Why do Japanese games use English?

[Damocles]

Namely, in the options menu and such. I was playing Sonic Wings Special today, and I noticed that, while the entire text of the game was in Japanese, the options menu was entirely in English.

[PFG 9000]

The English language is widely used throughout Japanese culture, moreso than most other non-English speaking countries. It's just normal for them to see English and Japanese side by side.

[roushimsx]

You know what irked the fuck out of me?

In the demo/attract mode for Vagrant Story (the Japanese version), there were english subtitles. Tons of stores had the demo running, so I was like, "oh fuck, I'm so buying that shit". I bought it. Took it home. Realized that the intro/attract mode was the only place in the game were there were fucking subtitles and the rest of the game was unsubtitled japanese.

That kinda pissed me off. Eat my ass, Squaresoft

[BulletMagnet]

IIRC, English is "in vogue" in Japan, much as Japanese kanji is "cool" around here, and people use it without knowing what it means, just because they like the way it looks...

[BrianC]

The Japanese version of Kururin Paradise has some English text here and there and even some voices yelling out English (Goal!). One mini game has text that says "30 points get". Puyo Puyo Tsu Remix SNES has some characters yelling English here and there and an English options screen.

[Damocles]

IIRC, English is "in vogue" in Japan, much as Japanese kanji is "cool" around here, and people use it without knowing what it means, just because they like the way it looks...

So...I guess the eternal question is finally answered. Hip young Japanese teens DO walk around with random English word tattoos. And they're probably inane or misspelled.

[Elixir]

Yeah, apparently english is about as appealing as the pretty looking japanese symbols we like to gaze at and shove into our signatures disregarding the fact that we have no fucking clue what they mean.
　

米大手パソコンメーカー、デルの日本法人「デル」（本社・川崎市）が、店頭販売員を確保する際、自社で面接を行ったうえで、人材派遣会社から派遣させる形で働かせていた疑いが強まり、神奈川県警幸署は、職業安定法違反容疑で同社と当時の採用担当者ら数人を近く書類送検する方針を固めた。

　調べによると、同社の採用担当者らは２００２年８月、パソコンの店頭販売員として応募した男性（３０）を面接し、職業紹介の許可を受けていないのに人材派遣会社に紹介した疑い。男性は派遣社員として、家電量販店でデル社のパソコンを販売していた。

　同署では、同社が０２年５月から０３年１２月にかけ、計約１７０人を人材派遣会社に紹介したとみている。同社の浜田宏社長は事情聴取に対し、「社会保険料がかさむのでやった。私の責任」と話しているという。

　男性が昨年２月、同社に問い合わせて発覚、今年７月、告訴していた。

[LoneSage]

I've been wondering the same thing myself for many months. For instance, on the spine of Sam Sho 4 game case for the Saturn, it says Samurai Shodown 4 in English. Why not at least have it in Samurai Spirits 4 usage?

Really peculiar stuff, the wide use of English in Japanese games.

[alpha5099]

I've been wondering the same thing myself for many months. For instance, on the spine of Sam Sho 4 game case for the Saturn, it says Samurai Shodown 4 in English. Why not at least have it in Samurai Spirits 4 usage?

Really peculiar stuff, the wide use of English in Japanese games.

I was playing Samurai Shodown 4 tonight, and I noticed that the title screen says Shodown instead of Spirits. It's probably because I'm playing in English Mode, which I would imagine is the setting from the Neo Geo cart, but I was still surprised when I realized it was the American title.

I can't think of very many non-English options. The vast majority are in English, or have a lot of fairly self-explanatory bits. Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius has everything in hiragana (even things that should be kata), and Souky has lots of kanji on its mode select screen.

In fact, I defy you to find a single Japanese game that does not have at least some English.

[Minzoku]

^^ I would defy you, but I can't remember which games they were because I couldn't read the titles

[Valgar]

Rakugaki Showtime and Ore No Ryouri are two I can think of.

[PsikyoPshumpPshooterP]

why would any1 want to perfer japanese text on the menu instead of english if you cant understand japanese kanji?

[SheSaidDutch]

Westernisation...

[Moogs]

why would any1 want to perfer japanese text on the menu instead of english if you cant understand japanese kanji?

The question is if these games are made in Japan, then why are they using the English language? It's not so much that anyone here prefers one over the other, it's just kind of odd. I mean, I doubt they throw English in as a conscious effort to take importers into consideration.

[dave4shmups]

The English language is widely used throughout Japanese culture, moreso than most other non-English speaking countries. It's just normal for them to see English and Japanese side by side.

