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I don't know how to put this without coming off as an apologist for the typical westoid looocalizor revisionism that happens on a regular basis (no matter how much the kind of people who unironically call others "chuds" on twitter try to deny it) but in this case, and speaking as someone who does speak japanese, there is no mention or anything to even give the slightest hint as for what the MC's gender is, in fact, it's kinda written in a way to purposefully go around it.
The "he" that showed up in the one place on a website or social media account honestly seems like an MTL blunder, because from the way the japanese text is written, it's plainly obvious they want Tooru to be whatever gender you want him/her to be so everyone can kinda self insert, emphasized by the total lack of secondary sex characteristics. It's not like that's a new thing for japanese games whatsoever.
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The fact the MC uses 僕 doesn't mean anything since every tomboy character since ever uses that too, and if the guy I just quotes WAS japanese he'd know that, so it's a grifter who's trying to sell you on some culture war ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
You guys are all collectively falling for outrage bait.
Nothing to do with twitter:
is about avoid supporting "toxic tourists" and "cultural hijackers". The only "toxic tourists"* are those supporting "localisers", and the political groups and corporations behind them.
In case you want to overcome your assumptions about this topic, the concept of "localiser" was created to replace and push away the role of a translator, under the false pretext that "is better to replace ideas to help a foreign audience to understand a story", which is bs, because in most cases in which there are references to local culture or jokes, the best approach is just to add a note, or complementary reference.
Shorter version: a "localiser" is a role invented by corporations to address their own interests, not in the service of the audience, or authors.
more often than not, most "localisers" dont even care about that, they use their position for censorship and or activism, and in worse cases to directly try to sabotage authors.
there no logical or valid defence for such people, or their role. The only people that can do good work, and do try to be respectful about the source and intentions of the authors (no matter if their ideas are or not polemical) are translators. Actual "multi-culturalism" is about learning about other cultures, not trying preemptively to replace them or insert your own beliefs and preconceptions.
its the role of the audience to choose if they agree or disagree with what authors present, not of some "holier than thou" plant.
*A "toxic tourist" is like the cliche of an american spring-breaker that trashes everything in his or her path, and disrespects people assuming he or she will get away with it, because he or she has money that the local people need for their tourist related businesses. and thats what "localisers" do with their "adaptations".
20 years ago, this wasnt an issue, and it was actually rare to find abusive "translations" by people inside the entertainment industry; the present context is different, so is hard to not be looking if something has gone wrong.
When two languages and cultures are so different from each other the idea of a direct one to one translation increasingly becomes a very bad idea, full stop. Now you've been conditioned to hear statements like that and assume I mean "remove all the Japanese culture", which is wrong. Sometimes a sentence from Japanese relies so heavily on cultural nuances to communicate the meaning, so the best possible way to translate it is to instead prioritize retaining the meaning and impact rather than a perfect translation.
For example, lets say you were translating the sentence "They bit the bullet" from English to another language. A direct, one to one translation would be to go to this new language and say they chewed on some bullets. Obviously, this is not the intention the original work was trying to convey... So it needs to be altered in some manner to maintain the original intent within the new language. It needs to be localized for that region.
The point of a localization team (its not spelled "localiser" I have no idea why you are spelling it like that) is to take a piece of media and translate it in a way that maintains the original intent while preventing the need of having to flood the screen with "Translator Note: When an american says 'Bite the bullet', they mean to do something unpleasant or painful. This comes from early 1900s where doctors would ask patients to bite a bullet to distract them from serious pain." Consumers do NOT want to sit through walls of translation notes. It's generally accepted that anybody who would be interested in that kind of thing is much better off learning the language.
Bad localizations do sometimes happen (Fire Emblem Fates lol), this will usually be when a team looks at something tricky to localize and choose instead just to throw it out entirely. A good localization changes things, but in a way to still retain the original meaning or effect a text was supposed to have.
So... With that all said. What do you do when you have a character who's gender is intentionally left up in the air? You can't just not use pronouns, or some sentences sound weird. Do you just assign them a gender? Doing so would be literally changing the meaning of the text and altering one of the characters in question. To do so would be to intentionally make a bad localization to not piss people off. Referring to them with gender neutral pronouns ends up being MORE accurate.
Please don't comment on languages you know nothing about with your culture war ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
Not really, and this has been proven multiple times with fansubs, as well as actual work done by good translators. localisations are the sketchy way to insert words in the mouth of others.
