Japanese Games with English menus, Why?

[tmc]

So i've noticed a lot of recent Japanese games have english menu's and language throughout and some of the newer one have english used almost exclusively throughout (Space Invaders Extreme DS).

Why is this, I thought not many people in Japan knew English and even if they did i'm supprised they take to a lot of English throughout their games.

I don't know how i'd take to French or German language in games, I have a hard enough time dealing with American English, that most horrible bastardisation of the Queens own Language! (Colour > Color!).

Or maybe the english characters look 'cool' to Japanese in the same way that many t-shirts etc over here in UK are printed with Japanese characters cause they look cool and futuristic to us.

Can anyone with knowledge in this are help, just some thoughts.

Cheers.

[Aussie2B]

Or maybe the english characters look 'cool' to Japanese in the same way that many t-shirts etc over here in UK are printed with Japanese characters cause they look cool and futuristic to us.

Bingo. There could be an argument made for ease in localization, though. If it's an action-heavy game with very little text, having it in English in the first place makes it a lot easier to release outside of Japan later on.

I'd say most people in Japan know a bit of English, but not necessarily that well (hence "Engrish"). While the older sect may be completely unfamiliar with it, the younger demographic that actually tends to play video games has long been accustomed to English classes being required in grade school, just as it is in many European countries. Plus, ever since Perry opened Japan to foreign trade and ended their isolationist policy, the country has been inundated with Western influence. They even have a specialized alphabet designed almost solely for the representation of foreign words. Even though it may still look Japanese to foreigners, English words are everywhere in Japan.

[tmc]

i could understand it if the there was english representation alongside, or taking a back seat to Japanese but more and more the english is the sole language, how do the Japanese take to their own cultural language being erased for a foreign one?

I don't know, i just don't think it would be accepted here the same way - maybe thats a result of being in a English speaking country and having a total arrogance / ignorance to any foreign language?

[Jimmy Yakapucci]

I don't know, i just don't think it would be accepted here the same way - maybe thats a result of being in a English speaking country and having a total arrogance / ignorance to any foreign language?

Well, since the plural of menu is menus and not menu's, then I think that you may have a bit of ignorance toward the English language as well. Unless, of course, the "Queens own language" has different rules for using apostrophes than our bastardized version does. Sorry for being nit picky, but this is a pet peeve of mine.

JY

[Aussie2B]

Usually when English is used in Japan, it's because there isn't a Japanese term for the word at hand anyway. It's the Western influence that some Japanese take issue with, not the words accompanying it. The language is perfectly safe and sound. Japanese completely dominates Japan, and, like I said, you still have to learn their own Japanese alphabet just to read the English terms most of the time. For every game that uses English represented by the Roman alphabet, there are probably 10 times as many using katakana to represent English terms. The Japanese are more concerned about preserving their history, art, and culture, since there really aren't enough foreigners living in Japan to shift the predominantly spoken language. They can thank their island nation for that. It's little countries like Latvia that struggle to preserve their language because they're flooded with the natives of neighboring countries.

[tmc]

Unless, of course, the "Queens own language" has different rules for using apostrophes than our bastardized version does.
JY

Yes it does.

Also at school, if the spotty swot used to do the teachers job of checking others English we used to kick em up the arse and mess up their hair. Be warned!

We didn't beat the Germans wasting time checking spellings dear boy!

now back on topic, English in Japanese menu''s.

[Spartacus]

Last year I picked up a copy of Mister Mosquito 2 for the PS2 and gave it a whirl for a few minutes. I hadn't played the original yet, and as far as I know it's sequel has only been released in Japan. I don't recall if there was ANY Japanese in the sequel. There may have been and I simply ignored it - as I usually do. I do remember it was about an American family in Hawaii who were hosting a family from Japan and they were discussing how they were going to communicate with each other. The father said something to the effect of "Don't worry about it. In Japan 6 years of English is required in school."
It's just a video game and I didn't put much faith in the accuracy of that statement, but I always wondered if there was some truth to it.
I play a lot of Japanese import games and very rarely do I find any without at least some English. If I didn't, I probably wouldn't be playing them.

