Can we just get faithful localizations?

[Mabufudyne]

Look, all I'm asking for is localizations that are faithful to the original script and writer's intentions. Can american localizers just keep dialogue as faithful as possible, note "as possible", to the original script without turning characters into sitcom jokesters and butchering their characterization? Can they refrain from adding unnecessary fluff and purple prose to "flex" their writing skills?

I'm not even complaining about "politics in games" which is something many people complain about like the pronoun scene with the golem. I am simply asking for dialogue that is faithful to the original work's intention.

If you're on the fence about it, look up the credits for the game and other works on which the people credited for "english core scenario translation" worked. These "industry veterans" have been doing this for a long time.

[Sayo]

You're asking for a translator. Not a localizer.

/thread

[Llyes]

Originally posted by Sayo:

You're asking for a translator. Not a localizer.

/thread

Is there a problem with that, and if there is such a danger to western sensibilities without it, doesn't that speak to a much larger issue?

[Mabufudyne]

Originally posted by Sayo:

You're asking for a translator. Not a localizer.

/thread

the profession of "translator" has merged with the concept of "localization" for at least two decades as evidenced by the academic publications on the subject. the act of translating itself implies "localizing" a message from one language to a target language. I know, I have studied translation studies and audiovisual localization at university level.

I'm asking translators/localizers to stop adding sitcom level "jokes" to japanese games because, as they put it, "japanese is a language of nuance that doesn't work like english does"

[Zephyr Workshop]

Bleach had a barely adapted localization for a huge portion of its run and it sucked. Sometimes characters would basically be speaking in Japanese at you since at some point, they stopped translating sword summon commands, attack names, and names of important objects and places. It was awful and soulless.

The game is full of "sitcom-level jokes" in japanese too, but you don't seem to care and put the original script on some sort of untouchable pedestal, when it's the equivalent of a goofy fantasy YA novel. The English script is great and does all the characters and events justice, even after the nitpicking. Hope you can enjoy it some time soon.

[Llyes]

Originally posted by Zephyr Workshop:

Bleach had a barely adapted localization for a huge portion of its run and it sucked. Sometimes characters would basically be speaking in Japanese at you since at some point, they stopped translating sword summon commands, attack names, and names of important objects and places. It was awful and soulless.

The game is full of "sitcom-level jokes" in japanese too, but you don't seem to care and put the original script on some sort of untouchable pedestal, when it's the equivalent of a goofy fantasy YA novel. The English script is great and does all the characters and events justice, even after the nitpicking. Hope you can enjoy it some time soon.

Didn't Bleach have fifty years of filler or something that caused that issue? I'm not sure that leaving the attack names in Japanese was the issue, as some of those actually don't translate at all or are pure poetry.
Let us have the goofy original jokes and judge for ourselves, changing it all on a whim is disrespectful either way.

[The_Box]

Originally posted by Llyes:

Originally posted by Zephyr Workshop:

Bleach had a barely adapted localization for a huge portion of its run and it sucked. Sometimes characters would basically be speaking in Japanese at you since at some point, they stopped translating sword summon commands, attack names, and names of important objects and places. It was awful and soulless.

The game is full of "sitcom-level jokes" in japanese too, but you don't seem to care and put the original script on some sort of untouchable pedestal, when it's the equivalent of a goofy fantasy YA novel. The English script is great and does all the characters and events justice, even after the nitpicking. Hope you can enjoy it some time soon.

Didn't Bleach have fifty years of filler or something that caused that issue? I'm not sure that leaving the attack names in Japanese was the issue, as some of those actually don't translate at all or are pure poetry.
Let us have the goofy original jokes and judge for ourselves, changing it all on a whim is disrespectful either way.

The problem is that those 'goofy original jokes' oft times won't work in English, just like a great many English goofy jokes would never work in Japanese. It wouldn't make any sense. Again, this is literally why localization exists. If you want a 'faithful translation' cool. It's actually easier than ever with stuff like Google Lens and automatic screen translators. Play the game in Japanese, with Japanese VA, and just let Google Lens translate the lot of it for you.

If that's what you want, there are a lot of very, very easy ways to get it.

[Llyes]

Originally posted by The_Box:

Originally posted by Llyes:

Didn't Bleach have fifty years of filler or something that caused that issue? I'm not sure that leaving the attack names in Japanese was the issue, as some of those actually don't translate at all or are pure poetry.
Let us have the goofy original jokes and judge for ourselves, changing it all on a whim is disrespectful either way.

The problem is that those 'goofy original jokes' oft times won't work in English, just like a great many English goofy jokes would never work in Japanese. It wouldn't make any sense. Again, this is literally why localization exists. If you want a 'faithful translation' cool. It's actually easier than ever with stuff like Google Lens and automatic screen translators. Play the game in Japanese, with Japanese VA, and just let Google Lens translate the lot of it for you.