In politics, for example, they dont rely in people who think or do things in the way you suggest, because that can lead easily to misunderstanding and serious consequences in business and everything else.
in academic books, and even literary studies, "localizations" are also avoided for similar reasons. good and faithful translators always avoid them. low budget, indifferent people, dont care and rely on them
I havent been "conditioned", this is about logic: you insert new words and different phrases that dont mean the same thing, and you are literally changing what the author wanted to communicate. thats literally "cultural hijacking".
yes, thats true, and thats why this:
is actually the opposite. any translator "worth their salt" accepts and knows this.
you know why "localisations" are more common in childrens media, than media intended for older audiences? because those trying to sell those products dont care if kids will learn something positive or new from those, only care if at first glance they will buy them compulsively. and this is also, why it used to be extremely rare when it was tolerated that approach in media intended for teens and older audiences, which are expected to be more discerning and demanding about what they want.
"localizers" degrade the media. they are meant as a cheap tool to take foreign content and present it to new audiences that may ignore and will remain ignorant of the actual worth of the original content. is a "soft form" of censorship.
not really, since many phrases and even the same phrase can still work in other languages with similar historical connections. thats not how it works. people in other languages dont automatically assume every sentence holds a "literal meaning".
btw, in spanish you can also say "morder la bala" which is literally the same phrase, and holds the same meaning. In most cases, popular catch phrases and idioms have near or close versions, that arent related at all to the political pandering or ideological pushing phrases they are often used in "localisations".
there really no difference. its more common with z, but with s is still the same thing. steam auto-ccorrection has suggested "s" is the version, but maybe thats just their own dictionary.
https://technicallywriteit.com/localization-vs-localisation-does-spelling-really-matter/
thats is an erroneous assumption, as i pointed out above.
a good translator will never "flood with notes", and those are useful and interesting to understand the actual meaning and connotation of very specific local jokes that otherwise would be lost through the mediocrity of a "localization".
a long ago i watched gintama with fansubs, and thanks to well placed and short notes, i could learn a bit when they were mocking a local politician, or making a reference to another series, tv show or game i didnt knew about. "localizers" thash all that.
some words in japanese are specific about sex, others are neutral.
follow your own advice, because it was radical left activists and groups the ones that started all this. reacting and pushing against it isnt wrong, what they did is. they were the ones trying to replace cultures and force their own beliefs unto others.
and almost ironically, thats a form of colonisation, and obv authoritarianism.
Amateur translation work reinforcing your already existing ideas of what should/shouldn't be in a piece of media doesn't prove anything. Everything afterwards about politics academia is a poor false equivalence to a discussion about commercial media.
Considering how I was very clear how a good localization maintains the work's meaning and impact it's extremely disingenuous to pretend like that's anything close to what I said.
This part is honestly just a big opinion rant not really relevant to anything being discussed.
Nope. Just flat wrong. Bad localizations certainly exist but the very concept of it does not inherently degrade the work. I also really don't get why you seem to really enjoy putting quotation marks around random phases? Like are you trying to quote something? Imply something more with it? Equating small changes to a work as censorship is overly dramatic as well.
Yes really? I don't know what to tell you other than you are just flat out wrong. Just Google a couple idioms in other languages and try to figure out their meaning. 喉から手が出る directly translates to "my hand comes out of my throat" but it's actual meaning is nowhere near that. A direct 1:1 translation would just leave that in when instead somebody sensible would take a look at common English idioms and pick one to maintain the original intent. Let me be clear, in this case the direct translation would be actively altering the work which is what you keep saying you are against. This is literally a situation where localization efforts should be more favorable to you.
English and Spanish both being Indo-European languages have a lot of overlap. Culturally then too, a lot of major English nations are geographically close to English ones. So it's not really a shock that the two languages would have idioms that directly translate. This does not apply to all languages or all idioms.
Okay, so in this case the preference would be to alter the meaning of the text by providing zero context of the literal translation? This is not erroneous at all.
When a company wants to sell a product it becomes a very tough convince their investors to release a work in a region that wont inherently understand the jokes or references within it. It's great you got very interested in that kind of stuff with Gintama, but you are the exception not the rule. The answer to you is to start looking at learning the language yourself if you find it that interesting and want to continue exploring very niche parts of the culture.
logic irl works backwards from how you understand things:
If an "amateur" translator can be more accurate, efficient, and literal in his translation, than a supposedly "professional localiser", that means that as a translator his (or her) version is literally more "professional" than the one "planted officially".
which is what has made many people to often avoid dubbed versions, and sometimes also translations when the translator is putting words in the authors work and suggesting new meanings or intentions to those that were in the original media.
i actually proved to you, and was even "more clear", why thats is untrue, not only logically but empirically,
unlike novels for "mature audiences", or tv series meant only for local consumption (with no plans to be consumed or exposed outside japan), in the case of most popular media (specially anime and manga) is possible and viable to make literal translations without needing to make adaptations to communicate the original meaning, and in the few cases in which phrases need an adaptation, a note can also be included if needed without becoming intrusive. thats actual "pro-quality translation".
