Jeremy Blaustein is another guy with a really cool job. He’s been working on translation and localization of video games and TV shows for many years now. He’s originally from New York, but he is now living in Japan. Silent Hill fans may be aware of his work on parts 2, 3 and 4 of the series. He was also involved in other aspects, such as contributing to the story, casting voice actors, and directing the motion capture. He worked on Metal Gear Solid, Fatal Frame, and Shadow Hearts. In addition to video game work, he’s been involved with the localization of TV shows like Pokémon (the show and the movies), Animaniacs, and The Adventures of Batman and Robin.
He was working in the International Business Dept. at Konami, and, because he was the only foreign employee, he ended up helping out in other areas, like translation and discussions on what Western audiences would or would not like. He worked no some things like Tiny Tunes, Biker Mice from Mars, and then his first job as director was for Snatcher. He later went back home to America, doing translation work so he could make his own hours and have more time to spend at home with his daughter. I talked to him about translation and his work on the Silent Hill series.
Silent Hill 2
“Sexual abuse and incest is not a subject that had been broached in video games to that point.”
Blaustein worked closely with the Japanese team on Silent Hill 2 from the very beginning, talking to them about what might be scary to Americans. Since the developers didn’t really speak any English, he was the one who helped out with making the story appealing to Western audiences, also casting and working with the voice actors (he did the motion capture for James on the hotel stairs himself, because Guy Cihi was sick or injured that day). The motion capture was done first and videotaped, and then that was used to match up to the voice recordings, which were done later. The actors were hired in Japan, and mostly amateurs.
“SH2 is all about the monstrous sides of people.”
The themes and symbolism of the characters and plot of Silent Hill 2 has been discussed at great length over the years by fans. Clearly, there are a lot of themes involving sex and death in Silent Hill 2, and there are a lot of visual quotes from various films, the most obvious being Jacob’s Ladder (the hospitals and many monsters in the games) and Blue Velvet (the scene where Kyle McLachlan’s character is hiding in a closet, watching a disturbing sex scene involving Dennis Hopper and Isabella Rosselini’s characters). The latter is very similar to a scene in Silent Hill 2, where James walks into an apartment and witnesses the Red Pyramid Thing/Pyramid Head sexually molesting some mannequin monsters. (Blaustein says the sexual aspect of this scene is “indisputable,” noting that the whole game is about the “monstrous sides of people.”) James ducks into a closet to hide. Likewise, the character Angela also has a past involving sexual abuse. “The fact that she was sexually abused was openly discussed among us, so there really IS no debate as far as the team’s intention goes.”
Though he’s worked on many games, including Silent Hill 3 and 4, he says the games he’s most proud of being involved with are Silent Hill 2, the Shadow Hearts series, and Metal Gear Solid. “Owaku wrote the greatest game scenario ever.” He says that the reason for Silent Hill 3 going back to the themes of the original was in response to criticisms of part 2 being “too psychological.” He says that the Japanese prefer to keep things in the shadows, rather than explaining away everything. “I thought Silent Hill 3 was far too literal and tried too hard to explain things that were never meant to have such an internal logic because they were not all thought out that far.” He feels the second installment was superior in every way to the third, except perhaps the gameplay.
“I was also the FAT enemy [motion capture for the Andrew DeSalvo enemy in Silent Hill 4: The Room] and almost broke the back of my skull being overzealous in going down to a shotgun blast.”
Current work
He can’t give out specifics of projects he’s working on at the moment, but he has moved his family to Japan and has his own translation/localization company, Zpang. He says, “I think the internet has lowered people’s concept of the importance of words in general,” since now everyone downloads things for free, uses internet translation software, can read free fan translations, and everyone has access to so much information for free online. He loves games, but hates the current trend of lookalike war games that mainly involve shouting insults over headsets. You can read more about him at his company’s website, Zpang.com, and in this article.
