Another LBGT character in II that was localized to be straight (A Random NPC)

[RyoHazuki36]

I found something neat that was inspired by Feather Data's video on YouTube of a random NPC dialogue which had English voices:


In the English dub of Shenmue II, when you ask this random NPC Jiayu Kun who's a cook at the Stand Qr. about Yuan, it is strongly implied that he has a crush on Yuan and in the dub, Yuan was a woman, so that means he's straight.

After watching this video, I became instantly interested to see how this dialogue with the Japanese voices, since as you all know, Yuan is actually supposed to be a man.

Turns out Jiayu actually is LBGT, as the subs are the same, but they use male pronouns when referring to Yuan. I think in the original Japanese script he's still LBGT since he's verbally saying "kawaii" and "chan" when talking about Yuan!


So yet another stupid censorship in the English dub! Damn, every time I discover more stuff that was left out of the localization, I hate the English dub more and more. Too bad most people are noobs and play with the dumb English voices, and get the wrong idea about how the original characters and other things are supposed to be!

 

[ShenGCH]

Is this really censorship or just something that either got lost in translation or can be put down to incompetence in the localisation? One implies intent, while the others are due to mistakes.

As we all know, the first two games are rammed with gimpy translation issues, so what's to say this isn't yet another?

 

[RyoHazuki36]

Is this really censorship or just something that either got lost in translation or can be put down to incompetence in the localisation? One implies intent, while the others are due to mistakes.

As we all know, the first two games are rammed with gimpy translation issues, so what's to say this isn't yet another?

Well I guess the real censorship is Yuan's gender change, which makes the characters who were attracted to him in the original script like Dou Niu and this NPC now straight in the dub due to Yuan being changed to a woman. It definitely seems like this guy is supposed to be attracted to Yuan even in the original script, by the way he talks when Ryo asks about him and he calls Yuan, "Yuan-chan" twice and says he's "kawaii" which means cute.

 

[Seaman]

Nowadays its a curious regional difference, born from censorship at the release date.
Imo its a consequence of:
- The world as it was back then surrounding sexuality in videogames and in general.
- Incompetence mixed with chain of command, so also necessity (not justifying). Someone at charge gave the order to banish gay characters and the employees had to proceed like that.
Which is hilarious because they left untouched the scenes with more gay charge that we love:
- The search for sailors at nightclubs.
- Let's get sweaty along Ryo.
- The Tattoo Parlor guy totally under crush with Ryo's nice & smooth skin.
- Ren & Ryo first encounter and vals under a bulblight literally breathing over each other.
- Handcuffed Ren takes a leak scene
...
So at the end it made less sense editing those characters out.
Its great we're able to experience and compare both original and edited versions and glad we live at better times concerning the treatment of this topic.
Ironically Yuan is adressed as he in the unedited and as she (which she identifies with) in the edited lol so they did it the right way unwillingly.

 

[RyoHazuki36]

Nowadays its a curious regional difference, born from censorship at the release date.
Imo its a consequence of:
- The world as it was back then surrounding sexuality in videogames and in general.
- Incompetence mixed with chain of command, so also necessity (not justifying). Someone at charge gave the order to banish gay characters and the employees had to proceed like that.
Which is hilarious because they left untouched the scenes with more gay charge that we love:
- The search for sailors at nightclubs.
- Let's get sweaty along Ryo.
- The Tattoo Parlor guy totally under crush with Ryo's nice & smooth skin.
- Ren & Ryo first encounter and vals under a bulblight literally breathing over each other.
- Handcuffed Ren takes a leak scene
...
So at the end it made less sense editing those characters out.
Its great we're able to experience and compare both original and edited versions and glad we live at better times concerning the treatment of this topic.
Ironically Yuan is adressed as he in the unedited and as she (which she identifies with) in the edited lol so they did it the right way unwillingly.

There's a common misconception that Yuan is transgender. I don't think that was ever intended. Even Yu Suzuki refers to Yuan as the "gay character", and that he was changed to a woman just because he wasn't sure how people outside of Japan would take a gay character. Yuan was just supposed to be a stereotypically gay man in the 80's. The censorship has made many people outside of Japan assume he's a transgender woman, and it's so annoying.... he's just a transvestite which means that he enjoys wearing clothes primarily associated with the opposite sex. They are called "okamas" in Japanese media like anime and Japanese video games and even the Yakuza games use that term to refer to cross-dressing males in the original Japanese script. Even a Japanese blog I looked at said that Yuan is an okama, and that outside of Japan they wouldn't understand it.

