Is Translation & Localization really that bad ?

[Antera]

Thinking of buying game but I have heard that TL is very bad, to a point a self insert parts by Translatators. Is it true?

[YUBI YUBI tax collector]

Originally posted by Dr. Rudolf von Richten:

Originally posted by Asakura Shinichi:

Nippon Ichi is japanese as creators, Nippon Ichi America is an american publisher and localizer made of americans not japanese. Its same is any american or european branch of a japanese company.

Looking at the credits of, say, Trails to Azure, I see a number of distinctly Japanese names in the section on NISA. Besides, even if they're all Americans, they're ultimately still answering to the Japanese directors of Nippon Ichi Software.

Then, please explain to me why one of the most exemple used right now to demonstrate how localizer made bad choice is the trails games ? I'm french then i play cold steel 3 both on french and english. It make me understand how bad is the english translation.

You said it's "creatives liberties" but it's beyond that. And how do you know majority agree with it ? Most people don't even know how bad is the translation.

[Asakura Shinichi]

Originally posted by Dr. Rudolf von Richten:

Originally posted by Asakura Shinichi:

Nippon Ichi is japanese as creators, Nippon Ichi America is an american publisher and localizer made of americans not japanese. Its same is any american or european branch of a japanese company.

Looking at the credits of, say, Trails to Azure, I see a number of distinctly Japanese names in the section on NISA. Besides, even if they're all Americans, they're ultimately still answering to the Japanese directors of Nippon Ichi Software.

If the japanese directors would now english and had people in Japan who can tell them those translations made by the american branch are pushing out woke crap and cheap jokes changing the original meaning they had in mind they would not like it. But if the would have such people they would also not need an american branch doing the translation, they would do it in house. The american branch is doing the translation not writing a script, their job is to translate not recreate.

Also "majority" does not agree, not everyone notices, but when they notice they dont agree with this one bit. Also there is no such a thing like "creative liberties" when you are not the creator, they are translators not creators of the game, they have no liberties to enforce their political and other world views on other people just cause they dont like something and destroying someone elses work, if you want to defend this than you literally are instantly losing all arguments against any other form of changing the game, stealing, plagiarizing or even piracy, if you allow a group of translators whos job is to translate not change, to vandalize a game you literally cant argue against anything, you allow one form of crime against intelectual property which makes every other point against protecting it invalid.

[Dr. Rudolf von Richten]

I think I'm gonna invest in a Copium factory; with how much you 'true weebs' are huffing it, I'll get loaded for sure! :-p

If NIS doesn't have English speaking people, how do they even set up an American Branch? And if neither NIS nor Falcom is actually checking what the localization team is doing, then both aren't doing their own job properly.

Oh and since neither you no I nor anyone else besides the parties involved actually knows the contents of the contract between NIS/NISA and Falcom, there is no way to say how much leeway they've been given, let alone whether or not they're violating those terms.

But hey, if you're so sure such violation is happening,why don't you tell them? Send a politely worded letter to NIS and/or Falcom, in which you explain your concerns, and see what they do. If you're right, they should immediately set about changing things.

Maybe you don't speak enough Japanese to do so, but surely one of those anon translators can help you out, and if not, that wonderful AI of which you spoke earlier will do the trick! I'll be awaiting your results. :-)

[Asakura Shinichi]

Originally posted by Dr. Rudolf von Richten:

I think I'm gonna invest in a Copium factory; with how much you 'true weebs' are huffing it, I'll get loaded for sure! :-p

If NIS doesn't have English speaking people, how do they even set up an American Branch? And if neither NIS nor Falcom is actually checking what the localization team is doing, then both aren't doing their own job properly

But hey, why don't you tell them? Send a politely worded letter to NIS and/or Falcom, in which you explain your concerns, and see what they do. If you're right, they should immediately set about changing things.

Maybe you don't speak enough Japanese to do so, but surely one of those anon translators can help you out, and if not, that wonderful AI of which you spoke earlier will do the trick! I'll be awaiting your results.

Its funny how you are coping cause you cant even deny one point thrown at you back.

[Dr. Rudolf von Richten]

Originally posted by Asakura Shinichi:

Its funny how you are coping cause you cant even deny one point thrown at you back.

