Localizers are still trash, as expected

[retsa2b]

As usual, they're discarding the original dialogue so they can make up new lines. Didn't take long at all to spot examples.

Like when Kasuga is talking to the punk after he got his money back for him, the subs say, "Well, that all depends on you." Whereas what he spoke in Japanese was, "I will of course do my very utmost (to help)."

Looking forward to another RGG game filled with moments where the only defense against their localizing team's penchant for reinventing dialogue is for the player to understand enough Japanese to muscle through that bull----.

[Some Random Guy]

Chapter 6
Just saw a cutscene where Yamai calls Kiryu "densetsu no gokudo", basically meaning "legendary yakuza", but the subtitles said "legendary dragon". Why? That's literally not what he said, and the original line would've been perfectly fine. It's a minor thing but it really irks me wondering why they would even change something like that

[nobalkain]

Originally posted by Some Random Guy:

Chapter 6
Just saw a cutscene where Yamai calls Kiryu "densetsu no gokudo", basically meaning "legendary yakuza", but the subtitles said "legendary dragon". Why? That's literally not what he said, and the original line would've been perfectly fine. It's a minor thing but it really irks me wondering why they would even change something like that

Because one would be considered as "Glorifying" a Criminal, the other does not. Its stupid, but its what people that make these Changes think. They need to "protect" us from Bad Think after all.

[Splinter of Chaos]

Similar to the discussion about about how people heard "arigatou" and had to raise their eyebrows about how "thank you" wasn't in the translation, I feel like it'd be even weirder to hear a character say "gokudo" (ごくどう--極道?) and translate it to a Japanese word like "Yakuza" which the character definitely didn't say.

I'm not playing in English so I can't verify, and also I'm not that far yet, but were there other instances of them toning down that kind of thing in the translation?

[retsa2b]

Originally posted by Splinter of Chaos:

I feel like it'd be even weirder to hear a character say "gokudo" (ごくどう--極道?) and translate it to a Japanese word like "Yakuza" which the character definitely didn't say.

This is fine. It falls into the category of localizing. 0.01% of the non-Japanese audience knows what that word means, but it's fundamentally the same thing as a word that everyone DOES know. The meaning was preserved; no important content or nuance was discarded; nothing new was fabricated without a good reason; and it's even the same amount of wordage. Those are the things worth considering when scrutinizing a localization for whether or not it's sh--.

[M1k3ol]

Originally posted by Splinter of Chaos:

Side note: On localizers not knowing Japanese: There are typically translators, but voice actors are also "localizers". I don't think knowing Japanese should be required in order to read a script produced by a translator. When people talk about localizers not knowing Japanese, I find most of the time they're talking about voice actors.

nope, they're talking about the people that adapt the scripts and dialogues, not voice actors

some of them have been found to openly admit to not know the language at all, which is egregious to me...even machine translation would be better in that case, that's how we got fan translations of old games almost 2 decades ago anyways

we had this same problem in LATAM back at the end of the 80s during the original translation of Dragonball (the first one, before Z), Saint Seiya and Sailor Moon, people working scripts and deciding changes and names without knowing proper Japanese, if we were lucky, we got a good to regular translation thanks to it coming from an European country that did it (France or Germany)

How it got corrected?, someone was put in charge with proper knowledge of the language (someone that lived as exchange student in Japan) and that took the translations effort and work in a serious and professional way

one anecdote was how she confronted the 2 persons that were selected to work on Sailor Moon script when she came back to the station after some months out, by simply casually start basic conversation with them in Japanese, both persons went out of the building never to be seen again that same day after it

That's how LATAM was lucky to maintain Dragonball's techniques' original names, there's no "Destructo disc", it's kienzan just like Japan (which sounds awesome with the voice actors that did it)

That's why the controversy about translations is not making waves here, first of all we never depended on the USA translators, and secondly, we already passed through this same issue 30y ago it's past history now and there's no discussion, proper knowledge of the language is necessary to work it and that's it

[K-nowdq]

I think the translators are woke and that's a huge problem.

[metal_hamster]

Sad to see the game has been butchered. Damn, I was hoping this series would be safe from this nonsense. Apparently not.

[retsa2b]

Decided to occasionally pop in and drop some of the particularly egregious specimens of localizing when I see them as I make my way through the game. Let's start with this (timestamp 4:35:30):

https://youtu.be/oyoYvf75_Cc?t=16530

Spoken: 親っさんが愛したっていう茜さんの所へ。
Rough localization: To the home of Akane, whom you loved.

The given subtitles: Really, it's more about paying my respects to the woman the boss loved.