 

[Seaman]

There's a common misconception that Yuan is transgender. I don't think that was ever intended. Even Yu Suzuki refers to Yuan as the "gay character", and that he was changed to a woman just because he wasn't sure how people outside of Japan would take a gay character. Yuan was just supposed to be a stereotypically gay man in the 80's. The censorship has made many people outside of Japan assume he's a transgender woman, and it's so annoying.... he's just a transvestite which means that he enjoys wearing clothes primarily associated with the opposite sex. They are called "okamas" in Japanese media like anime and Japanese video games and even the Yakuza games use that term to refer to cross-dressing males in the original Japanese script. Even a Japanese blog I looked at said that Yuan is an okama, and that outside of Japan they wouldn't understand it.

Hey i was confused and unaware about that, thanks for pointing it out in such a complete and constructive picture.
Im sure you also suffered from fake memories? My word that I remembered what I said (Yuan calling him sister or something like that?)
Probably im mixing his character with someone else (i.e. Job from Banshee) Too much media in my belly...

By the way this should be added at the wiki in regional differences, for easy access.

 

[RyoHazuki36]

Hey i was confused and unaware about that, thanks for pointing it out in such a complete and constructive picture.
Im sure you also suffered from fake memories? My word that I remembered what I said (Yuan calling him sister or something like that?)
Probably im mixing his character with someone else (i.e. Job from Banshee) Too much media in my belly...

By the way this should be added at the wiki in regional differences, for easy access.

On Yuan's wiki page, I have a section called "Gender" that lists the differences for the character between each version of the game, and have the reference of the article where Yu Suzuki talked about him and the censorship. At the beginning of the article, I mention how he's a transvestite with the meaning of it and that he's not confirmed to be transgender.

Yuan

Yuan (ユアン Yuan) is Dou Niu's right-hand partner who is an high-ranking executive of the Yellow Head gang that operates in Kowloon. Yuan is a central antagonist in Shenmue II. Yuan often blackmails Kowloon's shopkeepers, as they are all afraid of Yuan and Dou Niu. Yuan's gender is altered in the...

shenmue.fandom.com

I also list some of the regional differences with some of Yuan's dialogue in the game that was localized to be different in the trivia section and in that section I mention how the chainsaw QTE fail death scenes were altered in every version besides the original Japanese.

I'm an admin on that wiki and really am like the only active editor, and I basically made it as good as it is now. I basically added nearly every page on there. Too bad no one else really wants to contribute and everyone says the Neoseeker wiki is better, even though there's not nearly as much info on there as the Fandom wiki. I get that every character, item, move, etc. pages aren't added, but no one else wants to contribute, and wikis are supposed to be a team effort, and it's really difficult for one person to do everything especially considering how much characters, items, etc the series has.

 

[Seaman]

I'm an admin on that wiki and really am like the only active editor

Thanks from heart for your hard work at building the Shenmue museum.
Personally I think its key for getting new players into the series so securing its future and legacy.
I enjoy swimming over there but it has been a long time since the last indeed.
You rock dude.

 

[ShaunHastings]

This is really interesting, I hadn't come across this conversation before. There must be so many little snippets of interesting character dialogue like this but you just have to talk to the right character at the right time.

 

[Seaman]

This is really interesting, I hadn't come across this conversation before. There must be so many little snippets of interesting character dialogue like this but you just have to talk to the right character at the right time.

Now that you mention it, I've never tried talking with the two shop tenants that have seemingly sort of sympathy from Yuan. I mean at the segment we're following him from the distance. I always go to the point at that part.

Edit (double post)
Oh no, I should've said "Who are you calling noob? I obliterate you at Shenmue" and OP "Im the wiki pagemaster" and the epic sound of that slap in my mouth we're givin our backs at the old ways.

 

[RyoHazuki36]

Oh no, I should've said "Who are you calling noob? I obliterate you at Shenmue" and OP "Im the wiki pagemaster" and the epic sound of that slap in my mouth we're givin our backs at the old ways.

Sorry, I didn't mean to cause any offense. I just feel like the Japanese dub is the definitive way to experience the game since the voice acting is a lot better, and since the characters aren't localized to be different. I'm strongly passionate about the original dub, and get snippy when people play the English dub because of the localization changes, and because a lot of people don't know how everything's actually supposed to be because of it. Also I mostly meant newcomers that play the game in English blindly, and don't realize what was changed and assume that the English version has everything as it's supposed to be.

 

[Seaman]

Sorry, I didn't mean to cause any offense. I just feel like the Japanese dub is the definitive way to experience the game since the voice acting is a lot better, and since the characters aren't localized to be different. I'm strongly passionate about the original dub, and get snippy when people play the English dub because of the localization changes, and because a lot of people don't know how everything's actually supposed to be because of it. Also I mostly meant newcomers that play the game in English blindly, and don't realize what was changed and assume that the English version has everything as it's supposed to be.