I already gave the argument above: "Japan is a very different culture from the West and Japanese is a very subtle language. [...] A more direct translation would sound very bland, or even miss the point of the dialogue entirely."

Further, the status quo proves my point. Falcom has been working with NIS/NISA for 6+ years, and with XSeed for 7 or 8 years before that. Evidently they're satisfied with the situation as it is, and/or don't care enough to take a firmer hand in it. That in itself makes clear that the localisations are fine as far as Falcom is concerned.

But if you're right, then it should be easy to not only prove your point, i.e. that Falcom doesn't know, but would care enough to demand changes if they knew, but also to get those changes happening, just by writing a letter.

That you (and all the 'true weebs' I've had these arguments with) stubbornly ignore this point whenever it is brought up makes me think that either you don't actually care about improving things or you don't believe that 'letting Falcom know' would change anything.

So instead, you prefer doing something which is totally ineffectual, namely complaining on a game forum that the people from NIS and Falcom, according to your own argument, will never be able to read. But by all means, do go on doing things that won't work instead of doing things that might work. Just don't come crying if nothing changes as a result.

[Asakura Shinichi]

Originally posted by Dr. Rudolf von Richten:

Originally posted by Asakura Shinichi:

Its funny how you are coping cause you cant even deny one point thrown at you back.

I already gave the argument above: "Japan is a very different culture from the West and Japanese is a very subtle language. [...] A more direct translation would sound very bland, or even miss the point of the dialogue entirely."

Further, the status quo proves my point. Falcom has been working with NIS/NISA for 6+ years, and with XSeed for 7 or 8 years before that. Evidently they're satisfied with the situation as it is, and/or don't care enough to take a firmer hand in it. That in itself makes clear that the localisations are fine as far as Falcom is concerned.

But if you're right, then it should be easy to not only prove your point, i.e. that Falcom doesn't know, but would care enough to demand changes if they knew, but also to get those changes happening, just by writing a letter.

That you (and all the 'true weebs' I've had these arguments with) stubbornly ignore this point whenever it is brought up makes me think that either you don't actually care about improving things or you don't believe that 'letting Falcom know' would change anything.

So instead, you prefer doing something which is totally ineffectual, namely complaining on a game forum that the people from NIS and Falcom, according to your own argument, will never be able to read. But by all means, do go on doing things that won't work instead of doing things that might work. Just don't come crying if nothing changes as a result.

Im doing things that work, im not buying their games, also stop trying to be offensive and calling names people who want a translation. 1 to 1 translations are impossible, but scrapping the whole japanese text and making up own original dialogues that dont even mean the same thing is not translation, its vandalism and destroying of someones intelectual right. But the only thing a blind gatekeeper of woke era like you can do back to defend bad localization is try to insult those who dont wont to read political agendas, personal world views of the translators and garbage gen z reddit jokes that are not even funny.
Also posting is also productive, while it will not reach the original creators, it will make sure people get warned before they buy. Which hilariously you being the ardent protector of vanalising intelectual right for the localizers personal gains and making constant replies, keeping this topic near top, does exactly what we want to make more people see it.
But keep on clowning and proving more that intelectual rights mean nothing in todays world which makes piracy fully legal by your own words.

[YUBI YUBI tax collector]

Originally posted by Dr. Rudolf von Richten:

Originally posted by Asakura Shinichi:

Its funny how you are coping cause you cant even deny one point thrown at you back.

I already gave the argument above: "Japan is a very different culture from the West and Japanese is a very subtle language. [...] A more direct translation would sound very bland, or even miss the point of the dialogue entirely."

Further, the status quo proves my point. Falcom has been working with NIS/NISA for 6+ years, and with XSeed for 7 or 8 years before that. Evidently they're satisfied with the situation as it is, and/or don't care enough to take a firmer hand in it. That in itself makes clear that the localisations are fine as far as Falcom is concerned.

But if you're right, then it should be easy to not only prove your point, i.e. that Falcom doesn't know, but would care enough to demand changes if they knew, but also to get those changes happening, just by writing a letter.

That you (and all the 'true weebs' I've had these arguments with) stubbornly ignore this point whenever it is brought up makes me think that either you don't actually care about improving things or you don't believe that 'letting Falcom know' would change anything.