I still don’t see SH2 as being superior to SH3, simply because SH3 is a lot scarier (for me). I don’t think SH2 was too psychological, so much as the fact that removing much of the supernatural element reduced the fear inspiring elements of the game. There were still spirits going around and weird things afoot in the plot, but in terms of the environment, James’ world was more decayed and sad than terrifying. SH2 was creepy in some respects, no one can deny that, but I think it didn’t really leave that much of an impression on me in terms of terrifying experiences. That being said, I think the world was fascinating to explore. I think the difference is that SH1 is a trip through Hell, SH2 is a trip through one man’s personal Hell. SH1 is what you’d imagine Hell would look like, SH2 is a manifestation of one man’s inner decay and torment. For me, the epic trip through Hell wins out. Because SH3 copied directly from SH1, it upped the quota in terms of hellish environments and horrifying stuff we’d never seen in a video game before. It’s true SH3 should have used Alchemilla instead of Brookhaven, and there are some things that bug me about the gameplay, but overall it’s a much more horrifying experience than SH2. Which is the point of a horror game, isn’t it? One example is how everybody talked about how horrifying the mannequins were and how psychologically disturbing they were, and I thought they were kinda cute.
The environments were all creepy in SH3, and I really dreaded investigating them in a way most of SH2′s environments didn’t; SH2′s environments were more dank and decayed, and I got into the “moody” aura James must have been feeling, but it wasn’t exactly “terror” I was feeling. It’s funny though, I would’ve thought SH3 was a response to everybody wanting to know what happened to Harry and his daughter after SH1. I posited the psychological theory, but I didn’t really think that was the only reason.
And I’m surprised, because everybody wanted the next game to be like SH2 after that. My theory was more along the lines that the team was distressed at the fans now wanting every game to be like SH2, and wanted to do something different. I didn’t think it was complaints of it being too “psychological” that got to them, so much as fans now wanting to accept ONLY “psychological” scenarios (which is a bad thing, because you can’t have a series going in only one direction). This reveals some interesting insight into the thought processes of the developers. I can see why he would think it was superior because of the plot, but I don’t think the plot and the soundtrack are enough to overcome the inherent lack of horror and absolutely elevate it above SH3. I think there’s always some leeway to move there in the rankings, and it really comes down to each person’s personal preference. I think SH2 and SH3 are really more on even ground, with it being very difficult to put one game over the other (for me, personally). Together with SH1, the 3 games form a trilogy that is very difficult to rank in an ordered way. You can put one game in 1., another in 2., and the third in 3., but you can always find reasons as to why one game should be elevated over the other.
I think SH2 and SH3 individually succeed at what the other fails at. SH2 succeeds in telling a powerful and moving story, which is really emotional; SH3 should have focused more on Alessa’s emotions and the torment she went through, rather than doting on about God and resurrecting it. That should have been a minor note, and the emphasis should have been more on Alessa’s past before SH1, even though the God was a concern. It would have really upped the emotional details, which is what made SH2 great in the first place. Alessa has arguably a more horrifying past than James can ever claim, and yet it doesn’t come across that way because the team places most of the emphasis on Claudia and her plan to resurrect God. SH3 succeeds at making a terrifying game that that shows you things you’ve never seen before and almost gave you a heart attack at some points. The gameplay is also a level over the one in SH2 in some ways, which cannot be discounted. I was very underwhelmed at the bonuses SH2 offered after completing the game, and the enemies weren’t that challenging, short of the two Pyramid Head bosses at the end on hard. SH3 rewarded you handsomely for completing the game, and it made you scared of the enemies when you were fighting them, even if you had enough ammo to kill them all (which often times you didn’t). It’s funny, for all the hoopla that was made of Heather having a sub-machine gun before the release date, it really didn’t play a major role. The gameplay was still a struggle and the machine gun didn’t really help you do much except wipe out a few troublesome enemies. The controls were more refined in SH3, and you could really see the work the development team put in to improve the situation for gamers.
That’s not an insignificant part of things, since these are games first, and excellent stories second. Overall, each game has things that you can pick out and use as examples of why that game is superior to the others. That being said, if he was intimately involved with the translating of that game and grew to like the story, I can see why he would think SH2 was superior. It must have been a letdown when he returned to 3 and 4 and realized they had taken a completely different direction. I also like that he said the sexual aspect is “indisputable” in SH2. There was a guy a while back who was trying to claim Angela had never been sexually abused, and that it was all in gamers’ imaginations. Yeeah, like physical abuse (by itself) is really an unprecedented subject that would warrant such disturbing concepts and imagery.
