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Localization, Cultural Translation and Censorship Thread


Extrasolar
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3 hours ago, phineas81707 said:

I don't know, but the fact that the ESRB goes E, E10+, T might suggest that our non-restricted ratings are actually applied to material appropriate for younger kids. What's ESRB 'T' like in America? How does it compare to PEGI 12 and Australian 'M'?

To answer this question, the only true restriction for the ESRB rating system is AO, which corresponds to CERO X in Japan, X in Australia, and PEGI 18 in Europe. M is sort of restricted, as anyone under 17 has to have a parent with them at purchase, but AO is the only true restriction, not to mention that because all but a handful of games that are rated AO are sexual in nature, they won't even be hosted on home consoles, just as the others I think are not.

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14 minutes ago, Hylian Air Force said:

To answer this question, the only true restriction for the ESRB rating system is AO, which corresponds to CERO X in Japan, X in Australia, and PEGI 18 in Europe. M is sort of restricted, as anyone under 17 has to have a parent with them at purchase, but AO is the only true restriction, not to mention that because all but a handful of games that are rated AO are sexual in nature, they won't even be hosted on home consoles, just as the others I think are not.

Well, there's a problem we have in Australia right away. You associate ESRB 'T' with Australian 'M'... but if you want to bump up the rating, you go to the soft-banned 'M' in America, but the hard-banned 'MA' in Australia.

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I don't watch any anime or anything than playing games, so I don't have much to contribute to the conversation.

I have no problem with the change of Seti to Ced. One, because the translators probably thought having Forseti and Seti was too confusing. And two, phonetically, I believe you can pronounce Seti and Ced the same way, even if at first glance they appear to be pronounced differently. Similar to the Shii-/Shee-/Cae-da thing. Lewyn I understand as NoA had cornered itself with the Levin Sword naming- that was a a shortsighted move (though they honestly had little reason to think they would have to translate Jugdral) In the case of Nyna however, I feel like the i/ie to a y thing was not so necessary, but was done to make the name seem artificially less generic.

Also, here is the obligatory Earthbound localization link:

http://legendsoflocalization.com/earthbound/

And to this, let me add that I prefer the no nude Ness thing in the American version. If Earthbound was a cultured novel, I'd have no problem with it. But video game players aren't necessarily going to have an adequately mature mindset. Xenogears also featured at the very end of the game a nude sequence wherein no one was actually physically naked, but had instead ascended along a path to a higher, spiritual existence. That was kind of weird, particularly when there was a shower nudity joke scene earlier in the game, plus a comment by Melchior telling Fei not to stare at the sleeping nude Elly while she was in healing nanomachine tank. Were it not for having knowledge of the Earthbound sequence, plus the fact Fei and Elly are lovers who may have already done it by then (and who certainly remember doing it in some of their past lives), it would have been even stranger to me.

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10 hours ago, phineas81707 said:

The older games are listed as such due to the poorer graphics showing less detail, though the newer games list the violence as causing 'minor injury only'.

I don't know... Getting killed seems like a pretty major injury to me...

10 hours ago, phineas81707 said:

Where does localisation fit into this? I don't know, but the fact that the ESRB goes E, E10+, T might suggest that our non-restricted ratings are actually applied to material appropriate for younger kids. What's ESRB 'T' like in America? How does it compare to PEGI 12 and Australian 'M'?

For us, we've got E, E10+, T, M, and AO. E is for everyone, of course, with family-friendly games with nothing seen as objectionable within. Meanwhile, A0, Adults Only, is reserved for games with things like explicit on-screen sex, and can't be displayed on store shelves at all. (You have to ask someone to go to the back storage and get it if you want a rated 'AO' game, whereas with 'M' you just have to show ID to confirm that you're 17+).

E10+ is is a very new rating that's popped up on the scene pretty recently. Before that, any games that were mostly family friendly, but had a few more suggestive or crude moments were still rated E. I guess some complaints got E10+ instated, so games which would have been definitely have been rated E back in day are now E10+. Including Splatoon...which is a game about cartoon squids shooting each other with paint in the vein of super-soaker wars (I guess just the guns in general was too much for younger audiences? Seems really sketch.) Personally, I don't see how "cartoon violence" warrants a bump in rating, considering cartoons that are shown to kids these days have much of the same...

T is about equivalent to '12' for PEGI, I believe, and for Australia the equivalent seems like it's 'M.' (Odd for me to think, since here, our M is explicitly 17+ games like Grand Theft Auto, full of all the violence, heavy swearing, and sex.) Here, T covers material considered too overtly violent for kids (hack and slash games are pretty much always rated 'T'), and has leeway to allow a few obtuse sexual references (boingy bits, etc.) and lower-key swears like 'damn.' But a lot of the time, even with a T rating, a few things are removed or toned down even when they're not horribly adult themes - Path of Radiance was rated Teen, but had any references to Shinon's alcoholism removed, for example. In the same game which allowed Reyson to be angry about the massacre of the herons of the Serenes Forest, and had the brutal on-screen death of the protagonist's father (through impalement). Uh...

