Why is this Kansai Regional Accent and not Kansai Dialect? Kansai-ben is much more than just an accent, and is in fact probably as different from Standard Japanese as American English is from British English.

I'd just like to say I totally agree with the Kansai = New York accent content in the article. I also firmly DISAGREE with the Kansai = Texas/Southern accent claim and I wish translators would stop doing that comparison. Something like the Kyushu dialects would be closer to a Texas accent and there are any number of dialects that are considered rustic "hick" accents, but Kansai is not one of them.