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Does Konami think Japanese words pain Americans?

 
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Cho




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PostPosted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 7:10 am    Post subject: Does Konami think Japanese words pain Americans? Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

In Suikoden 1, there was a Japanese song at the very end of the game during the credits. I couldn't understand it, but it really added to the feeling.

In Suikoden 2, there was Annalee's song and I believe one other were both stripped from the game. Instead of listening to Annabelle's song, we instead got to watch her sprite stand with mouth opening and closing in silence for 2-3 long minutes. PAL got this song added in again for them.

Apparently Suikoden Tierkries had both an opening and ending song in Japanese, but both were stripped from all other releases.

Is there any good reason for doing this?
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Ranadiel

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 7:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Perhaps they couldn't get the rights for it in America and therefore were unable to legally release it with the songs here?
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Cho




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PostPosted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 7:31 am    Post subject: Re: Does Konami think Japanese words pain Americans? Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

How can they not have the rights to use a song that they made? Unless you mean in Japan the opening and ending songs are just liscensed jpop..?
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SixWingedSin




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PostPosted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 9:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

doesn't have to be 'jpop' exactly, but apparently songs are licenced many times over for releases and each license holder has to sign off (which is supposedly part of the reason why a lot of macross series don't come over).

Last edited by SixWingedSin on Sun Mar 22, 2009 9:08 am; edited 1 time in total
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Raww Le Klueze




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PostPosted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 9:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Konami simply doesn't want to pay the licensing fee's for using the songs in America/Europe.

Obviously they aren't afraid of Japanese paining Americans since they disregarded every naming convention ever created and use japanese phonetics for the names.
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 11:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Some Japanese companies, though Konami not so much, tended to try to make games "culturally neutral" when localizing. They figured "Japanese" would not sell to non-Japanese markets. Overt cultural references were removed. Japanese writing in the graphics of some games (in addition to actual text, obviously) was removed and/or replaced with different graphics. Names were changed considerably. Food items were renamed to common non-Japanese food items (rice balls -> burgers, for example). Anything left that had to remain Japanese was made to appear exotic. This trend has died down quite a bit and was mostly a 90s phenomenon.

I would go with the money issue for Konami on this, all things considered. In other cases, if there is no such consideration or other obvious reasons, then keep this in mind.
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Calvin

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PostPosted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 12:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Quote:
In Suikoden 2, there was Annalee's song and I believe one other were both stripped from the game. Instead of listening to Annabelle's song, we instead got to watch her sprite stand with mouth opening and closing in silence for 2-3 long minutes. PAL got this song added in again for them.


I'm pretty sure its widely believed that this particular example is a glitch that wasn't intentional on Konami's part. So it'd be more of a quality control issue in terms of localisation for North America, which as we all well know was horrible for Suikoden II.
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Vextor




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PostPosted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 4:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Yeah, the case with Annalee's song was due to a glitch that existed in NTSC versions, which also caused some of the music during war battles to get zapped. Her song was also sung in Italian, not Japanese (although with a pretty bad accent).

The song at the end of Suikoden 1 is also Italian, not Japanese.
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

There's... a song at the end of Suikoden I? I guess I sorta remember some short vocals when they get towards the end of the list of what the stars went on and did.

Anyways it's really an issue with Konami as it's just something alot of companies do. Take the opening song for Tales of the Abyss "Karma" in the original JP release it has lyrics, which were taken out in the American version in favor of an instrumental version of the song.

It just depends on how much effort the company is willing to put into it. I mean Working Designs completely translated the songs to english and had the female VA's record them. Where others leave the original music and/or vocals or remove either or both completely.
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