Judgment Will Return to Japan
It’s been over two months since Sega pulled Judgment off shelves in Japan (where it’s known as Judge Eyes), for reasons that perplexed westerners around the world. The game features the likenesses and voice talent from several Japanese actors, with Pierre Taki being a key one among them as villain Kyohei Hamura. This became a problem for Sega when the actor was arrested and accused of cocaine possession and usage; Asian territories take drug charges very seriously, so the company and others responded by deleting as much of his entertainment existence from physical and digital stores as they could. Judgment was pulled mere hours after news of his arrest emerged from the press, and heck, Sega even went as far as deleting the official website and all tweets about it from their account.
This led to people buying physical copies of the game at the last minute, which happened to an extent that it resurfaced in Japanese sales charts that week. The original copies of the game are going for high prices on second-hand markets now, and they’re only getting more expensive.
But those who still want to purchase the game in Japan will soon have the option of grabbing an altered version. Judgment will resume sale in the country in the form of the New Price Version, one that will, as the name implies, be discounted from the previous version and will include the altered version of Hamura. Sega indeed took a somewhat similar approach to the character as they did with Masayoshi Tanimura in Yakuza 4’s remaster, who was played by an actor accused of cocaine usage in the original game. Instead of hiring a new actor and using their likeness and voice, the new character model is a tweaked version of the old one (just enough to not completely resemble Taki) that isn’t based on an actor, with a new voice actor taking the place of the old one. The new voice hasn’t been confirmed, but they can’t keep it secret forever.
Funnily enough, there’s a sign that perhaps Sega and others misjudged how the public would view Taki after the charges. Taki was also part of Japanese synthpop group Denki Groove with fellow member Takkyu Ishino, the latter of whom tweeted a picture of himself with Taki in late April. Ishino explained how this was the first time he saw Taki in about a month, and they were all smiles. This reportedly irked Japanese authorities, who were irate at the number of retweets and likes it received. They feel the Japanese audience is taking a flippant approach to Taki’s charges, which will enable young people into trying coke.
Japan’s general audience is actually and hilariously viewing this like the west would view a celebrity charged with drug use or possession, and thinking this will lead to increased coke use is paranoia speaking. Perhaps attitudes are already changing regarding drug charges in Japan, at least for celebrities.
The new release will arrive in Japan on July 18th, and Sega has started acknowledging the game’s existence in the country again by uploading altered versions of the old trailers with the new Hamura on the renewed official website. Since this version will take the place of the old release, and digital versions will likely be patched with the new model and voice unless the game is completely played offline, physical copies of the original will become even more valuable. Don’t be surprised if it becomes one of the rarest games in history soon.
Meanwhile, Sega never stopped promoting the western release outside posting altered versions of the trailers and removing and subsequently changing Hamura’s portrait on the official English website. They’ve recently started posting videos showing all the characters and their English voice actors on a weekly basis, which started with protagonist Takayuki Yagami (Greg Chun), Kazuya Ayabe (Matt Yang King), Mafuyu Fujii (Cherami Leigh), Masaharu Kaito (Crispin Freeman), and Mitsuru Kuroiwa (Matthew Mercer). Sega assembled a good cast for this game, and there’s no problem with it not being as star-studded as the original Yakuza dub cast on PlayStation 2, which featured the likes of Mark Hamill, Michael Madsen, and Eliza Dushku.
It’s still a surprise that Sega is dubbing this game at all, given how every Yakuza game after the first one only included Japanese voices with English subtitles — an option that will be retained for this game. The dub also sounds better than the original Yakuza’s, since live-action actors don’t always translate well to voice acting roles unless they’ve done a healthy helping of both.
It’s a good thing Judgment’s western release date was unaffected by the Pierre Taki scandal thanks to Sega’s swiftness in replacing the Hamura model, because June 25th is a perfect time for it to arrive. The game will have little competition when it comes out ahead of July’s glut of titles. In the meantime, keep an eye out for the several gameplay and promo videos Sega will provide in the next month.
About The Author
Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
