Does Corey get recast in IV

Jesse

Jesse

Joined
May 21, 2020
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Shenmue
PSN
Jrockstr
I've seen this fear float around in a few different places since the two new trailers dropped and I was curious on what everyone's opinions is of this?

I personally don't see them dropping Corey at all.
 
I question more IV's chances to be made.

Anyway if IV is made, it's an alternate version of the overarching story and I'd guess most of the same voice actors would return from 3.
 
I think for the games, if more will be made, Corey will still keep the role.

However, I'm open for a recast of the game's voices too.
 
I think it depends on the circumstances and situations that lead to Shenmue 4 being made, particularly how long we have to wait for it and whether any potential publisher feels the series needs to do more to distance itself from the goofy voice acting of the first 3 games. A decision might be made to simply recast all roles.

To be honest, I think there's next to no chance of Shenmue 4 ever happening, so I'd take anything we can get. Sure, I guess *if* the anime is successful it might improve our chances, but are animes ever so successful that they save video game franchises? The Castlevania anime seemed pretty popular and I don't think there are any new Castlevania games on the horizon off the back of it. If Shenmue 4 was a possibility we'd already know about it as they would have wanted to strike whilst the iron was hot. The silence suggests Deep Silver want nothing to do with it because Shenmue 3 flopped hard (don't give me that "met expectations" corporate, politician's response, we can see from the game's chart positions how little it sold) and no other publisher wants to touch it with a bargepole. Sega should have let Yu Suzuki make Shenmue 3 years ago and given him all the support he needed. Maybe we would have had Shenmue 4 or even 5 by now then.
 
If the anime is a success, it would make sense to use the same actors for a future game. That said, if one of the ideas is for new folk to get into the games, they will be listening to Corey's voice (if playing it in English), so on the other hand it makes sense for Corey to continue.

As a day one fan, obviously i'd like Corey to continue, but if it makes more sense for the new guy to do it, then I'll go along with it. That said, would the new guy cost more?

Corey is being a good sport about the new guy though which is very pleasing.
 
I really do feel for Corey. Due to him playing the lead, a lot of people seem to blame him for the general notion that the Shenmue games have poor English dubs. Granted, I’m sure that if you combed through the thousands of lines that he recorded for the series you could find a few bad ones, but I think that this is to be expected somewhat given the scale of each game. He’s far from the worst in this regard either (the English dub of S2 is particularly poor when it comes to NPCs). What’s more, I think that most of the issues aren’t his fault.

As somebody who spent the best part of a decade working in radio and television before moving to Japan, it seems pretty clear that the real issue is a lack of direction. To be clear, I don’t blame the English director for that, as I think they too were faced with a lot of the same issues as Corey. Poor direction from their Japanese counterparts, a complete lack of context for certain scenes and nowhere near enough time to work with the talent.

It’s for this reason that it bothered me a bit to learn that they didn’t allow Corey to at least audition for the role in the Anime as I think that it should be clear to anybody who’s ever worked with talent that Corey has it. Granted, it doesn’t shine through often enough in the games, but I’m fairly certain that a good director could coax it out of him if needed. Part of me gets why they went straight for the recast (as mentioned above, many see Corey as part of the reason that the English dub is a joke), but given all that he’s done for the franchise I think he deserved a chance to prove himself.

Even if the Shenmue anime helps to make Shenmue 4 a reality, cutting Corey out of the game series would be the ultimate slap in the face and I would lose a lot of respect for all involved if that’s what ends up happening. As I mentioned in another thread, I think the obvious solution would be to keep Corey and sell an anime voice pack as DLC for those who really want it.
 
tomboz said:
As somebody who spent the best part of a decade working in radio and television before moving to Japan, it seems pretty clear that the real issue is a lack of direction. To be clear, I don’t blame the English director for that, as I think they too were faced with a lot of the same issues as Corey. Poor direction from their Japanese counterparts, a complete lack of context for certain scenes and nowhere near enough time to work with the talent.

It’s for this reason that it bothered me a bit to learn that they didn’t allow Corey to at least audition for the role in the Anime as I think that it should be clear to anybody who’s ever worked with talent that Corey has it. Granted, it doesn’t shine through often enough in the games, but I’m fairly certain that a good director could coax it out of him if needed. Part of me gets why they went straight for the recast (as mentioned above, many see Corey as part of the reason that the English dub is a joke), but given all that he’s done for the franchise I think he deserved a chance to prove himself.
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Yeah, agree with this. Have been capturing footage for some Dojo social media stuff lately, and honestly Corey is one of the better actors in the first game and shines most during the cutscenes because he's got a contextual visual to work with.

The problems with the English dub in the games are more to do with extenuating circumstances not being able to draw the best performance out of him. A lack of context, bad localisation and mistranslations, stitched together lines, or being rushed as we know they were on Shenmue II and Shenmue III.

Not to fault Bill Black who did an above and beyond job on Shenmue III given the extremely tight restrictions, but I think some fault also lies with the direction of the characterisation (which might be coming from the Japanese side). There's too much focus on Ryo's stoic and very "Japanese" nature, and not enough on the darker, more interesting aspects to his character like the impulsiveness, the recklessness, the blunt rudeness, and something of a mean streak when you see him interrogating people - especially in the first game. There's also a lot of warmth in small moments with the cat or buying Wang a drink where Corey sounds really natural.