10 hours ago, phineas81707 said:

All 12 games are listed as having mild bad language, and Birthright (but not Conquest) is listed as having sexual images and/or sexual innuendo.

Camilla's introduction scene. It's sad that I knew exactly what scene they'd be referring to the moment I read it. Goddamn it shallow fanservice

But you still get a Camilla moment at the end of Conquest...eh, I guess because it's much more downplayed than the camera orbit on Birthright, so there you go. But hold on - as far as innuendo goes, what about Niles? Wouldn't he get an innuendo rating?

14 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Well, keep in mind that in exchange, they didn't had the curtain partly covering her in her beach CG, unlike the American version.

Yeah, I never understood the purpose of that. I mean, it's already a sexy pose in a bikini... Putting a curtain in front of it isn't going to suddenly make it non-sexy. Lol. Not to mention, Tharja is designed and played for fanservice in the first place (her normal outfit is a bikini with see-through mesh covering it, after all), so if they meant to tone her down, they should have toned all of her down.

Doesn't make much sense at all. Plus, they'd shown they're fine with sexual references (Nowi talking to her) in the first place... Bah. I don't get it. :wacko:

Edited by Extrasolar
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I prefer most time keep it as original as possible but there are so many "community" that it's very easy offend one of them even the product is not made for them or they don't really care being offended. I see censorship as something really hypocrite and censoring sexual stuff have really crazy story behind, specially considering how much sexual stuff you can see just from advertisements.

I'm very open mind guy. Even when I hate a character, I can still appreciate it. If a character is made as asshole, why I should consider it better if the localization made it less asshole? Because I hate him less? I feel someone miss the traits of character.

Still sometime the localization can better character or a character suit better your taste, but it still considered same character? Take western Henry and japan Henry. As japanese, should I considered an american hypocrite for saying that Henry is too childish?

Story-wise I will not saying anything cause already the conversion between book-film or anime-manga already mess lot of thing. There are good work but there are very bad work.

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Oh boy, for anyone who knows me and what I do ...this may be a bit of a long reply! xD (Though I'm avoiding all Echoes info so please don't mention anything!)

I lean more toward direct/literal translation. However! This should NOT be mistaken for "bad" or "robotic" translation. You can have a "literal" translation that flows nicely in English. It can be rearranged grammatically and all while retaining the same meaning. That is what a direct translation is for me, not the badly broken and awkward words that people often think of when the name pops up.

A more liberal translation are those that involve massive changes, be it due to cultural lack of understanding, or perhaps something that simply cannot be straightforwardly translated.

Sometimes a liberal translation can seem odd when next to the more literal one, as you can see in the Tri-force Heroes article I made remarking on how NoE stayed close to the Japanese (while still flowing in English) against the "totes adorbs" English one. xD

Ideally, one aims for the middle ground. If you get a joke that revolves around Japanese culture, then we should translate, or rewrite, it to an equivalent joke that keeps the spirit of the meaning that would otherwise be lost. If you replace a joke with a completely irrelevant joke, simply to fill the fact a joke was there, that probably wouldn't work as well...

Censorship... I am wary of it, but I also understand why it is done here and there, and am often sympathetic that it may not all be the fault of the localizer or any individual lower down on the chain, at least. xD

The funny thing is, when it comes to good localizations, nothing really sticks out to me --which means I think I enjoy quite a few. When I think of "bad" localizations, I can think of a few here and there, mostly older era games as they are not really localized as much as they are translated (and not great ones, at that)... I usually look at isolated incidents of localization (see: all my Fates comparison articles on the blog), rather than a game as a whole.

One anime I can think of that is ridiculous in its localization (even down to the title) is the infamous "Samurai Pizza Cats."

Pokemon Sun/Moon actually did a great job with translating that...rather dark Pokedex. It's the most recent example I can think of, along with all that strange stuff about drinking your mama's milk. xD

I think the incident that bugged me most was botching Nergal's final lines in FE7. xD (be wary of spoilers in link).

Or maybe how fans were confused about Guy being the Sword Saint for years until we spotted that was, in fact, a translation error.

The above is mostly a case of poor editing rather than bad localization, of course.

Something I wish stayed... well it wasn't exactly localizaton that cut it out, but the unused lines of sparing Hetzel in FE10 were among one I would've liked!

So this may sound odd as I practically bleed empathy, but I don't mind potentially offensive or insensitive content in games. I do like that they are thinking of others, but a translator/localizer is there to express the original intent when applicable. If the original writers decided to be insensitive, then so be it. Of course, "localization" does keep cultural differences in mind. If it is something that is standard in one place and potentially offensive in another, it may be part of the job description to change it to adhere to whatever is more acceptable regardless of their personal feelings on the matter, I suppose.

I suppose it also depends on the purpose. If it's for a joke or stereotype that is acceptable in one place but looked down upon in another but has otherwise no real bearing on the theme of the story, perhaps they can consider changing it. (Note: Consider, not absolutely). Kyza as we discussed in the other thread is a recent example of this!