So instead, you prefer doing something which is totally ineffectual, namely complaining on a game forum that the people from NIS and Falcom, according to your own argument, will never be able to read. But by all means, do go on doing things that won't work instead of doing things that might work. Just don't come crying if nothing changes as a result.

Weird, you don't answer to my comment ? You don't just want accept the truth. The most important is that nisa don't do their job correctly and we have more proof now, thanks the fight with localizers on twitter/x. You just try to shift responsabilities but nothing can't change the truth. And i already write a mail to Nisa and Falcom.

You know the amount of text who have a trail games. Besides Nisa, who can do the job ? Nobody. Falcom don't have really the choice to work with Nisa.

[Asakura Shinichi]

You are right on the fact they dont have a choice, FALCOM is a rather small company while just the american branch of NISA is already big enough to be considered triple A level publishing company. The other guy acts as if FALCOM could do anything ignoring the fact that every team of developers is wanting to selfpublish games if they could, its more profit for them. You dont have to find proof too far, just look why Dungeon Travelers was denied the first time they tried to publish on steam, its a very raunchy game and the developer did not want NISA to publish it on steam as they did no VITA censoring part of the game, self publishing did not help but in the end game comes out next year with help of shiravune. Same with Evenicle 2, first game was published fine, cause it was published by MANGAGAMER a long time partner for AliceSoft in terms of publishing their games in west and yet AliceSoft wanted to go selfpublish, which ended with them having to find other vendors cause they did not know how to get their 18+ game out on steam and it failed to be accepted.
Also AI translations will take off no matter what people say, everyone was so agaisnt AI art and now 50% of the art online is done by AI and it even starts to creep into gaming, not to mention that ive seen translations of games done with ChatGPT4 and they are very good, on point with the translation and they also sound like done by a human, sure there are some occasional odd lines but they mostly cause of bad phrasing or how the words are ordered in the phrase, but that already beats the corroption of localizers who discard original text and intent of the authors and rewrite the scripts.

[Dr. Rudolf von Richten]

Originally posted by YUBI YUBI tax collector:

You said it's "creatives liberties" but it's beyond that. And how do you know majority agree with it ? Most people don't even know how bad is the translation.

You're right that I don't know what 'the majority' thinks.

From what I see at the Falcom Subreddit (which is pretty big for such a niche game), as well as the GameFAQ's forums, the people there do know, but agree with the argument "that Japan is a very different culture from the West and Japanese is a very subtle language, and that a more direct translation would sound very bland, or even miss the point of the dialogue entirely."

Originally posted by YUBI YUBI tax collector:

And i already write a mail to Nisa and Falcom.

Good. We'll see what comes of that. And I mean it; if Falcom does want to change things from how they are going now: fair enough, they're fully entitled to do so.

[Dr. Rudolf von Richten]

Originally posted by Asakura Shinichi:

You are right on the fact they dont have a choice, FALCOM is a rather small company while just the american branch of NISA is already big enough to be considered triple A level publishing company. The other guy acts as if FALCOM could do anything ignoring the fact that every team of developers is wanting to selfpublish games if they could, its more profit for them.

If Falcom valued their 'artistic integrity' more than the money they're making from having it 'violated', they would choose to either make sure the localization is up to their standards even if it earns them less, or not have their games localized at all.

Originally posted by Asakura Shinichi:

Also AI translations will take off no matter what people say, everyone was so agaisnt AI art and now 50% of the art online is done by AI and it even starts to creep into gaming, not to mention that ive seen translations of games done with ChatGPT4 and they are very good, on point with the translation and they also sound like done by a human, sure there are some occasional odd lines but they mostly cause of bad phrasing or how the words are ordered in the phrase, but that already beats the corroption of localizers who discard original text and intent of the authors and rewrite the scripts.

I do think you are right about this. AI/Chat GPT will have a huge influence on businesses like this. But there will still be a human to do proofreading and correcting, and as long as Falcom doesn't start to do their translation/localization in-house, they're still making themselves dependent on the company they're working with.

[Asakura Shinichi]

Originally posted by Dr. Rudolf von Richten:

From what I see at the Falcom Subreddit (which is pretty big for such a niche game), as well as the GameFAQ's forums, the people there do know, but agree with the argument "that Japan is a very different culture from the West and Japanese is a very subtle language, and that a more direct translation would sound very bland, or even miss the point of the dialogue entirely."