[smork]

Usually when English is used in Japan, it's because there isn't a Japanese term for the word at hand anyway.

Oh, I don't know about that at all. I could list 100s of words that have Japanese and English equivalents -- and they can be used interchangably (kippu = chicketo, hirogohan = ranchi, etc). They use the original Japanese word or the English equivalent (katakanized) interchangably, depending on mood or on a whim.

Katakana, while normally used for foreign loan words, it's also used for Japanese words many times, too. Lots of sports stars use katakana instead of kanji to write their names. Katakana was actually originally used as a sort of secret "men's" writing system prior to being used as a system for writing foreign words, so its sometimes used to make something look more 'manly' or cool...

Anyway-- back to the original question. Alot of games for modern consoles are actually bilingual. The menu language changes depending on the console settings, and you have English as a default, the menus will be in English, but they'll be in Japanese if your console is in Japanese.

Alot of my 360 games are completely bilingual, and they can even vary based on the console used. for example, my Asian version of Crackdown has English menus and is called Crackdown if in an Asian 360 set to English -- put the same disc in a Japanese console with Japanese as the default language and you get Japanese menus -- and the game uses the Japanese name "Riot Act". Kind of cool!

Lost Planet and Beautiful Katamari are other games like that off the top of my head.

I suspect if your space Invaders was put in a DS with the language set to Japanese the menus would be in Japanese.

[smork]

It's just a video game and I didn't put much faith in the accuracy of that statement, but I always wondered if there was some truth to it.

It's true-- but they generally study only written English and not spoken English. That's why hardly anybody speaks English worth a damn even though they study it for so long...

[unwinddesign]

Besides the factors that smork mentioned, the Japanese seem to really like English and like to have a bit of it in their games...not a ton of it, mind you, but an English word here and there is something they really appreciate. I think English, in their pop culture is "cool," so to speak. Pretty similar to how in English speaking countries, as someone else mentioned, people like to get tattoos of Japanese/Chinese characters etc. -- we may not know wtf they say, but we like them all the same. Why? 'Cause they're cool. Or something.

[emceelokey]

You know I always wondered that too. Just the use of English through out all foreign countries really. I have cousins that moved here form the Philippines a few years back, and eventhough they never set foot in the U.S., they were spoke good enough english to have conversations and get buy from day one from day one. But even in a place like Russia or Brazil or where in the world there will be stuff in english that isin't just a brand name or something like that.

I want to compare it with spanish for us in the U.S. but that's really not in the same light as english is used in Japan. I've never seen anything that was made exclusively for the U.S. that had spanish words as the menu language. I've never bought a game in the U.S. that had all spanish for the menus but in Japan there are games that use all english for their menus. Kind of a weird thing with the english.

[UK Collector]

I have always thought it was due to the fact that computers were introduced to Japan with qwerty keyboards, something to do with the lack of memory (or maybe even screen ability??) to display proper kanji. That would mean people interested in computers would have had to learn English. I remember reading something like this but it was so long ago now I could be completely wrong.

[SegaAges]

Hmm, does that mean that other countries will have random English words tatoo'ed on their arms?

I will go to istanbul or somewhere, and somebody will have snake tatoo'ed on there arm. Maybe bite. That would be a cool Enlgish word.

I should get myself an English word tatoo.

[Cryomancer]

I have always thought it was due to the fact that computers were introduced to Japan with qwerty keyboards, something to do with the lack of memory (or maybe even screen ability??) to display proper kanji. That would mean people interested in computers would have had to learn English. I remember reading something like this but it was so long ago now I could be completely wrong.

Most / most used programming languages are in english too. Or at least based on english in some form. It's the world's "language of business" due to technical things like that.