also, the use of language is more basic and simple, so accurate direct translations without notes are almost always possible.
of course, but that isnt what ive been discussing about "localisers", and you know it. and you must also be able to accept and understand what the word actually implies, since it wasnt originally used to describe the job they are supposed to do. it began to be used to claim it was an acceptable practice to ask less demanding (and less efficient) translators, which also would be less expensive for those hiring them; but that soon turned into only hiring (or favouring) only those ideologically aligned with "dei-esg-bridge-etc" views and policies, which has become even more common in at least the last 5 or so years, which has lead to an even faster overall decrease in quality.
you are tying to misrepresent what ive commented about many (if not most) the people inside the entertainment industry using that "title", that often insert changes in lore, and distort intentionally the meaning of phrases and intention of the original media and creators.
so, the role, is detrimental, as what the word implies: the role should be named only "translator" and deviations for ideological messaging (political or religious) should be penalised somehow.
And you must know that even if theres no direct geographical connection between japan, america or england (or any other "western" nation or country), there are obv connections, thanks to their roles in ww2, and how both british and american cultures occupied them and influence them more directly in the last 100 years.
also because way before ww2, the english were already trading with them, and even before that, or the industrial revolution, countries like netherlands, and even france, and many other european countries did trade with them.
the japanese also adopted and adapted pop culture ideas from them, and includes idioms and popular phrases. which means, that objectively, many of their phrases have also similar counterparts in other "non-oriental" languages. And unlike culture with older relations like those from spain, france and england, plus close neighbours, the partial relation with japanese culture mostly through visual arts and fashion, is more recent, which does limit the amount of mutual "adaptations and adoptions", but the few that exist are "closer".
not really "the exception" in that aspect, and also not a good argument: the poor job most officially hired (and endorsed) "localisers" actually do is one of the main reasons anime constantly fails to make as many earnings as it could and should outside japan, and why they have earn distrust each year, and less respect.
Also what i mentioned earlier, they exist as a pretext to spend less rather than making actually better products. thats the actual reason the role was gradually replaced from "translator" into "localiser" in (pop) entertainment.
what makes me a "partial exception" is to be writing about this. most people dont, and wont. I still havent studied properly japanese to notice directly most mistranslations, but the few that i do is thanks to just listening and comparing versions. most people ive seen irl that consume "otaku stuff" not only prefer illegal copies ("fan subs" is obv part of that) because they are cheaper, but because the translations are often better (and many of them end spending money in physical products and related paraphernalia).
Do you know thats actually one of the reason piracy for anime is often more popular than official sites? like gaben said: to prevent piracy, is mostly a quality of service issue.
if most series were not only properly translated, but dubbed by well trained voice actors that actually are able to think about the stories and characters, rather than "just another generic job for children", and offered at an affordable and more reasonable price, more people would care enough to buy official content through "official channels" (stores, and whatever)
i dont see a point repeating any of the arguments that prove logically, and objectively why the role of localisers is not needed, but also objectively detrimental to understand the culture, and why people that support that role are either dishonest about caring about the stories and products affected by their intentional distortions (which often are malicious and come from a mindset of pro-censorship).
anyway, i will say "i welcome our ai overlords", to replace them and allow japanese talent and media to rely less in them, and also allows more expensive and actually good translators to be able to just focus in polishing and iron out any mistakes made by those.
just hope sony and visa dont manage to cripple anime and manga, or a crazy tsunami trashes japan in this context. this will be better in the end, and a lot of hacks will have to do something less destructive with their time.
so, short version:
"localiser" = bad, "translator" good.
The localizers of this game were translating the fact that the main character looks androgynous and never directly has their gender or sex stated (pretty much every single pronoun in Japan can be used by any gender; of course, the meaning changes depending on the gender of the person that is using it, but how the main character in this game is referred to in the original Japanese is very commonly how boyish girls are referred to) as to allow for people to self-insert easier. They translated that meaning as well as they could; unfortunately, people like you apparently don't know Japanese or English and assume that gender-neutral pronouns = non-binary.
i didnt noticed the reply earlier...
i think you are still misreading what i wrote:
the approach of "localisation", under very limited and specific cases, can make sense, but usually doesnt since is always better for the audience and the author to be as close as possible to the original version.
The example you made is exactly one, specially for media intended for teenagers or older audiences with a bit of literacy: most people can deduce the meaning of that sentence, if they are already aware of what is a "dumpling" and the relation of "flowers" in the original context.
you may claim but "how would they know" (or learn about it)? through the same process everyone learns any language: by listening, reading and following stories.
