Surprisingly Good English: Difference between revisions

The result of all this is that when you hear enough "English" spoken with foreign accents, your ear becomes trained to it, and it sounds natural. Then, when those same voices speak English with English sounds, it's like ice water down the back of the neck.

 

 

{{examples}}

* ''[[Rail Wars!]]'' has a brief exchange between a foreign railway passenger and the Japanese-born security specialist Koumi. Koumi's voice actor's English is better than that of the voice actor who played the foreigner.

* ''Mobile Suit [[Gundam]]: Iron-Blooded Orphans'' features a note in perfect English. While nobody actually reads it in English, previous Gundam works have notes with notoriously bad English ([[Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam|he is a CHAR]], [[Mobile Fighter G Gundam|P.S. If you will, you can see us.]]) so this was a welcome change.

 

== Fan Works ==

 

== Film ==

* The first Japanese ''[[Death Note]]'' movie has an American playing Lind L. Tailor, {{spoiler|L's decoy}}, and talking in English while a voice-over speaks in Japanese.

* The female lead in ''[[Densha Otoko]]'' speaks a bit of English to an ambassador near the end of the film. In a damn ''British accent''.

* OLIVIA - aka Olivia Lufkin - is Okinawan-American. She speaks both English and Japanese. She even has an [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pky8hQNCsZE english] version of her song [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ4F7m0VtOs "Wish".]

* Japanese singer and actress Ayaka Komatsu released an English-language single with excellent pronunciation (you can hear it [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0qaK-P1-88 here]). In a strange case of [[Ink Suit Actor]], she was in ''[[Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon]]'' playing the role of Minako Aino, who in the anime version was another example of this trope.

 

== Video Games ==

* The character Eriko from the Japanese version of the ''[[Persona]]'' series spent some time studying abroad in America. As such, she periodically slips into English that, although technically gratuitous, is generally well-formed and sensical. This is likely due to Atlus' willingness to do the research, and was entirely dropped, rather than shifted to another language, for her American counterpart, Ellen.

* The ending songs for the ''[[Xenosaga]]'' games are in English, in both the Japanese and English releases. Unlike many Japanese songs in English, the words would be intelligible if not for the fact that the lyrics tend to be a bit overshadowed by the melody. In This Serenity (the ending song to the anime) isn't quite as well done, but is better than a lot of gratuitous English songs you hear in anime...

* A large number of Konami's original songs in ''[[Dance Dance Revolution]]'', ''[[Beatmania]]'', and other Bemani games have perfect English—Naoki's songs ("Dynamite Rave" and "Love Again Tonight" just to name a couple), in particular, have a lot of natural-sounding English thanks to the addition of Western vocalists such as Paula Terry. Some other English-language songs, like "Moon", "Roulette" and other songs sung by Erika Mochizuki, on the other hand...

** And for yet another "on the other hand" case... there's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bybkLlNbaaw "Gold Rush"].

* Raiden and Eagle's lines in ''[[Capcom vs. SNK 2 Mark of the Millennium]]'' sound, like, ''really'' good. Hell, Raiden's "ICHIBAN!" actually sounds like a non-native Japanese speaker is saying it. It's even grammatically correct and totally in character for him. "SAY YOUR PRAYERS, WIMP!"

* Billy Kane in the ''[[Fatal Fury]]'' and ''[[King of Fighters]]'' series, sometimes. While he gets the occasional line like "I wish I could tear him apart!", most of his intros feature him saying generic things like "HEY HEY HEY!"

* Nearly half the dialogue in ''[[Siren (video game)|Siren]]: Blood Curse'' is in Surprisingly Good English. The rest is either in Japanese, or ''intentionally'' heavily-accented English.

* Even though it was a Japan-only title at the time, the entire game ''Pulseman'' is spoken in good English (even by characters who are meant to be Japanese). While the English is correct, it doesn't technically match what it should be ("Water will destroy Pulse Man" doesn't mean [[Super Drowning Skills]].)

* ''[[Guilty Gear]]'' is a mixed bag, for the characters that actually [[Calling Your Attacks|have moves with English names]]. Somewhat ironically, Chipp has fairly good English pronunciation... and instead yells gratuitous ''[[Gratuitous Japanese|Japanese]]'' because he's a [[McNinja|wannabe ninja]]. Also, the announcers from XX onward speak perfect English, justified tha tthey are Americans (Gregory Payne in XX to Slash and Neil Moody in Accent Core).

* [[Freeware Game]] ''[[Genetos]]''. All of the English was translated by (a) Japanese speaker(s), and with the exception of a few odd word choices, could be understood by a kid who doesn't know what Japanese ''is''. The English help HTML file even has a slightly heartwarming message from the author asking if "his friends overseas" would send him an email to correct any mistakes in the manual and the game. Of course, make sure you see the little prompt in the game's menu screens that says ''L SHIFT = English''.

* The [[X-Men (video game)|X-Men arcade game]] from Konami has an odd mixture of both this and the [[Gratuitous English|"other" kind]], with the latter instances being [[Memetic Mutation|the most famous]] (at least among gamers).

 

* ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'':

** Steve, the [[Monster of the Week]] from the episode "Super Zeroes". He's a giant, slimy, blob with strong-looking arms, beady red eyes, and a vertical mouth full of sharp teeth, but when he talks, he sounds like a normal guy.

 

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