If it's in a deeper theme of things, well for one, often it is hard to change without changing something else, but sometimes they may attempt to do so anyway.

On the note of Kyza, there is characterization that you asked. I generally don't think personalities should be changed, but often this is only found out by those familiar to the original version. It otherwise goes unnoticed, of course! When a western reader does find out about how a character they may love (or hate) is completely different in Japanese, that can be a little depressing! Faced with a choice as to which they like better (or less), this may be avoided if the character is kept true.

It can be difficult though, as Japanese has so many fun inflections, from feminine to masculine, young to old, and informal to formal. Sometimes they can't exactly get the right character across!

Did you read my article on the Izana changes? xD There was a lot going on there... though I preferred the original one in the end there, too. However, there are many who said they liked the English portrayal, and so would be faced with that dilemma I pointed out above too.

The plus side of this is, if you disliked a character, it may give one solace knowing, "Oh, well okay they were cooler in the original! Its the localization's fault!" The flip side is, "What?! This character is terrible in the original Japanese! Thank you localization!"

Both of the above lack, "Wow, this character is pretty cool." regardless of reference to the localization. xD

On a related topic, I am not really a fan of memes for various reasons --but of course understand why one may use them. There is that certain ping we get when many of us felt in the earlier days, "Wow, did that game just acknowledge something from my own pop culture?" It was a sort of point of relation between fan and company. Of course with the internet and more exposure to a company (say, twitter), seeing them in games may be more redundant now. They're a complicated matter, but personally I would opt to not use them.

They are of course acceptable if the original script uses a meme in Japan that has an equivalent in the target language. That would be proving intent, rather than replacing with a meme...

This response is based on your first two posts, and I'm short on time! But as you know I love discussing this sort of thing, as, indeed I dabble in it quite a bit. xD

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10 hours ago, SpearOfLies said:

Still sometime the localization can better character or a character suit better your taste, but it still considered same character? Take western Henry and japan Henry. As japanese, should I considered an american hypocrite for saying that Henry is too childish?

Yeah, Henry from the original and Henry from the translation are for the most part completely different characters in that new Henry is played for laughs and is generally much more upbeat and silly. I'm not sure I like them rewriting character personalities as wholesale as they did with Henry's (unless you're dealing with a Kyza or a Devdan/Danved), but I can't deny that I adore new Henry and he is more popular in the west than he is in Japan. I'm honestly not sure if I would have liked original Henry's creepiness if he had been carried over.
 

4 hours ago, Kirokan said:

This response is based on your first two posts, and I'm short on time! But as you know I love discussing this sort of thing, as, indeed I dabble in it quite a bit. xD

Woot, I'm glad you popped in. I was wondering if you'd come. And yup, I read your article. Interesting stuff! (Going to spend more time going through the rest of your blog)

:^_^:

Also, I'm curious. What do the Japanese characters in your title above your avatar say?

4 hours ago, Kirokan said:

On the note of Kyza, there is characterization that you asked. I generally don't think personalities should be changed, but often this is only found out by those familiar to the original version. It otherwise goes unnoticed, of course! When a western reader does find out about how a character they may love (or hate) is completely different in Japanese, that can be a little depressing! Faced with a choice as to which they like better (or less), this may be avoided if the character is kept true.

That's me and Pit from Kid Icarus Uprising. Original Pit is very much wide-eyed, excitable and cute - very much a young child being played straight (and Dark Pit is less of a loner archetype and more just grumpy kid/male Tsundere). While English Pit is still excitable about certain things, he's much more deadpan and snarky, like a more traditional western hero. I can see why the change was made (westerners are less a fan of cutesy-style humor and characters) and Anthony Del Rio's Pit has me in stitches at various points in the game, but original Pit is adorable too!

4 hours ago, Kirokan said:

One anime I can think of that is ridiculous in its localization (even down to the title) is the infamous "Samurai Pizza Cats."

Wow... I never knew about this one. Yeah, "Legendary Ninja Cats" and "Samurai Pizza Cats" are night and day... I take it that the English version is more of a gag dub than the original version? (Never watched it in either incarnation.)
 

4 hours ago, Kirokan said:

Pokemon Sun/Moon actually did a great job with translating that...rather dark Pokedex. It's the most recent example I can think of, along with all that strange stuff about drinking your mama's milk. xD

Yeah...Wow, I can see why this one was changed, just based on the strange implications alone. (Older children and people still breastfeeding? Was that what they were trying to go for?)

4 hours ago, Kirokan said:

Sometimes a liberal translation can seem odd when next to the more literal one, as you can see in the Tri-force Heroes article I made remarking on how NoE stayed close to the Japanese (while still flowing in English) against the "totes adorbs" English one. xD

If anything, I see the more liberal translation giving the game a bit more character (even if I do cringe at any use of the word "adorbs," and think they shouldn't have used a meme). Tri-force Heroes is a much sillier and lighthearted game than the rest of the series, and jokes like that contribute to the atmosphere. The NOE localization plays the whole thing more straight, when the concept in general is...a little out there (dressing up in costumes, silly emoticons and whatnot).

