You put your English in my Japanese!

[jperryss]

I've always wondered why there is so much English in Japanese games.

My first Japanese anything gaming-related was my Duo-R, and in addition to the console markings, I see Select and Run on the gamepad and title screen. Many PCE games have English menus and/or English words spattered throughout. PCE games titles will be all or partially in English. The spines of many PCE games have both Japanese and English (Valis, Red Alert), or just English (Batman, Shinobi) or Japanese on the main spine and English on the alternate side (Advanced VG).

I'm sure there's an easy and obvious answer, but it eludes me. What gives?

[Black Tiger]

English is hip and cool. Japanese people feel special seeing it featured in games.

[CPTRAVE]

Yeah I always wondered why they did that also. Maybe it is just a way to teach their children a new langauge.

[esteban]

They do it for me.

Thank you, Japan.

I am humbled.

Truly, I am.

[Black Tiger]

They do it for me.

Thank you, Japan.

I am humbled.

Truly, I am.

I CAN NOT f*ck UP FOR THIS!

SHIT. IS THIS NOT A GREAT BEGINNING.

[geise]

Haha!  God I love the Download games!

[MottZilla]

One reason is because earlier systems like Famicom had limited resources to work with so the English alphabet was a better fit. Another reason might be because after World War II the United States occupied Japan and was involved in its reconstruction. And pretty close ties have been kept ever since. That is atleast part of the reason both Japan and the US use NTSC and electrical devices tend to be compatible using 100v-120v standard unlike other parts of the world where 220v tends to be the standard.

[kazekirifx]

What are those squiggly English-looking lines on my computer screen? You expect me to be able to read this crap?
I'm too busy trying to type in English on my Japanese keyboard, which naturally has 2,000 keys on it to accommodate all 2,000 common-use Japanese kanji.

[Tatsujin]

lol

[RegalSin]

In science, we use a special kind of language. So this is computer science, and most programming langauges in computer is in english and math symbols, as well as special keyboard characters. Why would we want to make things more difficult for people? AKA reinvent the wheel.
Reinventing the wheel just dictates a product, in term of nations usage.

The futuristic movement is the commercialization of post Lost era ( WWII WWII, Korea ) the Hitler idea of rising above the clouds. In reality with the interaction of the eastern cultures, we also have wordings without serifs. All, videogame systems from Japan have no usage of Serif fonts, because adding an extra stroke to a character changes the whole entire thing, all together.

In conjunction with popular media, commercialization of this pop-culture, and localization, their are no videogames systems outside Japan, that has long wordings whatsover. Most words in eastern languages are spoken in one or three slylabils. So lets add up what we learned.

1. All sciences use specifics kinds of lingo
2. Eastern Asian typography are all San-serifs.
3. Popular culture dictates, popular trends.
4. East Asian languages are spoken and written lighting fast,
with minimum characters unlike west.

Can you find, one game system from Japan, that uses
A. Long wording
B. Serif type

Can you find both being used at the same time???

.................................................................

Ignoring the above, putting things in English is a design decsion, because these things communicates various ideas. Back then, USA and Japan was like brother and sister, after the reconstruction period. It was commercial but that is how people felt during the 1980's and 1990's.

[Samurai Ghost]

I think a part of it has to do with the origin of Japanese gaming, which is of course arcade games. There are tons of Japanese arcade games from the 70's and early 80's made by all the big gaming companies of today, and these games were made for both the domestic and international markets. So rather than making two versions, they made one English one. Most of the text in the games were limited to things like "Stage 1" "Game Over" and the like, and since it was understood everywhere and looked cool to Japanese kids they stuck with it. You do see some pretty good Engrish from time to time though.

This tradition carried over into the home console market where the ROMs were identical across the world. A game like Balloon Fight is the same wherever you buy it. Later on when games started having more elaborate stories and menus it made sense to write these in the country's native language, but simple stuff like title screens, high score screens, etc, remain in English.

In the 90's a lot of Japanese game companies started messing around with title screens and the like writing everything in cutesy hiragana. Puyo Puyo is a good example of this. Or games with strictly Japanese themes like Samurai Ghost make an effort to use absolutely no western characters in the game. Even the score is written in kanji rather than Arabic numerals in that game.

[reno5]

Very interesting topic guys

[esteban]

   

...Even the score is written in kanji rather than Arabic numerals in that game.

Ha! Intriguing.

Broader discussion:
If you expanded your discussion to include how Japanese youth culture drew inspiration from "American pop culture" (and, to a lesser extent, the converse) for decades, gaming fits nicely within it.

I think it is safe to say that although Japan did have cultural exports that appealed to mainstream and niche American audiences (Godzilla? Need I say more?), it has only been in the last few decades (I'll say, hmmmmmm, the 80's) that Japanese cultural exports became firmly entrenched in American culture (or, at least some demographic regions of the U.S. population).

Prior to the 80's (gotta go with my own experience) the pop cultural exchange between Japan and the US seemed unbalanced, but since then, things are slightly less unbalanced.