Japanese cartoons vs. Japanese video games

[The Overlord]

Does anyone else find it interesting that When Japanese video games are localized they are way less edited than Japanese cartoons? Its also interesting that dubs for Japanese video games are willing to hire union voice actors, like anmie dubs are not.

[Rasputin]

More money? That might have something to do with it. I'm not sure of the state of the video game market but it probably brings in tons more money than the western anime market does.

[Go-chin]

The only edited cartoons are those done by 4Kids and some other lesser companies.
However, many more companies edit games than anime series.

Namco edited Xenosaga a lot, and Koei censored Dynasty Warriors some.

[The Overlord]

The only edited cartoons are those done by 4Kids and some other lesser companies.
However, many more companies edit games than anime series.

Namco edited Xenosaga a lot, and Koei censored Dynasty Warriors some.

What you talking about,: Astro Boy and Mega Men Battle Networks, there were tons of edits there.

[EscaflownePilot]

I don't follow the logic, here. Outside of a few select children's series like Astro Boy and Mega Man NT Warrior, and everything 4K!DS has done, anime is treated very well with uncut, bilingual releases.

Video games, on the other hand, are consistently edited. As mentioned, Mega Man Battle Network, Mega Man Zero, some of the Castlevania games, Xenosaga, Dynasty Warriors, much of the stuff brought over by Working Designs, and the list goes on and on.

And what's just as bad, IMO, is that few games give the original voice track with accurate subtitles, instead forcing you to play through with the English dub, however terrible it may be. Some games, like FF-X2, as I understand it, actually had that option in the English international version of the game but actually had it removed for the US release (not 100% certain, though).

I also find that the writing and voice acting in most Japanese video games is far worse than the average anime dub by, say, Geneon or ADV Films (and I dare anyone to give me a video game with a dub as good as a typical FUNimation anime dub!) making me all the more angry that most game localizors don't keep the original Japanese voice track as an option.

And the biggest difference is, when 4K!ds screws up a show like One Piece, there is about 10x more fan backlash for it than there will be for Namco's editing of Xenosaga or the terrible voice work in Dark Cloud 2, meaning no video game company is going to find reason to change.

[The Overlord]

I doubt a lot was cut out of Killer 7 and Metal Gear Solid 2 kept the references to bi-sexuality. I liked the voice work from Dark Cloud 2.

[Go-chin]

I doubt a lot was cut out of Killer 7 and Metal Gear Solid 2 kept the references to bi-sexuality. I liked the voice work from Dark Cloud 2.

That's because Killer 7 and MGS2 were rated M. They can freely keep those things.

However, many games like Dynasty Warriors and Xenosaga were rated T in the US, and so they had to cut stuff out.