Apart from his ultimate, Hanzo does not have a single voice line in Japanese. Genji has 9 voice lines in his native tongue. I’m sure that most Hanzo players would welcome this addition. Blizzard please make this happen.
I have created a list of interesting phrases that Hanzo could say in Japanese:
“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.” -Miyamoto Musashi
“Do nothing which is of no use.” - Miyamoto Musashi
“No fear,no hesitation, no surprise, no doubt.” - Miyamoto Musashi
“Perceive that which cannot be seen with the eye.” - Miyamoto Musashi
“See first with your mind, then with your eyes, and finally with your body.” - Yagyu Munenori
“If you wish for peace, then prepare for war.” - Oda Nobunaga
The same thing happens to other voice actors and actresses as well.
Torbjorn has no voice lines in Swedish, because the VA doesn’t speak Swedish.
Reinhardt has no voice lines in German(1), because the VA doesn’t speak German.
Pharah has no voice lines in Arabic(2), because the VA doesn’t speak Arabic.
And in some cases, the accents aren’t very accurate. Mercy’s accent isn’t Swiss, Zarya’s accent isn’t very Russian from what I’ve heard (and see above as well - the VA for Zarya is Bulgarian, so I can believe that), and so on. Maybe they couldn’t find proper voice actors from the respective countries?
(1) I don’t count “Prost!” voice line as German, it sounds so English it hurts
(2) I’m actually not sure where Pharah grew up, since her father is Canadian, so she may as well not speak Arabic at all.
Fun fact, Hanzo’s voice actor also plays the voice of V.I.L.E. Academy Instructor Shadowsan in the new Carmen Sandiego series on Netflix. I swear half of the lines he says in that show can be used as voice lines for this game.
I don’t think it’s the full story as to say that these languages not being the VA’s native languages is the reason why certain characters only speak English. Jonny is American and yet he learned Portuguese for Lucio.
It’s about how hard the fans want these languages and how much the VAs feel attached to their given character’s cultural authenticity. Without any fire on either end, nothing’s gonna get done.
Oh I’ve heard that thing about Jonny Cruz. But these voice lines have replaced the previous ones, so it took some time since the game’s release. Well, maybe at some point the voice actors will grow more confident about using other languages. Darin de Paul had one shot too, and… that’s a start
Most of those complaints came from Americans, which doesn’t surprise me. Brazilian impressions were more positive even when pointing out some oddities such as the stress on “sinistro.” A close friend of mine even said she overall preferred it to the native Brazilian dub.
Ultimately, I’m glad it was done. Brazilian and Afro-Brazilian representation in games is abysmal, and Lucio having so few cultural identifiers before Capoiera and the new lines dropped rubbed me the wrong way.
The only line that got replaced was the enemy ultimate line, and honestly “Vamos Esculachar!” is much more epic than what we had before. The other lines are greetings, thanks, Amp, and on final blows, but are merely in rotation with the existing English.
