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I've analyzed the first hr of localization of 100 line and I came to same conclusion. The biggest offender for me is how some characters seem to be changed and don't resemble the originals that well. Specially Darumi she's written to be something she's not in the original.
They make some good points but is hard to take them seriously as the author of the post does not speak Japanese. For example they criticise one of Kako's lines but the "correct translation" they are using for reference is wrong too.
This article seems more interested in politics and ideologies than actual translation.
That's a fair assessment, I like it.
This translation seems more interested in politics and ideologies than actual translation
2 things can be true at the same time.
There's misinformation in the article and a lot of the points are constructed taking machine translated japanese lines as "sources of truth" without taking into consideration the finer aspects of the language like wether the Japanese being spoken is formal or informal or the choice of words.
They go on a tangent about "overtly sexualized" lines for Kako when funnily enough, it was pretty apparent for me the first time I read it in Japanese without having seen any translations that something sexual was being implied. The translation they provide for that line and take as a basis for that argument has nothing to do with what's being said.
Well, not anymore. Can't tolerate this woke made up translation crap any longer. Especially if 90% of the story isn't dubbed so I can't listen to what's actually being said.
Thank you for being so based, everyone here is "aaaah woke virus woke virus" when the most important part of the localization is that theyre changing how the player views the characters: for example when the dude said "i hope you get cancelled" i thought that he was going to be a character that went off the deep end of internet culture but nope, the dude didnt even say that.
Also lets be real: the main issue with the crack the egg thing is that if someone doesnt know what it means(like me) then it loses all the meaning, im going off of hearsay from other people that allegedly know japanese and in the original he still said "go ahead and change your sex" or something like that so all the "aaaah woke virus" people would still have been pissed off about their, oh so based, japanese game containing woke allusions.
The main issue shouldnt be this stupid ass politics nondebate but rather the fact that the localization does unnecessary things potentially ruining the experience for some: some like Darumis references as it fits her perceived character, to which i agree but i, and others, dislike all those unnecessary references.
A more literal translation would have pleased all and annoyed none. (im not advocating for mtl translations as they suck ass)
To add a small piece, that you're missing: people, who complain about politics, aren't spawned from the thin air. Because in many cases, when the translation quality isn't just bad, but downright horrendous, it is being so not due to lack of skill on the localizer's part. Instead, the translation suffers intentionally, motivated by the localizer's political views and biases and they've been explicit about it on many occasions. Often they just can't keep quiet about shoving in 'the message' somwhere, where it didn't belong.
That's why nowadays we get the 'woke-hunting mobs' roaming the internets, because when a bad localizer wets the bed due to, well, being bad at his job, he doesn't proceed to gleefully display it on the social media, bragging about his terrible results. Unlike the wokesters, who do exactly that.
Same here, was about to pre-order, before out of control regional pricing gave me a pause. Went to do a little digging and discovered all this stuff with localization as well, so yeah, not touching it until somebody fixes it with a mod. Guess I'll be playing Expedition 33 instead.
More often then not I gave JP creators a pass, when localized versions had issues. Not this time, no. When a project is this important to you, when you need to pull each and every member of your fanbase and maybe bring in some new people? In this situation you just go along and leave the english localization with no oversight? I'm sorry, but this goes into willful negligence territory for me.
At this point i care little about what the authors politics are when you take into account that it is pointing out the butchered translation. Not to mention that the whole reason these references are in the game are because of political activist behind the scenes pushing a certain agenda.
Why else have we been seeing characters in manga turning into trans characters wihle they were never written as such? Same reason why we see more censorship accross the board when it comes to anime because it triggers those behind the scenes.
The manga Drama Queen releases and the same leftist political activist scream its anti-immigration and wanted a certain dialogue toned down because they sure couldn't cope with the original.
https://boundingintocomics.com/manga/exclusive-industry-insider-provides-insight-into-drama-queen-post-release-dialogue-edit-suggests-the-change-request-could-be-from-manga-plus-or-it-could-be-from-the-client-publishing-on-the-se/
Instead of being stuck up on the authors politics it would be better to focus on what matter about the game in general its bad translation. Yo uworry about one article but most likely praise the activist behind the scenes because they sell the same ideology as yourself.
