I was flipping through the channels tonight and Iron Chef America was on. It was toward the end and I wanted to see who would win the beets battle. When it came to Iron Chef Morimoto’s turn, whatever he was saying was being dubbed over by someone else. He was speaking English, but for some reason his voice was dubbed. I know Morimoto can speak English, not perfectly, but enough to convey what he’s trying to say. Is his English so bad that the Food Network decided that he needs to be dubbed over when he talks because he’s that hard to understand?
Even if he was that hard to understand, I prefer subtitles rather than having someone else re-tell everything he’s saying. It seems more respectful to me. Is that weird?
From my experience, many Japanese who speak English are very self-conscious of their accent and apologize for not speaking English well enough.
If you notice that most of the Japanese baseball players who come to the U.S. speak English well enough to converse with their teammates, but will always use a translator for any public speaking.
I’ll have to agree with Dolores Reborn on this one. Much like early movies featuring Jackie Chan, Morimoto seems to have a preference for being dubbed despite his ability with English. Now, having heard him speak English (without dubbing) before on television, I’d say that his accent is thick but not completely unintelligible. Now, if only they’d subtitle him like they subtitle nearly everyone else who has a “thick” accent. His English is reasonable, and the accent will fade with time if he gets a lot of practice with English.
The funny part is that they dub over him with the same voice actor that dubs for him on the Japanese Iron Chef. The first time I heard it, I couldn’t stop laughing.