10:14 pm

mysteriousdbzgt wrote: It also makes me wonder what fans of the TV version of Dragon Ball, which only consists of an English dub, think when they buy the video games, and it only has a Japanese speaking track. They must get very confused.

These people make up like 2% of the market, so I don't think anyone's too concerned about what they think. These aren't UK-released games, they're European-released, and the vast vast vast majority of European Dragonball fans couldn't give two shits about any English dub of the series.

Chuquita · Post by **Chuquita** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 10:28 pm

I'm glad things have changed. I was so excited to hear Ms. Nozawa's Goku when I started up "Attack of the Saiyans" for the first time. I hope they continue this "DS games retain the Japanese voices" for future games.

Taku128 · Post by **Taku128** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 10:56 pm

VegettoEX wrote:Also keep in mind that the three Budokai games actually came out in the US before Japan, and sometimes by a wide margin -- 1 was almost a full year later.

A year later? December 3, 2002 and February 13, 2003 aren't that far apart. I'm guessing you went to the Wikipedia page on the Budokai series and accidentally read the American GameCube release date, which was about a year later, as the Japanese release date.

Post by **VegettoEX** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 11:45 pm

Taku128 wrote:
VegettoEX wrote:Also keep in mind that the three Budokai games actually came out in the US before Japan, and sometimes by a wide margin -- 1 was almost a full year later.
A year later? December 3, 2002 and February 13, 2003 aren't that far apart. I'm guessing you went to the Wikipedia page on the Budokai series and accidentally read the American GameCube release date, which was about a year later, as the Japanese release date.

Nope, never looked at Wikipedia... just got my own dates wrong...! Yikes!

Tsukento · Post by **Tsukento** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 1:03 am

If memory serves me right, I had read an issue of GamePro that involved an interview with someone from Atari stating there weren't Japanese voices being included due to issues with space...which turned out to likely be a load of crap, seeing as how that didn't seem to be an issue.

Post by **VegettoEX** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 11:23 am

Tsukento wrote:If memory serves me right, I had read an issue of GamePro that involved an interview with someone from Atari stating there weren't Japanese voices being included due to issues with space...which turned out to likely be a load of crap, seeing as how that didn't seem to be an issue.

I definitely remember that same interview. Be great to track it down. I remember going through all the available disc space on stuffage at the time and proving how much of a load of crap that was

.

Commander_Red · Post by **Commander_Red** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 11:51 pm

mysteriousdbzgt wrote: It also makes me wonder what fans of the TV version of Dragon Ball, which only consists of an English dub, think when they buy the video games, and it only has a Japanese speaking track. They must get very confused.

There's a good chance they've gotten their hands on the old PS1 titles at some stage so it wouldn't be that strange. My friends had played Final Bout, UB22 and Legends and enjoyed them. When you're a DBZ fan in Australia you take whatever you can get.

Super Sonic · Post by **Super Sonic** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 1:43 am

Think it also could've been that they didn't care, or didn't make it a priority. Know Square for the most part releases English only for its games in the US, but then don't hear too many complaints, or if there are fans who want dual-language options, it's only for FF, and not wanting dual-language for KH.

Furu · Post by **Furu** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 5:09 am

Chuquita wrote:I'm glad things have changed. I was so excited to hear Ms. Nozawa's Goku when I started up "Attack of the Saiyans" for the first time. I hope they continue this "DS games retain the Japanese voices" for future games.

Well, there's a reason Attack of the Saiyans doesn't have a dub, and it's the same reason Monolith's last DS RPG, Endless Frontier, also doesn't have one. Whatever Monolith uses to get those voices into the game is so ridiculously complex and ass-backwards no one wants to mess with it.

Conan the SSJ · Post by **Conan the SSJ** » Wed Dec 16, 2009 1:52 am

VegettoEX wrote:
Big Momma wrote:This may be a stretch, but any chance they just used lines from the actual show? The script the game couldn't have been that different, could it?
Nah, it was all newly-acted in both the English and Japanese language tracks.

Yeah, like Mike said, they were definitely all new recordings. I've heard Toei even had execs fly over to supervise FUNi's writing and recording of the first Budokai. Suffice it to say, the dub dialogue was far more accurate than the stuff of Ocean dub 1-2 and FUNi's Seasons 3-4.

Taku128 · Post by **Taku128** » Wed Dec 16, 2009 2:35 am

Conan the SSJ wrote:
VegettoEX wrote:
Big Momma wrote:This may be a stretch, but any chance they just used lines from the actual show? The script the game couldn't have been that different, could it?
Nah, it was all newly-acted in both the English and Japanese language tracks.
Yeah, like Mike said, they were definitely all new recordings. I've heard Toei even had execs fly over to supervise FUNi's writing and recording of the first Budokai. Suffice it to say, the dub dialogue was far more accurate than the stuff of Ocean dub 1-2 and FUNi's Seasons 3-4.

If that's the case I wish they'd supervised the actors' performances as well.

Thanos6 · Post by **Thanos6** » Wed Dec 16, 2009 2:38 am

Taku128 wrote:
Conan the SSJ wrote:
VegettoEX wrote: Nah, it was all newly-acted in both the English and Japanese language tracks.
Yeah, like Mike said, they were definitely all new recordings. I've heard Toei even had execs fly over to supervise FUNi's writing and recording of the first Budokai. Suffice it to say, the dub dialogue was far more accurate than the stuff of Ocean dub 1-2 and FUNi's Seasons 3-4.
If that's the case I wish they'd supervised the actors' performances as well.

It's probably hard to properly gauge a script reading in another language. Just for the heck of it, I downloaded the Japanese audiobook of the first Harry Potter novel. Even with the original in front of me, I couldn't understand most of the emotion even when I could figure out what the narrator was saying.