Let me start with the positive. Choosing to make all of the dialogue Japanese was ambitious and commendable. The actress portraying Maeve delivered her lines well-enough to be understood most of the time.
Ideally, though the Japanese actors would have spoken Japanese and the main cast English. That way everyone could have given their best performance.
The in-world justification for speaking Japanese doesn't seem to make sense. We are told that all hosts have this latent multilingual ability that they can use to respond to guests in other languages. If Maeve is able to "tap into" this ability, then surely the other hosts should be able to as well -- even "off loop".
Furthermore, Simon speaks Japanese for reasons not explained beyond the fact that he wrote all of the park's story scenarios. We do not know the mechanisms behind engineering stories for the hosts, but if it's anything like game design, it would go through a localization process where professional translators would be involved. It's really difficult to believe that Simon wrote all of that Japanese dialogue by himself given what we know about his temperament. And conversely, if he was such a Japanese expert, we would expect him to have designed a much more authentic-looking Japanese town.
The town looks so fake, and lacks any of the defining characteristics of Edo Period buildings, despite Simon describing that as the setting. Ostensibly, the reason for designing a set from the ground up was to mirror the layout of the hub-town in Westworld and draw parallels between the two parks. Watching it for the first time, however, this intention was completely lost on me. I only know this from watching the behind the scenes commentary. Having a red Torii gate in the middle of the town (not even of the proper design) feels very out of place. Also, the roof of the tea house should use thatch, and the door shouldn't be positioned on a corner.
If Simon had drawn attention to how fake it looked and made some cheeky in-world excuse (e.g. "Dr. Ford spent too much on side projects that we had to cut corners with Shogun World"), then the lack of authentic architecture and clothes wouldn't have bothered me.
Others have commented on the story-telling aspect, so I'll be brief on that.
Some problems I had: Why didn't they immediately flee after killing the Shogun's messenger? Why send ninjas to kill such a low-level target? Very petty and dishonorable. Why carve a cherry tree on Sakura's back if she was dancing clothed? Her face would have made more sense. Why didn't Maeve intervene when the Shogun was about the kill Sakura? Why didn't guards intervene immediately after Akane cut the Shogun? Every problem was resolved by Maeve's mind-control power. Redundant.
Ideally, though the Japanese actors would have spoken Japanese and the main cast English. That way everyone could have given their best performance.
The in-world justification for speaking Japanese doesn't seem to make sense. We are told that all hosts have this latent multilingual ability that they can use to respond to guests in other languages. If Maeve is able to "tap into" this ability, then surely the other hosts should be able to as well -- even "off loop".
Furthermore, Simon speaks Japanese for reasons not explained beyond the fact that he wrote all of the park's story scenarios. We do not know the mechanisms behind engineering stories for the hosts, but if it's anything like game design, it would go through a localization process where professional translators would be involved. It's really difficult to believe that Simon wrote all of that Japanese dialogue by himself given what we know about his temperament. And conversely, if he was such a Japanese expert, we would expect him to have designed a much more authentic-looking Japanese town.
The town looks so fake, and lacks any of the defining characteristics of Edo Period buildings, despite Simon describing that as the setting. Ostensibly, the reason for designing a set from the ground up was to mirror the layout of the hub-town in Westworld and draw parallels between the two parks. Watching it for the first time, however, this intention was completely lost on me. I only know this from watching the behind the scenes commentary. Having a red Torii gate in the middle of the town (not even of the proper design) feels very out of place. Also, the roof of the tea house should use thatch, and the door shouldn't be positioned on a corner.
If Simon had drawn attention to how fake it looked and made some cheeky in-world excuse (e.g. "Dr. Ford spent too much on side projects that we had to cut corners with Shogun World"), then the lack of authentic architecture and clothes wouldn't have bothered me.
Others have commented on the story-telling aspect, so I'll be brief on that.
Some problems I had: Why didn't they immediately flee after killing the Shogun's messenger? Why send ninjas to kill such a low-level target? Very petty and dishonorable. Why carve a cherry tree on Sakura's back if she was dancing clothed? Her face would have made more sense. Why didn't Maeve intervene when the Shogun was about the kill Sakura? Why didn't guards intervene immediately after Akane cut the Shogun? Every problem was resolved by Maeve's mind-control power. Redundant.