If that's what you want, there are a lot of very, very easy ways to get it.

Oddly some games can pull it off, I did recommend somnium files for a reason, it is a very silly game, with very silly jokes, and there were very few they didn't manage to adapt, and those that they couldn't due to no equivalents in English puns, they got as close as they could. You are way too loose with these sweeping generalizations of yours. All people ask is once again, don't write your own personal fanfiction, and translate the game.

[Zephyr Workshop]

Originally posted by Llyes:

Originally posted by Zephyr Workshop:

Bleach had a barely adapted localization for a huge portion of its run and it sucked. Sometimes characters would basically be speaking in Japanese at you since at some point, they stopped translating sword summon commands, attack names, and names of important objects and places. It was awful and soulless.

The game is full of "sitcom-level jokes" in japanese too, but you don't seem to care and put the original script on some sort of untouchable pedestal, when it's the equivalent of a goofy fantasy YA novel. The English script is great and does all the characters and events justice, even after the nitpicking. Hope you can enjoy it some time soon.

Didn't Bleach have fifty years of filler or something that caused that issue? I'm not sure that leaving the attack names in Japanese was the issue, as some of those actually don't translate at all or are pure poetry.
Let us have the goofy original jokes and judge for ourselves, changing it all on a whim is disrespectful either way.

counterpoint: yu yu hakusho's dub rewrote the entire script and it's the best dub of all time, while still being incredibly faithful to all the characters and the story

not going to do this again for the 5000th time, but the concept of a "faithful localization" is a myth. if a character makes a little pun based on a kanji homophone or a japanese idiom, and translate it directly, it will sound bizarre and not make any sense in context with the characters or story. you'll also likely lose the nuance.

In one of the many impotent complaints about Unicorn Overlord's stellar translation, people on twitter complained that Josef said something about being "rounded up like fish" in English. Upon further inspection in Japanese, this was actually accurate, since whatever obscure kanji they used had a double entendre meaning. But it "wasn't accurate because the words were different!" so people complained.

The same thing happened with Shoko in Neo TWEWY. The whole premise of her character is to be punky and rude, which manifests in different ways in English than it does in Japanese. Twitter trolls tried to pull the "but the words in the bubbles are different" ♥♥♥♥ here too, even though that game's loc was also incredibly good.

Japanese and English may as well be languages from different planets. They're structured completely differently and come from an entirely different culture. You can't just directly MachineTL ♥♥♥♥ or else the point the Japanese had will likely not come across. That's right - if you directly translate things and make the English-speaking character sound like a weirdo, that is also a perversion of the original narrative intent.

I have no desire to actually look into this, but I'm assuming things like Lian's annoying babytalk during the tutorial was because she calls him Nowa-chan in Japanese, or something like that. So the point of her being annoyingly cute-condescending came through.

anyway that's another waste of my life that no one will read, so RIP me

[Llyes]

Originally posted by Zephyr Workshop:

Originally posted by Llyes:

Didn't Bleach have fifty years of filler or something that caused that issue? I'm not sure that leaving the attack names in Japanese was the issue, as some of those actually don't translate at all or are pure poetry.
Let us have the goofy original jokes and judge for ourselves, changing it all on a whim is disrespectful either way.

counterpoint: yu yu hakusho's dub rewrote the entire script and it's the best dub of all time, while still being incredibly faithful to all the characters and the story

not going to do this again for the 5000th time, but the concept of a "faithful localization" is a myth. if a character makes a little pun based on a kanji homophone or a japanese idiom, and translate it directly, it will sound bizarre and not make any sense in context with the characters or story. you'll also likely lose the nuance.

In one of the many impotent complaints about Unicorn Overlord's stellar translation, people on twitter complained that Josef said something about rounded up like fish in English. Upon further inspection in Japanese, this was actually accurate, since whatever obscure kanji they used had a double entendre meaning. But it "wasn't accurate because the words were different!" so people complained.

The same thing happened with Shoko in Neo TWEWY. The whole premise of her character is to be punky and rude, which manifests in different ways in English than it does in Japanese. Twitter trolls tried to pull the "but the words in the bubbles are different" ♥♥♥♥ here too, even though that game's loc was also incredibly good.

Japanese and English may as well be languages from different planets. They're structured completely differently and come from an entirely different culture. You can't just directly MachineTL ♥♥♥♥ or else the point the Japanese had will likely not come across. That's right - if you directly translate things and make the English-speaking character sound like a weirdo, that is also a perversion of the original narrative intent.

I have no desire to actually look into this, but I'm assuming things like Lian's annoying babytalk during the tutorial was because she calls him Nowa-chan in Japanese, or something like that. So the point of her being annoyingly cute-condescending came through.

anyway that's another waste of my life that no one will read, so RIP me

I'm glad you are able to find these fringe examples, however you characterized yu yu hackusho as faithful to the characters, and that is one of the primary complaints here, they arent't paritcularly respectful of some of the characters at all.