Very true-they are taught English from a pretty young age in school, AFIK.

[LoneSage]

Very true-they are taught English from a pretty young age in school, AFIK.

Hmm, this must have began when the US occupied Japan after WW2...I'm really interested now in understanding what use the English language has in Japan now.

[FatCobra]

Having the game in English makes it easier for them to make a US port? Just a guess.

[it290]

I think in the early days it had a lot to do with available memory. It's a lot easier to store 26 english letters and a few symbols rather than however many kana characters. I guess the tradition just carried over to newer stuff. Latin script is also probably easier to discern for status displays and whatnot.

[alpha5099]

Arcade games did first start in the West. Early Japanese game makers had those to go off of, and probably designed their games with an eye on international sales. In fact, couldn't they just use the Roman script and use the same version of the game in the US and Japan? It'd probably make production much easier.

[Damocles]

Arcade games did first start in the West.

Service Games. 'nuff said.

[D]

Battle Garegga has the choice of Japanese or English options.

Are you great?

[Minzoku]

I think in the early days it had a lot to do with available memory. It's a lot easier to store 26 english letters and a few symbols rather than however many kana characters. I guess the tradition just carried over to newer stuff. Latin script is also probably easier to discern for status displays and whatnot.

Yeah, I always got annoyed with these couple of mysterious huge [3MB!] fonts sitting on my drive until I realized they included all the kanji and that. Romanized letters and numbers are a CRAP TON smaller

[GaijinPunch]

Portability rarely has anything to do with it. In the old days, it was memory and resolution. Very few bit games (on consoles anyway) have kanji. The Japanese they do have his hiragana or katakana. These days, it's more fashion than anything.

[dave4shmups]

Very true-they are taught English from a pretty young age in school, AFIK.

Hmm, this must have began when the US occupied Japan after WW2...I'm really interested now in understanding what use the English language has in Japan now.

It probably started a lot earlier then the post-WWII US occupation of Japan.

Baseball, for instance, is the number 1 sport in Japan, and, while most Americans assume that that started after WWII, it acutally started before the war.

The Meji Restoration, decades before WWII, focused a great deal on modernization; which, in many cases, mean adopting a lot from the West.

However, I'd chalk it up to the Japanese, like other countries, teaching their kids a foreign language VERY early in school-which is smart, because the younger you are, the easier it is to learn a foreign language. It's just too bad we don't do this here in the US, and make it manditory; this business of it being "un-American" is a load of crap, IMO.

I'd personally LOVE to learn Japanese-the writing part is what seems most daunting. Oh well, at least Japanese doesn't have over 3,000 characters, like Mandarin Chinese.

[MSZ]

Oh well, at least Japanese doesn't have over 3,000 characters, like Mandarin Chinese.

Well we had about 80000 characters 2 thousand years ago. LOL

Right now we only use about 4000 to 5000 characters for normal life.

[SAM]

The most rediculis thing is they used to write english in katakana?!

People have asked me why I know the meaning of some katakana phrase, well I don't know Japanese actually, they just spell a English word in katakana.

And sometimes I can guess the meaning of the sentence by combining the above and the japanese kanji. My very limited knowage in Chinese allow me to give a good guess of what the kanji means in Japanese. I can get it 60 to 80% correct if there is enough japanese kanji in the sentence.

And my Chinese is actually really bad, I cannot even read simplify Chinese characters. Not to mension speaking in Mandarin.

[roushimsx]

Tangent:

The actual name of Katamari Damacy is....

"Katamari Damacy"

I guess it couldn't be written properly in Kanji so it was miswritten in japanese, not in english. So all of the people writing it like, "Katamari Damashii" just look like futher elitest tools. Don't believe me? Watch the presentation where the creator fires up the first working builds of the game

[Moogs]

Tangent:

The actual name of Katamari Damacy is....

"Katamari Damacy"

I guess it couldn't be written properly in Kanji so it was miswritten in japanese, not in english. So all of the people writing it like, "Katamari Damashii" just look like futher elitest tools. Don't believe me? Watch the presentation where the creator fires up the first working builds of the game

So what the hell is "damacy" then? What was the purpose of changing it from "damashii?"

I'm confused.

[roushimsx]

So what the hell is "damacy" then? What was the purpose of changing it from "damashii?"

I'm confused.

Mispelling words has always been cool and trendy, like replacing Cs with Ks

Now have a non english speaker do something similar and see what you come up with.

[SFKhoa]

Mispelling words has always been cool and trendy, like replacing Cs with Ks

Krusty: KKK? That's not good!