No offense at all! You weren't mean and was obviously reaction to just discovered censorship. Sorry if i gave the wrong idea, you can see that nobody felt under attack.
To sum up: It was just my imbecilesque humor.

 

[chaikilla]

I really thought this was going to be the guy who was in love with plates, for some reason. Good find!

 

[WuyingRen]

I'm strongly passionate about the original dub, and get snippy when people play the English dub because of the localization changes, and because a lot of people don't know how everything's actually supposed to be because of it.

and yet you refer to Ewan as “Yuan” as per the mistranslation in the English dub?

 

[Seaman]

and yet you refer to Ewan as “Yuan” as per the mistranslation in the English dub?

Well, Yuan is the canon imo nevermind the mistranslation or change its what we finally got.
I recall hearing about making sense Yuan being Ewan because he looked european... Asian european maybe, but whats more accurate its that many Hong Kong residents gave english names to their babies when under British rule, to raise the opportunities in segregated society.

 

[Truck_1_0_1_]

... why does there need to be outrage here?

I always point out to people that Yuan is actually male and they only changed it for the localisation, as crossdressers were not accepted in mainstream society at the time and having the main villain being gay wasn't really accepted yet either, but I don't get all angry at people and, "hate the English dub," because of it; it's a product of its time, deal with it. Just like how Poison is a man in Japan, but female in the rest of the world, as they were not accepted at the time.

Also, he absolutely does NOT embody a stereotypically gay man in the 80s: he's a full-out crossdresser and gay, while the vast majority of gay men at the time (and now, for that matter) are NOT corssdressers and are stereotypically effeminate, but still dress like men.

And since were being nitpickingly-pedantic, it's LGBTQ, not LBGT.

 

[WuyingRen]

Well, Yuan is the canon imo nevermind the mistranslation or change its what we finally got.
I recall hearing about making sense Yuan being Ewan because he looked european... Asian european maybe, but whats more accurate its that many Hong Kong residents gave english names to their babies when under British rule, to raise the opportunities in segregated society.

Iirc, Ewan’s full name is Ewan O’Neil, which would suggest that his family was originally from Ireland rather than HK. As @Truck_1_0_1_ points out though, it really doesn’t matter.

 

[RyoHazuki36]

Iirc, Ewan’s full name is Ewan O’Neil, which would suggest that his family was originally from Ireland rather than HK. As @Truck_1_0_1_ points out though, it really doesn’t matter.

Is his full name really Ewan O'Neil though? I've seen that on Japanese sites like Japanese Wikipedia, but there's no official source that I've seen that confirms that. Not even the Japanese guides list his last name. He also looks Asian to me and always has.

 

[RyoHazuki36]

and yet you refer to Ewan as “Yuan” as per the mistranslation in the English dub?

I was actually the one who started the thread about Yuan actually being called "Ewan". I was the one who told the community about that lol... I've heard after the fact that Ewan was actually translated differently and that his name would actually be translated to "Yuan". Even Yang of Great View Herbs uses the Katanaka for his Chinese name. Also is there actually any official source that says his last name is "O'Niell"? I'm the one that pointed out that I saw that on Japanese sites like Japanese Wikipedia, but then people were saying that the Japanese guides don't list his last name and they actually don't.

I even put on the wiki that his actual name is "Ewan", but someone changed it and said that Ewan is translated differently, so I really don't know what to believe and what is actually fact. I'm also not 100% sure if O'Neill is in fact his last name since I don't see any official sources like guides confirming that. Lol don't think I'm not passionate about the original dub! I've done a lot of research even through Japanese searches on search engines and I've read the Phantom River Stone blogs on the translation errors.

 

[Seaman]

... why does there need to be outrage here?

I always point out to people that Yuan is actually male and they only changed it for the localisation, as crossdressers were not accepted in mainstream society at the time and having the main villain being gay wasn't really accepted yet either, but I don't get all angry at people and, "hate the English dub," because of it; it's a product of its time, deal with it. Just like how Poison is a man in Japan, but female in the rest of the world, as they were not accepted at the time.

Also, he absolutely does NOT embody a stereotypically gay man in the 80s: he's a full-out crossdresser and gay, while the vast majority of gay men at the time (and now, for that matter) are NOT corssdressers and are stereotypically effeminate, but still dress like men.

And since were being nitpickingly-pedantic, it's LGBTQ, not LBGT.

Honestly, I wasn't feeling any outrage at all. I like both dubs, prefering the japanese but with a cherish for the english.
Level of studies= basic
Native language= spanish
Thats why I show my location...
If you use such complex words "nitpiclin... My brain explodes.
I just was in debate, with my line of though not being imposed... Everything ok.
:'( Truck...
Im strangling myself with my own hands now.