4 hours ago, Kirokan said:

The funny thing is, when it comes to good localizations, nothing really sticks out to me --which means I think I enjoy quite a few. When I think of "bad" localizations, I can think of a few here and there, mostly older era games as they are not really localized as much as they are translated (and not great ones, at that)... I usually look at isolated incidents of localization (see: all my Fates comparison articles on the blog), rather than a game as a whole.

Breath of Fire II is the travesty that sticks out in my mind, as well as "Devil Kings." The latter is a hack and slash game set in the Sengoku Era (its original name is Sengoku Basara)...and their idea of localizing it was removing every single Japanese reference in the game. The warlords got renamed with adjectives like "Cueball" and "Hornet," rather than their actual names, the map of Japan was changed to a generic, boring fantasy map... Like, really?! People in America know that Japan exists by now!

Urgh. At least we got Sengoku Basara 3 faithfully, as well as the anime and movie... except 2 is the best game and we didn't get 4 either

4 hours ago, Kirokan said:

On a related topic, I am not really a fan of memes for various reasons --but of course understand why one may use them. There is that certain ping we get when many of us felt in the earlier days, "Wow, did that game just acknowledge something from my own pop culture?" It was a sort of point of relation between fan and company. Of course with the internet and more exposure to a company (say, twitter), seeing them in games may be more redundant now. They're a complicated matter, but personally I would opt to not use them.

Not to mention, the use of memes does date a game considerably. When someone goes back to play the game in 5 - 10 years, and they see references like that, it often pulls them out of the experience and can impair their immersion within the game.

14 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

And to this, let me add that I prefer the no nude Ness thing in the American version. If Earthbound was a cultured novel, I'd have no problem with it. But video game players aren't necessarily going to have an adequately mature mindset.

About the nudity thing. I was reading a very interesting article on that - apparently, nudity in Japanese culture can be used to represent purity, as well as a character going through a metaphysical or spiritual transition or change. That's why you see so many transformation sequences in anime with characters shedding clothes, haha.

I see the Ness example as much of the same, considering he's wandering around his own subconscious mind, and (spoilers for those who haven't played Earthbound! it's an amazing game) at the end confronts the dark part of his mind, it only makes sense.

Obviously as that isn't a trope in the west, and westerners are much more sensitive to child nudity than the Japanese are in the first place, I think putting Ness in his pyjamas was a good change.

@hanhnn The actual Crusader is still named Sety in the localization. It's just Lewyn's son's name that was changed. Not to mention, Forseti is the name of the dragon and the tome, not the Crusader himself. Whoever wrote that is incorrect of the lore, first and foremost.
 

Edited by Extrasolar
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Who, or what, creates the meaning in a work of art?

The artist?

The people who look upon the art? 

The social and economic conditions prevalent when the art is made?

If the work of art is in translation, the translator?

With cliche, dare I say all of them?

What?! Waxing pathetically philosophical-poetic for no good reason?! Bah! Twas inspired by the above discussion!

Please put don't point that Killer Lance at me!

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13 hours ago, Extrasolar said:

Obviously as that isn't a trope in the west, and westerners are much more sensitive to child nudity than the Japanese are in the first place, I think putting Ness in his pyjamas was a good change.

Personally I don't think for the players nude or not nude make any difference. It's more like from an outside prospective(it's always from an outside prospective). I hardly find a player that will considering it as bad game because of nudity regardless their mature mindset. The game have so many questionable things to make silly the player point to the nudity.

Edited by SpearOfLies
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7 hours ago, SpearOfLies said:

Personally I don't think for the players nude or not nude make any difference. It's more like from an outside prospective(it's always from an outside prospective). I hardly find a player that will considering it as bad game because of nudity regardless their mature mindset. The game have so many questionable things to make silly the player point to the nudity.

I agree with you in that if the nudity had been in the English version, it wouldn't have turned people off completely from playing the game or had they declaring that the game was bad just because of that moment alone. And you're right that the game does have other "questionable" content (implied child abuse,  a crazy cult kidnapping a little girl, etc.), which is always funny that they choose to leave all that stuff intact but remove something like nudity. Weird American censorship standards. Hyper-sensitive to nudity, but allows gratuitous violence and the like. And then it's reversed in Japan a lot of the time. Lol.

I think it's more of a western taste. Western players generally don't want to see their 13-year-old protagonist in the nude, even if it makes sense as a wacky, strange mind world. Not to mention, I'm sure that parents would object to a nude character in a game - especially a game set in and released in the 90s, where video game censorship was much more common and they cracked down on a lot more.

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12 hours ago, Extrasolar said:

Weird American censorship standards. Hyper-sensitive to nudity, but allows gratuitous violence and the like. And then it's reversed in Japan a lot of the time. Lol.

Most of censorship standards is weird. That why I find most of censorship(within games, anime, manga and books)  stupid. 