My face still has a bruise from where my hand reflexively and violently facepalmed it.

[qberry22]

Originally posted by K-nowdq:

I think the translators are woke and that's a huge problem.

i think people with limited critical thinking throw the word 'woke' around whenever they don't like something and that's a huge problem.

[Little Strawberry]

Originally posted by Tracido:

Me: Never ever in the history of gaming since the PS2 have I played these games with English, on purpose.

Well, that doesn't matter anymore, because they're not making the games for their own market anymore; they specifically make not only semantic changes, but also content changes to align with the puritan american values of a minority.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYBgKm0A3xU

Originally posted by qberry22:

i think people with limited critical thinking throw the word 'woke' around whenever they don't like something and that's a huge problem.

I used to dislike it too, but the fact is that "neo-puritan U.S. cultural imperialism" isn't as concise as "woke" is.

[RTSsence]

Originally posted by Some Random Guy:

Chapter 6
Just saw a cutscene where Yamai calls Kiryu "densetsu no gokudo", basically meaning "legendary yakuza", but the subtitles said "legendary dragon". Why? That's literally not what he said, and the original line would've been perfectly fine. It's a minor thing but it really irks me wondering why they would even change something like that

Because that's a reference to his status title as well as being interchangable? Besides, it's not like similar instances are found within the rest of the series or anything... Really not an example to be used for what you're complaining about.

[Uncle Disco]

Meanwhile I don't understand Japanese and I'm just having a fun time playing my silly little game.

[zombo.com enthusiast]

Originally posted by retsa2b:

Spoken: 親っさんが愛したっていう茜さんの所へ。
Rough localization: To the home of Akane, whom you loved.

The given subtitles: Really, it's more about paying my respects to the woman the boss loved.

My face still has a bruise from where my hand reflexively and violently facepalmed it.

This just looks like standard rewording for length and context. Like, man... if you tried doing this kind of line-by-line comparison for a Murakami novel or something you'd probably have an aneurysm.

[archonsod]

Originally posted by retsa2b:

In the Japanese, Frieren sounds about as young as she looks

Frieren's VA is 33. Flamme's VA is 61. So yes, it sounds like an older woman having a conversation with a younger woman because that's exactly what's happening (and fair play to Atsuko Tanaka, she does an amazing job at covering both young and old Flamme). I don't think Frieren sounds as young as she looks though; she looks like an adolescent; she sounds like an adult woman. I haven't actually seen the English dub, but it's Crunchyroll so my expectations would be fairly low to begin with.

Originally posted by Some Random Guy:

Chapter 6
Just saw a cutscene where Yamai calls Kiryu "densetsu no gokudo", basically meaning "legendary yakuza", but the subtitles said "legendary dragon". Why? That's literally not what he said, and the original line would've been perfectly fine. It's a minor thing but it really irks me wondering why they would even change something like that

It's a prime example of the problem. Gokudo doesn't translate to yakuza, it'd be more accurate to translate it as mischief-maker or bad person. How you convert that to English is therefore tricky, since we lack the context (part of this is cultural; calling someone something to their face, whether that's yakuza or fat, is incredibly direct and generally not done unless you either really want to disrespect them or you've been married to them for a decade or so). "Legendary Yakuza" works, but it's missing nuance (not to mention it may well cause legal issues for the game in Japan). Something along the lines of "legendary bad-ass" or "legendary trouble maker" could also work though you're adding in context from the Western sense that isn't necessarily there in the Japanese. In all three cases you're not writing what was actually said. The original line isn't suitable because the use of gokudo in this sense is slang to begin with. A literal translation is 'guru', and I don't think Kiryu is being referred to as a legendary religious figure.

[Splinter of Chaos]

Originally posted by the ghost of waseda bear:

Originally posted by retsa2b:

Spoken: 親っさんが愛したっていう茜さんの所へ。
Rough localization: To the home of Akane, whom you loved.

The given subtitles: Really, it's more about paying my respects to the woman the boss loved.

My face still has a bruise from where my hand reflexively and violently facepalmed it.

This just looks like standard rewording for length and context. Like, man... if you tried doing this kind of line-by-line comparison for a Murakami novel or something you'd probably have an aneurysm.

I'd say this line is more debatable. I feel like the English localizers wanted to clarify Ichiban's intentions and indeed, his motivations here are a little complex, but it does feel a little bit forced for me. A part also missing from the translation is that I feel っていう might be marking hearse here.

I'd say the line's not perfect, but I really don't think it's that bad, though.

archonsod, thanks for that analysis. I wasn't familiar with gokudou myself, but that was kind of the impression I got when I looked it up.