I think in general the best way for Ryo to work in English *for ANY actor* is to ditch "he's very Japanese" as direction and focus on the actual characterisation through his actions to loosen the performance up.
 
Not to sidetrack this threat but I always liked the majority of the 1 cast aside from a few exceptions like Fuku-san. I'm sure there's others I don't like as well but I'm blanking on them right now. My two favorites would be Corey Marshall and Ruth Hollyman with Eric Kelso in third
 
Spaghetti said:
I think in general the best way for Ryo to work in English *for ANY actor* is to ditch "he's very Japanese" as direction and focus on the actual characterisation through his actions to loosen the performance up.
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Agreed, although I think the bigger issue comes from how rigid the localization is in general. In Japan, for example, it’s normal to tell somebody that you understand them when they tell you something (Wakarimashita, Kashikomarimashita, etc). We do this in the west too, but to nowhere near the same extent and certainly not in some of the situations we see it used in the game. Worse still, this was translated to “I see,” which, although technically accurate, sounds completely ridiculous in a lot of the situations it’s used. With that in mind, it’s hard to see how any voice actor (or the person directing them, for that matter) could have made that sound natural when in reality a westerner would just never have said it.
 
Correct me if im wrong, but wasn't it Suzuki who wanted the voices to sound like stilted stoic robots?

I vaguely remember a few discussions on the forums about Suzuki's direction for the voice acting, and how some of us thought he should be kept away from the dubbing component of the game at all costs as he doesn't know what he's doing in that area. You can even see this same issue occur in Shenmue 3.

Corey can do good, he just needs better direction and needs someone to work with him properly. You can tell in his streams and interviews he has a range of different tones and cadences. However, whenever someone tells him to put on the Ryo voice, he turns into a stoic robot.

Hopefully, in Shenmue 4, the anime directors can work with Corey and help him take his skills to the next level
 
ShenSun said:
Correct me if im wrong, but wasn't it Suzuki who wanted the voices to sound like stilted stoic robots?
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Nah. That's kind of a mix between fact and fiction in the sense that Ryo has always been described as a very "Japanese" person when we've heard anecdotes about how Japanese staff explained the character to Corey and Bill Black, and how it has resulted in some stiff characterisation. I doubt anybody has ever knowingly asked for a stilted performance.

Generally I think Yu has a good grasp on his characters and how to describe them - as we saw in the behind the scenes footage from the Shenmue III English VO sessions when he provided background on Shenhua to Bill, but they need to find descriptors for Ryo other than "Japanese" when explaining him.
 
If we get S4 in English l, I doubt Corey gets recast. Unless there is some overwhelmingly vocal majority that thinks the guy in the anime dub did such a phenomenal job as Ryo that they demand he replace Corey, I don't see it happening. Plus, I dont see the haedcore fanbase wanting Corey to be replaced. I would even suspect there would be some pushback if there was a recast. I'd be one of those fans pushing back. It's not like Snake in MGSV, since he barely spoke. Corey's absence would be much more noticable.
 
renthusiast said:
wait I'm lost, what do you guys mean by "very Japanese"
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In that he is to be Japanese and come across as stern and stoic. No nonsense. And, for an English actor that is harder to convey in terms of sounding of vows etc. Being someone who has played the Japanese and english dub its noticeable the difference in delivery alone. It forces an English actor to be dry. Which is again likely accounted for in direction. What should be told to him when voicing his lines is that Ryo is very no-nonsense and he is on a mission and determined. But, he has emotion and puts emotion into it. Not sure why the direction for the English dub was made difficult.

However, Yu wouldn't recast Corey because he knows fans wouldn't like that one bit I'd imagine.
 
I agree 100%; of all the "real actors" in I and II, Corey gives the best performance. I mean, Goro is probably my personal favourite, and there are a handful of small-part characters with cool voices in the first game: Chai, Lan Di, Terry, Yamagishi-san, homeless harbour guy.

Even Troy Baker couldn't have saved Shenmue from the "I'm looking for sailors/Do you know anything about Chinese people" memes. It's not Corey's acting, it's the bizarre localisation, combined with tech limitations of the time. Repeatedly asking the same weird question to NPCs, and some terribly hilarious VA perpetrated by other "actors" (I'm looking at you, NPCs) -- that's what gives Shenmue its bad rep.

Also, yes, I'd like to see him return, but if it's the anime that ends up "saving" the series then it also probably makes sense to recast Ryo as the anime guy. It'd be weird but I'd deal with it...by playing in Japanese regardless :coffee:
 
Remember in the early days of the Kickstarter when fans demanded that Corey return for Shenmue 3, so much so that YS Net had to address the matter in an update? Now imagine the response if they got rid of him in Shenmue 4...I'd expect some pushback.

Ideally, I'd like Austin to provide a fresh interpretation of Ryo to better suit this more gritty take for the anime, while Corey resumes his work in Shenmue 4. The more people involved in this franchise, the better. We shall see.
 
Honestly I hope they don't waste money on dual VA, keep the japanese, drop english.

Ryo is pretty much a stoic character, I don't want to see him "localized", "yo, that's lit mah friend", I like Corey voice and tamber, but a big part of what I like about Shenmue is the japaneseness about it, and it's impossible to make it sound natural with english VA. Even more mainstream titles like Yakuza just have japanese VA, I don't see why a niche title like Shenmue should have dual language (it's not like the lack of budget didn't affect S3).
 
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