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On 3/10/2017 at 11:06 PM, Extrasolar said:

Yeah, Henry from the original and Henry from the translation are for the most part completely different characters in that new Henry is played for laughs and is generally much more upbeat and silly. I'm not sure I like them rewriting character personalities as wholesale as they did with Henry's (unless you're dealing with a Kyza or a Devdan/Danved), but I can't deny that I adore new Henry and he is more popular in the west than he is in Japan. I'm honestly not sure if I would have liked original Henry's creepiness if he had been carried over.
 

Woot, I'm glad you popped in. I was wondering if you'd come. And yup, I read your article. Interesting stuff! (Going to spend more time going through the rest of your blog)

:^_^:

Also, I'm curious. What do the Japanese characters in your title above your avatar say?

That's me and Pit from Kid Icarus Uprising. Original Pit is very much wide-eyed, excitable and cute - very much a young child being played straight (and Dark Pit is less of a loner archetype and more just grumpy kid/male Tsundere). While English Pit is still excitable about certain things, he's much more deadpan and snarky, like a more traditional western hero. I can see why the change was made (westerners are less a fan of cutesy-style humor and characters) and Anthony Del Rio's Pit has me in stitches at various points in the game, but original Pit is adorable too!

Wow... I never knew about this one. Yeah, "Legendary Ninja Cats" and "Samurai Pizza Cats" are night and day... I take it that the English version is more of a gag dub than the original version? (Never watched it in either incarnation.)
 

Yeah...Wow, I can see why this one was changed, just based on the strange implications alone. (Older children and people still breastfeeding? Was that what they were trying to go for?)

If anything, I see the more liberal translation giving the game a bit more character (even if I do cringe at any use of the word "adorbs," and think they shouldn't have used a meme). Tri-force Heroes is a much sillier and lighthearted game than the rest of the series, and jokes like that contribute to the atmosphere. The NOE localization plays the whole thing more straight, when the concept in general is...a little out there (dressing up in costumes, silly emoticons and whatnot).

Breath of Fire II is the travesty that sticks out in my mind, as well as "Devil Kings." The latter is a hack and slash game set in the Sengoku Era (its original name is Sengoku Basara)...and their idea of localizing it was removing every single Japanese reference in the game. The warlords got renamed with adjectives like "Cueball" and "Hornet," rather than their actual names, the map of Japan was changed to a generic, boring fantasy map... Like, really?! People in America know that Japan exists by now!

Urgh. At least we got Sengoku Basara 3 faithfully, as well as the anime and movie... except 2 is the best game and we didn't get 4 either

Not to mention, the use of memes does date a game considerably. When someone goes back to play the game in 5 - 10 years, and they see references like that, it often pulls them out of the experience and can impair their immersion within the game.

About the nudity thing. I was reading a very interesting article on that - apparently, nudity in Japanese culture can be used to represent purity, as well as a character going through a metaphysical or spiritual transition or change. That's why you see so many transformation sequences in anime with characters shedding clothes, haha.

I see the Ness example as much of the same, considering he's wandering around his own subconscious mind, and (spoilers for those who haven't played Earthbound! it's an amazing game) at the end confronts the dark part of his mind, it only makes sense.

Obviously as that isn't a trope in the west, and westerners are much more sensitive to child nudity than the Japanese are in the first place, I think putting Ness in his pyjamas was a good change.

@hanhnn The actual Crusader is still named Sety in the localization. It's just Lewyn's son's name that was changed. Not to mention, Forseti is the name of the dragon and the tome, not the Crusader himself. Whoever wrote that is incorrect of the lore, first and foremost.
 

The Japanese title I have means "The Background Translator" as a reference to how I'm not exactly active ont he forums, but around and helping VincentASM and other fans with some FE translation or another. xD

I haven't seen "Samurai Pizza Cats" either, but know of it simply due to being so different. I believe the localized one is indeed a gag show though.

I assume you're a fan of Legends of Localization too? If not, you definitely should look at the site (and buy the books!)

Of course, regarding liberal translations. More character for Tri-Force Heroes is great --but perhaps a different way than "totes adorbs" xD

Yes, what you cited is often the reason to be against memes in localizations. It applies to references too that may be lost on players who play it later. I suppose the counter is that games are built for the "now" rather than to be "timeless" (though Nintendo games often aim for the second, from what I hear anyway...)

 

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The subject of translation interests me, so I've spent a lot of time reading about it and thinking how far translators should go with changes, and I've come to the conclusion... that I have no idea. It's a difficult and complicated question and I imagine the only proper answer is "it depends".

Personally I prefer translations to be faithful to the original material, but as a self-taught student of Japanese (I'm not very good - I still struggle with a lot of simple sentences, and my listening comprehension is two steps from zero), I know a 100% literal translation is just plain impossible. Japanese just has a different way of expressing so many things, and plenty of ways to add character to a sentence that just don't exist in English. While I've hardly attempted translation myself, I get the impression that doing it well requires creativity and writing talent. So I can hardly criticize something that isn't exactly the same as the source material.

So, then... it's a matter of what should be changed and when, I guess. All I really know is that I prefer erring on the side of faithfulness, but I admit that liberal translations can sometimes improve on the original, and I know I'd take a well-written but inaccurate translation over an awkwardly literal one any day.