Unicorn Overlord's main weakness is the insertion of flowery prose when the original was fairly straightforward, however I can't say the original was any great work of art, and certainly no 13 sentinels in terms of complexity, so there weren't a great many people that cared, and as a new IP it didn't have any expectations set. It still wasn't a perfectly respectful translation though.

once again, good translations occur and this isn't one of them. Like somnium

[Mabufudyne]

Originally posted by Zephyr Workshop:

Originally posted by Llyes:

Didn't Bleach have fifty years of filler or something that caused that issue? I'm not sure that leaving the attack names in Japanese was the issue, as some of those actually don't translate at all or are pure poetry.
Let us have the goofy original jokes and judge for ourselves, changing it all on a whim is disrespectful either way.

counterpoint: yu yu hakusho's dub rewrote the entire script and it's the best dub of all time, while still being incredibly faithful to all the characters and the story

not going to do this again for the 5000th time, but the concept of a "faithful localization" is a myth. if a character makes a little pun based on a kanji homophone or a japanese idiom, and translate it directly, it will sound bizarre and not make any sense in context with the characters or story. you'll also likely lose the nuance.

In one of the many impotent complaints about Unicorn Overlord's stellar translation, people on twitter complained that Josef said something about being "rounded up like fish" in English. Upon further inspection in Japanese, this was actually accurate, since whatever obscure kanji they used had a double entendre meaning. But it "wasn't accurate because the words were different!" so people complained.

The same thing happened with Shoko in Neo TWEWY. The whole premise of her character is to be punky and rude, which manifests in different ways in English than it does in Japanese. Twitter trolls tried to pull the "but the words in the bubbles are different" ♥♥♥♥ here too, even though that game's loc was also incredibly good.

Japanese and English may as well be languages from different planets. They're structured completely differently and come from an entirely different culture. You can't just directly MachineTL ♥♥♥♥ or else the point the Japanese had will likely not come across. That's right - if you directly translate things and make the English-speaking character sound like a weirdo, that is also a perversion of the original narrative intent.

I have no desire to actually look into this, but I'm assuming things like Lian's annoying babytalk during the tutorial was because she calls him Nowa-chan in Japanese, or something like that. So the point of her being annoyingly cute-condescending came through.

anyway that's another waste of my life that no one will read, so RIP me

You just proved what I always say about lowcowlizer defenders. You always fall back on "japanese works differently than english so the localizers have to take extreme liberties when translating".

Tell me how, in any way whatsover, a character saying "This is bad, really really bad" being localized as "Sweet sugar toast, this is dire" is example of, as you said it, "young adult novel humor being localized to english".

You are being intentionally dishonest in trying to paint everyone who disapproves of this botched localization as le evil chuds who hate the woke ghosts ruining their game.

[SimranZenov]

Mod the game, or wait for mods.

The devs will never change it, nor should they. It's fine as is.

[Polantaris]

Originally posted by SimranZenov:

Mod the game, or wait for mods.

The devs will never change it, nor should they. It's fine as is.

I wish someone would mod the UI and handle an *actual* problem in this game instead of flooding the forums with crying about the localization.

[archonsod]

Originally posted by Mabufudyne:

You just proved what I always say about lowcowlizer defenders. You always fall back on "japanese works differently than english so the localizers have to take extreme liberties when translating".

That's because it's true.

There's a pretty obvious example early in the game when you first meet Seign. There's a distinction drawn between the Empire and League in the way both he and Hildi utilise formal Japanese while your party are much more informal both towards Seign and Hildi and with each other.
It's pretty easy to do in Japanese since the difference is largely a question of particle use and verb form. In most cases the 'o ... masu' lines would translate to the same English line with or without the keigo. In English of course we can't do that, in fact there's not really a clear distinction between formal and informal English; most of the time formal simply refers to 'proper' English while informal covers dialect and slang; in fact most of the time the only difference between polite and impolite English is the level of swearing.
So how would you propose a translator handle that scene without either rewriting large parts of the dialogue or simply losing the distinction between the two groups entirely?

[Dex]

Play the game in Japanese if you want the "real" experience.

[Vextor]

Originally posted by Dex:

Play the game in Japanese if you want the "real" experience.

Basically what I always do with games (or movies). I can't possibly enjoy a Japan-developed game in English and vice versa because things will always be missed.

You have some rare game scenario writers like Yuji Horii who use extremely basic Japanese which would be easier to translate literally into English, but if the original Japanese has a bunch of Japanese specific grammatical features, it can make things really hard. For example, there are various levels for formality in Japanese, which is almost like a separate dialect on its own, and there are 3 or 4 separate levels of formality that exist.

It seems in Eiyuden the localization dealt with that by giving characters accents or archetypal vocabulary for characters like Perrielle and Janquis who can use quite formal Japanese in the Japanese version. In cases like those, things can get messy.