Pulling for English (but not England)

Let me vent for a little bit. It seems increasingly clear — albeit only 4 games into the World Cup (I just finished watching Trinidad & Tobago hold Sweden to a 0-0 draw, which was fantastic) — that there won’t be any “second audio channel” English at all during the World Cup broadcasts. In fact, there’s no SAP at all, be it German or Portugese or Stadium Noise. I keep checking the SAP button on the remote in the vain hope that somehow it will magically appear, but no.

Now mind you, I’m eternally grateful that NHK (Japan’s BBC if I can be forgiven a very threadbare comparison) is showing the games, all 64 of them, LIVE. And all games in 16:9 widescreen to boot. And we are in Japan after all, so I realize it is probably a bit rich to grouse about not getting an English-language commentary with which to ice this cake.

However, in my defense, on any given day, I can watch the Mariners, White Sox, or Yankees of Major League Baseball on NHK and tune in to the English language, I watched Game 1 of the NBA Finals with Hubie Brown the other day, Game 1 of the NHL Hockey Finals in English for chrissakes, not to mention I can watch the Bundesliga (German soccer league) with English commentary, the Copa Libertadores championship (South American soccer championship) with English on SAP, and Barca TV (the TV station for the FC Barcelona Spanish soccer team) in English as well — though admittedly that bloke’s commentary is some of the worst English commentary you can possibly hear.

But perhaps what’s even more inexplicable, and therefore makes this all the more grating, is that during the 2002 World Cup, co-hosted by Japan and South Korea, all the games had English on the sub-channel.

To be fair, because NHK is clearly using an “international feed” (the lineups and other graphics are in English, though NHK will occassionally overlay a Japanese graphic of the score), it may well be that the “international feed” comes with no sub-channel of any kind. Or, knowing FIFA, perhaps there’s an extra charge for it that goes beyond what NHK can justify. Who knows?

If there’s a silver lining (beyond seeing the games, which is of course most important), my Japanese is good enough to understand the commentary when I need to (and seriously, one doesn’t really need commentary, does one?), but not good enough to judge the quality of it. And at the very least, NHK doesn’t stoop to nearly the commercial pandering levels that the main networks here do. Besides, one has to be careful what one whinges for. They could slap on some ill-informed, God-forsaken, American soccer coverage on there: I’m told the inept American commentators referered to one “Mike Beckham” during the England – Paraguay game.

P.S. In other news, I’m 4 for 4 so far in my attempt to see all 64 games of the World Cup. Granted, it’s very early in the proceedings.

UPDATE (June 19): Just to follow up, I’ve resigned myself to the Japanese coverage and really it ain’t all that bad, as long as the game doesn’t feature the Japan national team. And in kind of a “if you can’t beat them, join them” outlook, I’ve decided to use the games to boost my Japanese vocabulary. Some color commentators talk too much, but overall it seems the quality is no worse than average, and that’s okay with me.

However, when Japan is playing, as they did tonight, then well, you can throw quality commentary out the window. On the other hand, the Japanese is painfully easy to understand. Basically, if Japan are attacking, it’s いいですよ、いいですよ！(ii desu yo, ii desu yo!, or “this is good, this is good!”), and if Japan are defending, it’s 危ないよ！ (abunai yo!, or “look out/watch out”). Seriously, that’s all the Japanese you need to know.

Another thing that has eased my rue is the realization that more than likely, my pining for some English (specifically British English) commentary is more due to some “it just sounds right” mental collocation on my part rather than it being quality commentating. Indeed, based on various reports and I’ve been reading, both the BBC and ITV broadcasts haven’t been anything special, and indeed when England was playing Trinidad and Tobago, the broadcast was exceedingly partisan toward England and patronizing towards T&T.