Censorship is the biggest thing that bothers me. Name changes and the like don't much matter to me, but I don't like when content is altered or removed for fear of offending someone or getting in trouble with some authority... though I can understand why it sometimes has to be done. I just find it vaguely insulting, I guess. I used to have family insist on previewing everything and blacking out lines or making me skip certain parts before I could have it, so... I've had more than enough of that. Even if potentially offensive content isn't an important part of something, I'd just rather experience it how it originally was. Sometimes I don't think it's such a big deal, though; say, if a character uses a gesture that's harmless in one country and offensive in another, I can see an argument for why that should be changed.

Maybe I'll be good enough to get into fan translation one day, and see how it works for myself. Language and cultural differences are interesting in general, really.

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Correction on something: I mentioned that the Gintama anime was never dubbed and released to the west, except for the movie. Little did I know until yesterday! The latest series of 51 episodes (Gintama has had multiple series and multiple seasons) was, in fact, dubbed and released in the west. I was really interested to see how they'd handle this sort of thing (I actually never got the chance to read the manga before it was discontinued), so I watched a few episodes of the English dub and rewatched the same episodes in Japanese.

Watching it after having watched the Japanese versions is really interesting. A ton of Gintama's humor revolves around Japanese wordplay, Japanese sound effects, and the like, and their approach seems to just translate them straight and play them like they make sense in English too. (Granted, a lot of Gintama's humor is surreal to start off with, so they at least have that advantage to fall back on.) And in one of the episodes off the top of my head, the main character is trying to "teach" Japanese history to a young boy, and in the interest of making things interesting and/or screwing around a little bit, there's an entire wacky wordplay around Japanese mnemonics for remembering important dates of the Sengoku Era and earlier. It gets to the point where they degenerate into talking about apes with futuristic blaster guns and whatnot; I imagine this exchange was much, much funnier to a native Japanese person, and I'm sure that the wordplay with apes and guns made much more sense. Not only do we not have the language to do it justice, but we're not as familiar with the history.

Granted, I'm not sure how they could have changed this particular exchange with the visuals that pop up on screen and make it make sense, but not sure that copying and pasting was the best approach.
 

On 3/13/2017 at 9:59 PM, Phoenix_Kensai said:

Japanese just has a different way of expressing so many things, and plenty of ways to add character to a sentence that just don't exist in English. While I've hardly attempted translation myself, I get the impression that doing it well requires creativity and writing talent. So I can hardly criticize something that isn't exactly the same as the source material.

Yeah, this has always been the most fascinating part of this whole thing for me. Just...the writing choices that localizers make in trying to get the same "feeling" that the Japanese text has across in English, despite English lacking a ton of the nuances and conventions commonly used in Japanese. It's really difficult to do, and add on top of that limited space and/or limited mouth movements, and the job becomes a whole lot harder.
 

On 3/13/2017 at 9:59 PM, Phoenix_Kensai said:

So, then... it's a matter of what should be changed and when, I guess. All I really know is that I prefer erring on the side of faithfulness, but I admit that liberal translations can sometimes improve on the original, and I know I'd take a well-written but inaccurate translation over an awkwardly literal one any day.

Going off of this, one thing I distinctly remember is Final Fantasy VI's localization. For the most part, due to space constraints of the text boxes, they most often rewrote the dialogue from the ground up, taking cues from the Japanese version, but not really being based off of it. The main villain Kefka's change in personality in the localization from the original was hugely, hugely well-received (for those that don't know, he basically got changed to something of an unstable, unpredictable DC comics Joker-type character, rather than the childish and bratty character he had in the original) in the west, which left Japanese FF fans puzzled, since to him he was more obnoxious than outright threatening or scary. It got to the point that even Japanese Kefka had his personality rewritten to reflect the localization's change in subsequent FF material in which he appeared. That's not something that happens all that often, to be sure.
 

On 3/12/2017 at 4:15 PM, Kirokan said:

I assume you're a fan of Legends of Localization too? If not, you definitely should look at the site (and buy the books!)

Yup! I credit Legends of Localization with getting me interested in translation/localization and such in the first place, because I remember how mind-boggling it was for me that games as simple and light on text as the original Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. had things changed within on the journey from Japan to America. (As an aside, I always wonder why they removed the references to SMB in the original Zelda, with Manhandla said to be a mutated Piranha Plant - or Pakkun Flower, in the original.) The EarthBound examination is what really got me hooked on the site, since that game in particular is one of my favorites. I knew about stuff like the octopus statues to the pencil statues, but there was plenty of dialogue and small changes I had no idea about.

Not to mention, I really admire the host of that site just for Mother 3's amazing fan translation. If I didn't know any better, I'd assume it was the official one, but then again, that site's host has worked professionally as a translator/localizer before, so I suppose it just makes sense.
 

On 3/12/2017 at 4:15 PM, Kirokan said:

Of course, regarding liberal translations. More character for Tri-Force Heroes is great --but perhaps a different way than "totes adorbs" xD

Yes, what you cited is often the reason to be against memes in localizations. It applies to references too that may be lost on players who play it later. I suppose the counter is that games are built for the "now" rather than to be "timeless" (though Nintendo games often aim for the second, from what I hear anyway...)

