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Anime, Cyberpunk Edgerunners for example, lists the casts for both English and Japanese versions in the same page on IMDB.
In my personal library, Plex only shows the Japanese cast, even when View All is selected. The agent and scanner for this library are Plex Series and Plex TV Series. The versions in my library are not the Japanese versions, they are English language dubs.
If I have an English version of a show that also aired in another language, how can I get the correct metadata for the version I’m actually watching?
I guess this also leads to the question of why Movies can have editions but TV shows can’t? I have the same series in 2 different editions/versions/styles, 1 is Japanese and the other is English dubbing. I don’t have 1 series with 2 different audio tracks.
They did pull the right data. It’s just not exactly how you personally want it but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong or that Plex hasn’t been doing their job.
I mostly watch anime subbed, not dubbed, so for me, I don’t want whomever dubbed it into my language to be listed in the cast instead of the original voice actor. So now you and I have two different preferences for how cast metadata is handled. I’m not saying you’re wrong or that I’m right, just that it’s a preference for folks, but considering how subbed vs dubbed goes in anime fandom those can sometimes be very vocal stances, right?
The sites like TMDB and TVDB where Plex pulls data use the original cast listings for movies and TV shows. That means for foreign movies and TV shows you get the original cast, not who dubbed it for the local language. You want Police Story or Rumble in the Bronx starring Jackie Chan to list the person who dubbed Jackie’s voice instead of Jackie? If you’re French, you want Mission Impossible to show whomever dubbed Tom Cruise’s voice instead of Tom for Agent Hunt?
IMDB tends to localize their listings a bit but that’s easier to do on a website and with their resources. They also cater towards a USA centric customer base.
Anime is a weird media to manage as it is - for lots of reasons - so often doesn’t fit with standards for Movie and TV Show media organization common practices. You should see the arguments at TMDB about season numbering for some shows (worse than Doctor Who).
You can try some of the Anime specific meta agents for Plex if you want to install them. They give you a bit more options. Hama used to be a popular one that would pull from AniDB. I think there’s one that uses MyAnimeList. I believe they had the option to pull local cast instead of original cast if you set your location. You can search around these forums and the reddit subs about anime and plex and the web for “Anime meta plex agent” and find one that you can setup that might fit closer to what you want.
Suffice to say… anime has always been a bit hard to handle - codecs alone! And SSA subs? C’mon - and the fandom is very vocal but it’s gotten much easier to access and manage these days… but still gonna be odd so sometimes a bit of compromise is the only answer.