Physical abuse is a serious subject, but it was hardly unprecedented in games, and we had seen it before in games. It was sexual abuse that the developers were trying to convey, and that had certainly never been done before in a game, to my knowledge. The discussion was really quite vicious, and I think moderators had to step in after a while because the discussion was getting so out of control. I have no idea what caused that fan to believe that hadn’t happened to Angela, but it was really something – this guy was trying to claim all the signs Team Silent had put in there were completely unrelated to that, and I think it really hurt his credibility, because he was refusing to see something that was so blatantly obvious to the fans. It’s obvious to me, and I don’t know how anyone could have missed it. So yeah, I’m glad to see this guy confirm what we all knew all along. 
It’s nice to have some solid answers to some things, because that’s the way you avoid any unnecessary confusions like the aforementioned argument.
This was a really interesting article, and I’m glad you posted it.
December 28th, 2010
“I still don’t see SH2 as being superior to SH3, simply because SH3 is a lot scarier (for me).”
But does “better” always have to equate to “scarier”? I think they both have their good points, I dunno.
“…but I don’t think the plot and the soundtrack are enough to overcome the inherent lack of horror and absolutely elevate it above SH3…”
Again, I think the problem is that you value the horror aspect, some others value other aspects.
I think SH2 and SH3 individually succeed at what the other fails at.
I agree with this, which is why I like the idea that different games have gone in different directions. They each have pros and cons. But if sh3 focused more on Alessa, it may have gotten rid of some of the mysteriousness of it all, and I thought it was already a bit to explanatory.
I have no idea what caused that fan to believe that hadn’t happened to Angela, but it was really something – this guy was trying to claim all the signs Team Silent had put in there were completely unrelated to that
Yes, but I think some of them were playing the devil’s advocate there. Certainly, some appeared to really, 100% believe it though. I can’t fathom how anyone could deny the sexual aspect though, even after reading the arguments in question. IMO, the only way to make it any mroe obvious than it was would’ve been to make Angela give play by play details of the abuse. I mean, “you’re only after one thing” “You could always force me, like he did,” etc. And the imagery, of course.
On the other hand, I do think it’s great that people discuss the games and think them through a great deal, but still, nice to find out what the developers were thinking, as well.
December 29th, 2010
[...] Jeremy Blaustein on Silent Hill 2 [...]
May 2nd, 2011
Wow what a thoroughly interesting man, and quite a life he’s lead being connected directly to many of the games and even cartoons I grew up with (I’m assuming tiny tunes was meant to mean tiny toons?). I’ve played silent hill 2 and 3 and I have no qualms in stating that 2 is by FAR the superior game in my humble opinion, and although I enjoyed the connection to silent hill 1 in it with heather and her dad I though it was just a watered down 2 really, evil dead 2 to evil dead if you will.
With regards to metal gear then what can I say other than genius! I’ve never been so impressed with something in my life which it bizarre seeing as the first copy I had was a Japanese import so I had absolutely no idea what was going on haha! I just wanted to play the game so badly and loved every cinematic minute of it. Silent hill also, was a massive eye opener for me as to what could really be achieved by people who actually care. You should be very proud of yourself that you had a part to play in them and I’m so glad that I was in the right place at the right age at the right time for these classics that kept me on edge of my seat for so long and indeed still do.
Looks like you’ve got yourself a new fan mate haha
May 7th, 2011
@–Matthew Owst I don’t mind you preferring 2, but saying 3 is a watered down version of 2? I wouldn’t say that at all. In order for it to be a watered down version, it’d have to be a lot like it, when it really isn’t. Really the only thing I can find in common in the story and characters is Heather and James both losing someone. But even then I wouldn’t say it was a watered down version, because it was focusing on losing a different type of love. 2 focused on the loss of love in the form of a lover, while 3 focused on the loss of love of a family member, in particular a father.
January 30th, 2012