Agreed. Half of me feels like that was written in by a middle-aged executive out of touch with the times and what people actually speak like or type like. That wasn't even a thing people used commonly, unless people were using it ironically.

And yeah, Nintendo's made a name for itself on timeless games...I don't know why they suddenly feel the need to dip into the "oh hey, look at us, we're cool and hip with the kids too!" market... Eh, I guess the invention and takeoff of the internet is partially to blame. I know it's their idea of forcing in a joke, but they fail to realize that memes on their own aren't really funny. It's all about the context.
 

On 3/13/2017 at 9:59 PM, Phoenix_Kensai said:

I just find it vaguely insulting, I guess. I used to have family insist on previewing everything and blacking out lines or making me skip certain parts before I could have it, so... I've had more than enough of that. Even if potentially offensive content isn't an important part of something, I'd just rather experience it how it originally was.

Wow, your family did that? Talk about moral guardians, haha. Mine was never that...extreme, and for the most part I was only interested in things aimed at my age group. But then again, my mother who knows nothing about video games or the ESRB also bought me Conker's Bad Fur Day back when I was a kid because she thought the characters on the box art looked cute, and was shocked to find out there was (bleeped, but still there) swearing in it...though she didn't stick around long enough to find out about all of the other content that was in it. She just told me to play the game with the sound muted. Lol.

But that speaks of another problem - when cartoons/cutesy style things are assumed to automatically be kid stuff, no matter what the actual rating says.
 

On 3/13/2017 at 9:59 PM, Phoenix_Kensai said:

Language and cultural differences are interesting in general, really.

Definitely agree on this. That's why I wanted to start this topic. ^.^

Edited by Extrasolar
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I might just be repeating some stuff since I haven't read everything in the thread since it's fairly long right now, but... to sum it up I'm all for localisation, but I don't like censorship. It also annoys me how some people who say they are against censorship just ends up throwing all localisation under the bus. 

I just find that some changes has to be made to make certain works work in a different cultural context. You shouldn't have to sit with a dictionary or google at the ready while playing a game and it's up to the localisation that all those things are understandable. Then there is the question of things like puns, expressions and certain phrases that just doesn't translate without a load of translators notes and in my opinion you have failed if you have to include them. I also don't mind light cosmetic changes like redone names, it's usually because the original name sounds awkward/silly when directly carried over (or in FEs case, they have screwed themselves over and already used the name for another character). And sometimes these cosmetic changes might just be the localisation adding some flavour that wasn't there in the original, but as long as it's about adding things, I don't think it's a bad thing.

What I have a problem with is when things are just plain removed (looking at you extended RD script) or when the change is to hide something from the original. I've also seen fan translations that were clearly biased against certain characters adding in lines to cast them in a bad light and that's just plain unprofessional.

The thing with translation though is that there is no way you can carry over the original meaning 100% and still have it not be a mangled mess of extra notes and explanation that doesn't sound like flowing text at all. I think you have to keep in mind any localisation is going to be different from the source, but just because something is different doesn't mean that it is bad. I saw someone brought up Ace Attorney and I love that series, complete failure to set it in America an all. But as a result of all the changes it means that Ace Attorney ends up being a different game than Gyakuten Saiban (the name of the series in Japan). But what some people doesn't seem to realise is that different doesn't automatically mean inferior. It's really just a matter of taste.

Also something that doesn't get brought up much is how voice acting and directing can change a lot in localisation too. Like in the case of Virtue's Last Reward the actual lines aren't really changed aside from making them flow better and come off as more natural but they changed Phi from being a subdued monotone to being a deadpan snarker and Tenmyouji was changed from a feeble old man to a gruff old man. The villain was also changed to having a really hyper voice and throwing in accents and being really over the top in the delivery and it works really, really well. You can tell the voice actress is having a blast and the character is super fun to listen to. 

And some things are just plain untranslatable, this example is a major spoiler for Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors so under a cut 

Spoiler

But a major plot point is that in the Japanese version the characters are told in a recording to find a door with a 9 on it. It turns out in the end, that they were actually told to find a door with a q on it, this is because 9 and q are both pronounced as kyu in Japanese. Obviously this doesn't work in English so it was changed to all characters getting a handwritten letter with the instructions and thus just misreading it since nine and lower case q look really similar.

The fact that there are people out there that would call this change censorship because they are so enamoured with the idea that any change from the source is bad plain baffles me.

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On 3/11/2017 at 11:06 AM, Extrasolar said:

@hanhnn The actual Crusader is still named Sety in the localization. It's just Lewyn's son's name that was changed. Not to mention, Forseti is the name of the dragon and the tome, not the Crusader himself. Whoever wrote that is incorrect of the lore, first and foremost.
 

I have no idea how Sety and Ced could not use the same set of characters in the same game.

The translator must be some real genius of all time.

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2 hours ago, hanhnn said:

I have no idea how Sety and Ced could not use the same set of characters in the same game.

