[Ash Falls Town]

Originally Posted by ryuutohime

I don't know whether people in the English speaking world are aware of how big a cult thing Haruka is in Japan and has been since inception in 2000ish. There are obviously four generations of Haruka games and so on now, but I think that the first and the third are the ones which get the most attention, and the first in particular now it's beginning to hit a more worldwide market.

Actually since the 4 series is new I'd say popularity of Haruka Generations goes 3-4-1-2 (No one likes 2). Outside of Japan 3 is also the most popular with those who actually know stuff about the series. Of course if you only know about the first generation then of course that would be the one with any attention at all.

Originally Posted by ryuutohime

Most of the people who prefer the Japanese vocal line are people who are also familiar with the seiyuu and their work. They're people who therefore know about and have probably seen the live events, read the manga (fifteen volumes next month in original Japanese plus ongoing chapters in LaLaDX, even after eight years since Haruka was first put into existence).

Actually very few people have the fanaticism to watch live events and hear drama tracks and the like. These kinds of things are nigh impossible to find even raw. And RAW things like this are infinitely harder to understand than RAW visual media.

Originally Posted by ryuutohime

"Dub haters" (though I'd prefer to say people who prefer the original language version) generally watch the series when it's first available, before reviews are written - they don't wait for the translation and therefore get coloured by other people's views ^_^. So I doubt that'll have any effect.

By this I meant people who would be blind buying it who don't like dubs. These kinds of people are the kind of people who would read reviews because if they end up disliking the series then they have wasted a bunch of money. Unfortunately when reviewers watch the series they see the resemblence to FY and ignore the bigger differences. (Including setting, tone, type of humour, series length and scope.)

Originally Posted by ryuutohime

I think it's sad that the games haven't been made more widespread (since EU regs disapprove of importing foreign consoles, I've only been able to play HaruToki2 on the PSP, which is fine but not the best of the continuities), and that the manga is being so slowly translated into English.

I'm actually glad it's not being dubbed because I don't think it's a 'mainstream' anime. It's a neoroma anime, and it belongs in that niche (along with Angelique, which has been even more neglected globally even though it's older, and Kiniro no Koruda (which strangely seems to be way ahead in the English manga release stakes).

But as non japanese neoromance fans don't we want the series to be closer to mainstream? We won't get any games, let alone merchandise released here if the series aren't popular. However since the Haruka anime won't ever get an english dub we've lost a big possibility in exposure of the neoromance brand to people who only watch dubbed anime.

Originally Posted by ryuutohime

To my mind there are 2 good reasons why Haruka is better off not being dubbed in any case.

#1 - set in Heian Japan, a lot of social convention and tradition in the language and mode of address gets lost if you attempt to put it entirely into English. That may mean nothing to someone who doesn't speak Japanese, but I like to be able to hear Yorihisa's grovelling, overly formal apologies to Akane and his sharp, brusque language to Tenma.

#2 - I don't think there's another human being on the planet who could be Yorihisa and capture him so perfectly as Miki Shinichirou. It doesn't matter how good the dub artist, I think I'd probably curl up and die if I was watching mediaeval Japanese samurai speak with American accents :S

Dub haters still wouldn't of ever had to of heard the English version even if it existed. Also there are several very popular English voice actors. If Tomodasa was say voiced by Vic Mignionwhatever, then bam a whole army of instant Haruka fangirls. Until we have something big like that happen Koei won't ever release a game here.

Basically what I was saying in my post is that Haruka needs to recruit every fan it possibly could. I personally thought that a Haruka dub would still be able to make money and it annoyed me because since the show won't reach enough people we can kiss our biggest hope for more neoromance stuff in the west goodbye.