From what i see you still diminish the problem by literally ignoring all we say and only seeing what you want. Once again, since you cant read and i will write this how many times it takes you to understand it. 1to1 translations is not possible but no one talks about that, everything currently happening with calling out corrupt localizers is pushing their world views, political agendas and cheap reddit jokes on to people. If someone translates "Itadakimasu" as "down the hatch" its not 1to1 but its still a correct translation, if someone would translate "Itadakimasu" as "i hope you choke on it", than its rewriting of script and changing the meaning of it. You disingenuously and delusionaly ignore all of what we said and still go complain that 1to1 translation is not possible. And once again i will reply, no its not, but it does not give the right for the localizers to vandalize the intelectual property BY CHANGING THE MEANING AND REWRITING THE SCRIPT FOR THEIR ONW GAINS.

[Dr. Rudolf von Richten]

I don't think this discussion is going anywhere. I'll reiterate my points one last time, not so much for the current participants as for anyone else who might come upon this thread, and then leave you guys to it:

- Japanese language and culture are indirect, implicit and high-context. English and other western languages are direct, explicit and low-context. You can translate something from Japanese to English, making perfectly correct sentences which accurately convey the words used in Japanese, but which ignore the context and subtext of the dialogue, thus missing the actual meaning of the sentence in question. In such cases, said meaning can only be expressed properly with a more liberal translation, or localization, trading textual accuracy for a stronger conveyance of the intended effect.

- There are undoubtedly some specific instances in which the chosen interpretation of any given sentence, dialogue or description is debatable, but to compare the localization team with Nazis, or to claim their intention is 'the erasure of Japanese culture' is so completely disproportionate that it's impossible to take seriously. Ironically, it's pretty much the same way of thinking as the most radically progressive (i.e. 'woke') people tend to have; making mountains out of molehills in order to fabricate a cause for outrage that's totally beyond all reason.

- The idea that Falcom on the one hand cares deeply about the textual accuracy of the localization of their games, and would be highly offended by the current localisations, but on the other hand has never actually done any quality control themselves in the 12+ years they've been working with first XSeed and then NIS/NISA is deeply contradictory. That NIS would set up an American subsidiary (NISA) and then not keep track of what they're doing is completely ludicrous. Falcom knows full well who they're working with and what they're doing, and they're clearly satisfied with the current arrangements.

- Falcom 'having no choice' is equally nonsensical; if they wanted to avoid localization they could have chosen to grow, in order to do things in-house, or not to bring their games to the west at all. That they did neither just reinforces the idea that they care more about money than about any supposed 'violation of their artistic integrity'. Which is fine, seeing as how they are a commercial enterprise which is in the business of selling entertainment products for profit, not a collective of auteurs realizing their profound vision for the sake of Art, but it further reinforces the notion that the current localisation practices don't particularly bother them.

- AI will undoubtedly have a tremendous influence on any form of translation/localization, and a whole lot of other jobs besides. Nevertheless, a human being will be needed for proofreading and corrections, so unless and until Falcom decides to use AI to do the translations/localisations in-house, they will still rely on a third party to handle this, and the current situation will continue. Falcom is a conservative company, so it's not very likely they'll be at the forefront of this process, but if and when they decide to take this step, we will see what happens. Falcom decides, directly or indirectly, how to present their products, so one way or another, it is and will be fine, regardless of the specifics.

And that's it. Like I said, I won't be responding any further in this thread, so I leave you guys to it. So long and all the best. :-)

[Asakura Shinichi]

Ignored all our points and run away cause he could not handle the heat he himself generated, writing another wall of text 90% forum users will not read. BTW both NISA and other corrupt localizers openly say about them doing script rewrites with full premeditation. You lost arguments and runaway like every Twitter user defending those corrupt localizers.

[Asakura Shinichi]

Well it seems that thanks to even Asmongold covering the topic of the misstranslations in anime, manga and games, even japanese streamers and youtuber are starting to talk about this and bring light to the issue. Good job to the localizers for shooting themsevles in the foot, no one will miss them when they lose their jobs for not doing their works.

[Legendary Mr. Tiddles]

For what it's worth, I didn't notice any particular issues with the translation in Cold Steel 3.