Japanese Narration for English-speaking Audiences

[Nester the Lark]

I didn't know what to title this thread.

Maybe this is common, and I just haven't noticed, but I realized something while rewatching the reveal trailer for Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster. While the trailer initially seems to be just the Japanese narration with English subtitles, I noticed that when the narrator says the titles of the games, he says the English titles instead of the Japanese ones. This stood out to me specifically with the second game because the Japanese title is simply Baten Kaitos II, but the narrator specifically says the international title, Baten Kaitos Origins.

I decided to check this with the actual Japanese trailer, and sure enough, it's different.

Here is the English-subtitled trailer. The narrator says the full English titles of each game, "Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean" and "Baten Kaitos Origins," in English, starting at about the 30-second mark.



Here is the original Japanese trailer. Here, the narrators says the full Japanese titles, "Baten Kaitos: Owaranai Tsubasa to Ushinawareta Umi" and "Baten Kaitos II: Hajimari no Tsubasa to Kamigami no Shishi."



So, basically, this suggests that the Japanese narration was also intended as the international narration, and was tailored accordingly.

I don't know if this is common and I just haven't noticed, but I guess it fits into a larger trend these last few years of lower-tier games being left in Japanese, which makes it cheaper and easier to release them internationally for niche audiences. The same would be true for the promotional material. (Although, it's still odd that even though both Baten Kaitos games have existing English dubs, they're being removed from the remaster for some reason.)

[nocturnal YL]

I know of two more instances of Japanese voices being made for English language releases, although neither remained overseas-exclusive later on. These games are Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE and Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE underwent several changes in the overseas versions, and the Japanese voiced lines were changed accordingly, rather than just changing the subtitles. While I'm not a fan of the script change itself, I can appreciate that the spoken lines and the text actually match, rather than being something like Dimitri saying "So this is how it is?" while the subtitle says "Is this some kind of twisted joke?" in this cutscene.

Project Mirai DX is more straightforward. It's supposed to be overseas Mirai 2 with some extras, so the title screen call changed accordingly, until Japanese fans asked for a Japanese version and that ended up releasing first, making Mirai 2 and DX different releases rather than regional versions of the same game.

Bonus: while we're on the topic of promotions, the English-language version of the Together with Mikudayo videos are just abridged versions of the Japanese ones, with subtitles like "Project Mirai 2 DX" and "47 48 songs" humorously making it obvious these are Japanese Mirai 2 videos repurposed for overseas Mirai DX.