The Yakuza 1 dub is such a fascinating case. Overall it’s staffed with mostly mediocre voice direction, but that was common for the time (with a few exceptions). What’s fascinating is how heavily it localizes everything, you’d think it was set in America. Half the gangsters have stereotypical Italian-American accents or black American accents, and yet they still keep Japanese honorifics like -chan and terms like oyabun in the dub. It’s almost like an alternate universe where Japanese honorifics are commonplace in America.In my life, I’ve never seen a dub like this, so fundamentally Japanese, yet also wanting to be American not out of hatred or mockery, but because the localizers assumed gangster cultures would parallel each other.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUVU1X0CM3Q
bad dubs
kino dubs
>>730848345It's good localization. Thugs in Japan have defining speech patterns that a Japanese speaker would instantly peg as a Yakuza or otherwise dangerous guy. That would not come across if everyone was just dubbed with a white American accent.