Keep in mind that the person who showed these bad translations himself takes liberties to the point that when people called him out he started to make ♥♥♥♥ up to mock the fans that were calling him out.
People love to idolize translators/localizers that get paid, while people that do it for free do a better job.
Meru-chan for instance did the VN Rewrite+ as an official release while there was already a fan translation out there. Then they compared called out her ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ for not even bothering translating English speaking lines into English properly Eventually people compared the translation and said the fan translation was far superior and accurate while that dude did it for free.
And Nekonyan is such a disgusting company that they let their localizer make ♥♥♥♥ up out of nowhere to the point the translation isn't even remotely correct. I also never got why these people get triggered by Japanese authors content in writing while all they ever do is add more swear words where there were none to begin with.
Because they don't understand English, lmao. That's the entire reason the translators are hired. And for very lengthy work, it's even less likely some programmer or exec or manager is going to have any narrative or creative understanding of the game beyond it being a product, or care even if they did.
Unfortunately, translation work is broadly just something you have to trust people with for most companies. If there is any change at all it's usually after it's to late from player feedback, and even then only results in the translator not being hired again.
Doesn't help either that people just assume their bad translations are just the game's bad writing. And it's not bad translations that ultimately matter, it will always result in a loss of quality to some degree from the original language, it's them self-inserting themselves into someone else's work, which is just flatly arrogant.
When it comes to politics or religion, it's even worse, i.e. a lot of zoomer translators not understanding that a crossdressing fetish and femboys/traps are not the same as trans, and that mixing them together is incredibly insulting to all 3 groups. There was a managa where a translator made a crossdressing dude a trans character despite that char having a whole damn scene where he said he saw himself as a guy and was comfortable with that identity and simply got a thrill from dressing as a girl and being mistaken for one.
It's as moronic as saying all gay or bi guys are trans because they like men just like women, so they must really be trans.
And yet, translators will defend this with shrill screeching voices on twitter and bluesky saying it's their choice as translators.
Said series always had unfaithful translations, to the point of some names not even being transliterated correctly.
I've done plenty of Japanese to English translations and vice-versa as part of studying the Japanese language over many years, and I can safely say that these "creative liberties" are way beyond what should be in a genuine translation.
It's essentially fanfiction, and qualifies as both cultural imperialism and vandalism.
I die a little inside every time a manga gets picked up by official localisers.
Every single time the translation is worse and cultural elements are removed.
Before anyone responds with "but people won't understand the cultural elements", that's what translator notes are for. They are not an unusual feature of visual novels.
Don't play other culture's games if you're not willing to learn a bit about those cultures.
Not only is it fanfiction levels of "translation", but there's censorship too. Yuck.
Not sure if you mean the English to English translation but the English in the actual Japanese version was simple and the translator made it into something next level stupid. Even the Fan translation left it as it is because it needed no translation at all. This is also the same translator that pushed for censorship in one of the VN which only showed a skirt and she wanted it covered up.
They care little for people's feedback seeing as it was done with Manga Gamer where they put in a line that jabs at men where there was no such meaning, afterwards Manga Gamer claimed fans were harassing them and would ban anybody calling out this line because they simply could not cope with factual criticism. They are now just caring for this mythical "modern audience". Manga Gamer for instance also put in third speak which is normal in Japanese but because most modern audiences can't be bothered to educate themselves they replaced all those lines with made up ones.
One VN i was looking forward to was that one of Konosuba but it turns out even that translator/localizer couldn't even keep it accurate, so another Japanese speaker pointed out of it distorts the meaning of things. Some have been asking for a fixed translation but don't expect the company selling that game to do it.
Samurai maiden for instance where they did change lines but kept the censorship. But as one personpointed out they couldn't be bothered to fix everything and that game was full GenZ cringe garbage.
https://operationrainfall.com/2022/12/20/samurai-maiden-on-steam-updated-to-fix-localization-and-more/
Sadly the bad translations by these people is costing these developers money. I would say pay those doing it more, but it has already been shown that these people care little for accuracy or the product and are more preoccupied with selling an agenda or selling themselves as wannabe writers.
The people who still defend DR1 being a good game especially.