The Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s official Twitter account has recently been releasing a series of mini-trailers introducing the characters of Judgment and their English voice acting.
Below you can see three of them.
The first is protagonist Takayuki Yagami, played by Takuya Kimura and voiced by Greg Chun in English.
A new protagonist walks the streets of Kamurocho.
Takayuki Yagami is the skateboard kick-flipping, drone-operating, leather-donning private investigator the district needs during its darkest days.
Learn more about Yagami and his English voice actor, Greg Chun, later this week. pic.twitter.com/Jw5PevDqs9
— RGG Studio (@RGGStudio) April 23, 2019
The second video portrays Kamurocho cop Kazuya Abe, played by Kenichi Takitoh and voiced by Matt Yang King.
Ayabe is local police force member who has a wealth of inside knowledge.
He may be willing to help Yagami… for a price.https://t.co/wAlKs3Jrm8 pic.twitter.com/sGcC2gE6Qj
— RGG Studio (@RGGStudio) April 30, 2019
the third showcases Yagami’s mentor and former boss, Ryuzo Genda. He is played by Akira Nakao and voiced in English by Brian McNamara.
Genda is an experienced lawyer and founder of his own law firm, a place where Yagami started his law career.
His relationship with Yagami almost seems familial. pic.twitter.com/KfP9RO651P
— RGG Studio (@RGGStudio) April 18, 2019
An interesting aspect of the videos is the additional confirmation that Japanese honorifics like “-san” and “-sensei” have been preserved in the English voice acting. This isn’t new in Yakuza localizations, but this time around it’s within an English voice track and not just in subtitles.
While I wholeheartedly agree with the choice as it preserves the strong Japanese flavor of the game, this is an interesting one: many among the localization community have been adamantly against it, and I’m positive that this will ruffle some feathers. It shows pretty clearly that it sounds quite natural, unlike what some have been saying for years.
It’s nice to see that the good folks at Sega’s localization team (who have been doing a very good job on the Yakuza series so far) are sticking to their guns.
Of course, the Japanese voice track will also be available for those who prefer that.
If you want to see more of Judgment, you can check out the previous trailer, which showcases the new character model of villain Kyohei Hamura. The game is already available in Japan, and is coming west exclusively for PS4 on June 25. That being said, Sega is considering PC and “other formats” down the line.
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