The translator must be some real genius of all time.

Because the localizers thought that it would be confusing having Sety the Crusader and Sety the son of Lewyn at the same time? (Granted, it does take a way a bit of continuity, but imo it's not the worst thing ever they could have done.)

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On 15/3/2017 at 9:41 PM, Extrasolar said:

Because the localizers thought that it would be confusing having Sety the Crusader and Sety the son of Lewyn at the same time? (Granted, it does take a way a bit of continuity, but imo it's not the worst thing ever they could have done.)

The practice of naming someone after a famous ancestor is quite common, in knowledge if not in practice, I doubt it was because of that.

Edited by Acacia Sgt
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1 hour ago, Acacia Sgt said:

The practice of naming someone after a famous ancestor is quite common, I doubt it was because of that.

Oh, yeah, in-universe and in other stories it is. But the localization teams seem to be concerned with characters having the same name - they change them so that they don't. That's why we're getting Leon instead of Leo in Echoes. They didn't want the Crusader and his descendant having the same name, to avert potential confusion.

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1 minute ago, Extrasolar said:

Oh, yeah, in-universe and in other stories it is. But the localization teams seem to be concerned with characters having the same name - they change them so that they don't. That's why we're getting Leon instead of Leo in Echoes. They didn't want the Crusader and his descendant having the same name, to avert potential confusion.

And yet, we have Arthur and Arthur.

If you ask me, the answer may instead be one that doesn't underestimate the audience's capacity of avoiding name mix-ups. Because, once again, people do understand the concept of naming people after ancestors.

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The one instance in gaming that pops in my mind wherein the name of a mythological/famed person is actually used for a normal person, something common in reality but lacking in video games, is in Tales of Symphonia. But...

Spoiler

Despite Raine saying Mithos is a common boy's name. The only character you ever see with the name is in fact the actual legendary Mithos himself trying to get intel on the heroes by pretending to be a tragic naive boy.

 

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Just now, Acacia Sgt said:

And yet, we have Arthur and Arthur.

If you ask me, the answer may instead be one that doesn't underestimate the audience's capacity of avoiding name mix-ups. Because, once again, people do understand the concept of naming people after ancestors.

Arthur and Artur. Very similar, but still different. Even with a guy they gave the technically same name, they still differentiate it in writing - Aran (and he's a very minor character in the scheme of things) and Arran. Similar, but still differentiated.

Sety and Sety can be, and whenever you mentioned one you'd have to clarify. I'm not saying assuming the audience can't handle the same name on different characters is good, but in any creative anything (I'm at art school to be an animator right now), you're taught to assume that the audience are morons, and that if something isn't made obvious, they'll miss it or misunderstand it. Any potential confusing thing needs to be clarified, or else it could ruin someone's experience. And that's the last thing you want.

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Just now, Extrasolar said:

Arthur and Artur. Very similar, but still different. Even with a guy they gave the technically same name, they still differentiate it in writing - Aran (and he's a very minor character in the scheme of things) and Arran. Similar, but still differentiated.

Sety and Sety can be, and whenever you mentioned one you'd have to clarify. I'm not saying assuming the audience can't handle the same name on different characters is good, but in any creative anything (I'm at art school to be an animator right now), you're taught to assume that the audience are morons, and that if something isn't made obvious, they'll miss it or misunderstand it. Any potential confusing thing needs to be clarified, or else it could ruin someone's experience. And that's the last thing you want.

No, Artur is a different character, from Sacred Stones. Arthur is a Genealogy character, and Arthur is a Fates character.

Unless Sety the crusader and Sety the descendant ever appear alive next to each other, confusion is easy to avoid. Because if only one is ever around, who is really ever going to get confused?

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5 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

No, Artur is a different charater, from Sacred Stones. Arthur is a Genealogy character, and Arthur is a Fates character.

Unless Sety the crusader and Sety the descendant ever appear alive next to each other, confusion is easy to avoid. Because if only one is ever around, who is really ever going to get confused?

My mistake. You're right about that. It seems like they're concerned with changing names most of the time, but for some reason made an exception for Arthur. Not sure why - maybe it's because of how comparatively obscure Genealogy is in the west, so they knew that most newer FE fans or FE fans who have only played the western games would have no idea who the old Arthur is. With Aran and Arran, if they had just called them both "Aran," then someone could get confused because both SD and RD did receive a western release.

Well, every time "Sety" the Crusader is mentioned in dialogue or narration, unless they want to attach "the Crusader" to his name every time he's mentioned, someone with little knowledge of FE4 story or FE in general could assume they're talking about the descendant, or vice versa. I'm not saying that everyone would be confused or that everyone is a moron, but you're taught to adjust for those people. They're both green-haired mages who wield the Forseti tome, so I can see someone who's only casually interested in the story or who hasn't perused the story in-depth getting confused. Sure, one is long-dead, but if someone just says "Wind Mage Sety" they could either be talking about the crusader of the descendant.

Further context would flesh it out, but a lot of people miss that too, or skip past it.

Edited by Extrasolar
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