"localizers" (or "localisers", however you like to call them), is literally a role meant for poor translators, usually indifferent of the audience, the sources, and often malicious actors taking advantage of their roles. they act like "bad tourists enablers": imagine someone, lets say an "expat" living in a foreign country, that rather than accepting and trying to promote the local culture, is there to trying to rebrand everything and anything, without caring about the perspective of locals.
thats what most "localisers" actually do.
"substance over style", literally means what im saying: to avoid as much as possible "adaptations" to prevent distortions and misleading interpretations. "substance over style" means, like i mentioned before, to include notes whenever they are actually needed (which is less common than what you expect, or like in the examples you have offered)
What you comment not only is wrong, but untrue:
not only because as i pointed, it isnt actually required as you claim to force adaptations, but also because ai will be able to do almost anything related to translation services with minimal human input or assistance in probably less than 7 or even 5 years.
and if you dont believe me about that, you need to invest more time listening people like this guy. most people dont grasp how extreme changes related to ai will be, or how soon they will "come"(they are already here, but not as visible):
https://www.youtube.com/@lexfridman/videos
and if you want to understand the actual risks more effective ia will pose for everyone, then you should also spend a bit of time learning a bit from this guy:
https://www.youtube.com/@robbraxmantech/videos
Not "even then". localization means in simple words "to adapt to the local lingo", often through reductionist perspectives, because when you put in first place "making things too cosy for those that dont care about learning something new", they wont actually try to find out or figure out what they learned was a poor adaptation or approximation to something that would be more effective if supported with a better translation.
the way you are using pronoun here comes from gender ideology, and not related to the actual meaning of that word. that is misleading, and also an example of why is wrong to swap the original meanings.
thats "gender-ideology / marxist english", not "actual english", which is a literal example of "cultural hijacking". thats where "political correctness" and related bs comes from: is about psychological manipulation, rather than improving understanding.
so is funny you claim to care about english (and any other language), when you are already ok with an ideology that literally doesnt (and actually doesnt care about other cultures, which is the actual meaning of "multiculturalism").
this is not my opinion alone: is part of actual history, and how those view work and why they constantly try to change language (and hijack cultures through it).
If you check out some of the Japanese reception of this game, you will notice that different people call the main character by different pronouns for different reasons, it would be great if Japanese could be 1:1 translated into English so that we could keep the same meaning of the pronouns, but, that's not possible. Giving the main character a gender is a required choice made by the localisers, regardless of what pronouns they choose to use for the main character.
If someone purchases a game with an English translation, they should not be expected to literally know the entire ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ language and culture in order to understand the translation.
Cool argument, it would be great if you provided any type of evidence rather than just saying ♥♥♥♥ as if it were true.
I was comparing two idioms in English and Japanese that mean the same thing, you are going off into a tangent about an idiom for no reason. In this game, they would have to include a note every single time that a pronoun is used to describe the main character, I would consider that significantly less substantive than just conveying that by using gender neutral pronouns.
Those words are synonymous, but, sure, you can go on.
I can't discern much meaning out of this, again, are you sure you even speak English, let alone understand Japanese culture? What I get is that you are just saying that AI will be able to do as much as humans in some time, okay, so, let's see your evidence.
Two... YouTubers? This is some crazy research you got going on here, huh.
These don't even count as sources, you're just showing entire channels. This is like if my argument was based on just showing you a Japanese dictionary and having you figure it out.
Yeah.
No. You're back to just saying ♥♥♥♥.
No it is not, you clearly have no clue of any Japanese societal norms. This is not related to gender ideology, they just use pronouns in different ways because they are a different culture with a different language. You are the one who is projecting your own culture onto another language.
"They" is a word borrowed from Old Norse, originally being a masculine singular pronoun. It was imported into English as a gender neutral plural pronoun, but languages change, and it became a singular pronoun quite a long time ago.
"The Oxford English Dictionary traces singular they back to 1375, where it appears in the medieval romance William and the Werewolf. [...] ‘Each man hurried . . . till they drew near . . . where William and his darling were lying together.’"
I don't think people knew of Marx in *1375,* but maybe I'm just stupid and Marx actually had a time machine to go back and ruin the English language.
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dude, I wish I was this passionate about stupid crap.
learn to use quotes:
just clicking and publishing a comment make yours looks silly and mentally lazy. im all for laziness, "but, come on"... this is diy entertainment. try better , actual arguments, with content: is better for everyone.
and you care, because if you wouldnt, you would not make a comment about it. kind of obvious, lol