Japanese Game Developers that speak English

[fcgamer | 4,997]

It dawned on me one day, watching an interview with the greats such as Miyamoto or Infuane. I wonder how many of the Japanese heroes in game development can speak English, and to what level.

[Tanooki | 5,110]

I think a fair many of them can quite fluently, but they also will chew on those letters to the point it would still need either subtitling, or they fall into the trap of having problems with the classic R vs L stuff people joke about.  I've heard Miyamoto he's pretty clear, but I think it's a mix of just culture and comfort with him than a barrier, yet the sadly passed Iwata he was loud, clear and proficiently clean and clear with English so it was pleasing to hear him dual verbalize conference stuff.

[Sumez | 3,153]

I heard stories about people trying to awkwardly converse with Miyamoto in Japanese only to have him answer them in English, and that dates back to the early 90s. Curiously though, I've never seen any actual footage of him speaking English.

Yuzo Koshiro really surprised me with his near-perfect knowledge of English. He still has a heavy accent, but he expresses himself almost effortlessly, as seen in a few videos on his YouTube channel: 

 

Hideki Kamiya's social media activity makes me want to believe he's proficient at English, but I've never heard him talking it.

[Tanooki | 5,110]

Yeah that's a clean clear Japanese accent over english that isn't lacking in any skill.  My Japanese teacher 20 years ago had been a NHK reporter that retired and she had the accent but was clear and non-struggling like him up there in that clip.  I still love his work in the original Act Raiser as that was just mind opening just how much the SNES could raise the bar on game audio in the day.

 

Also I will add, and I only heard this in passing as it was me going one way, and the other with a few having a conversation the opposite.  But from what sumez said there, he's correct.  Miyamoto speaks english and he's not awful at it either.  I can't recall which of the 3 years of E3 I went to (00-02) but I had been walking along I think near the Nintendo booth exterior heading away, and he with at least a couple others were moving along talking, in english, the opposite way.  I was more surprised to see the guy pop up otherwise I wouldn't have thought nothing of it, but that's the closest proximity I ever got to the guy as I'm not some autograph hunter, yet I did stop look and listen.  It was only a brief moment, maybe he can or can't handle a full on conversation at length but the couple sentences I did catch weren't terrible or struggled out forced either.

Edited December 29, 2020 by Tanooki