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[LordOfLore]

Link.

Hi, everyone. Thanks for reading this blog entry.

My name is Yu Namba, and I’m a Senior Project Manager at Atlus USA. I joined the company in March of 1999 as translator. Since then, I’ve been involved with the localisation of all the Persona titles and their spin-offs, including Persona 5, which is out now!

When asked to write about the localisation of P5, I thought about my methodology and whether things have changed as I devoted myself to bringing Japanese games to the Western audience for the last 18 years, and I realised: my goal has always been to deliver games in the most authentic and enjoyable form possible.

P5 was a monster in terms of localisation scope. It boasted the most number of translators and editors on a team, and everyone spent countless nights making the English version of P5 a reality.

We set the general direction of the localisation and settled on key terms and ideas at the beginning of the project, so everyone had a clear guideline when working on their assigned tasks. Whenever a big issue arose, it was brought to my attention, and I gave the team my feedback.

As project lead I had to make the final call, but I made sure that I looked at the issues from different perspectives.

When localising a Japanese game, there’s always something that simply won’t make sense to the Western audience if translated word for word. Similarly, there may be lines that are too long to fit in the text window or the time allotted in a scene.

What to keep, what to cut out, what to change, what are the consequences—it’s always a tough call, and the approach is different for each person.

But the process becomes a bit easier to handle when the entire team is on the same page. I’m really fortunate to be at Atlus, where everyone in the company shares the same vision.

Persona 5, as a game, is the pinnacle of the series. From battle system and social sim to playability and UI, it has remained true to its origin but every aspect of the game is at its best. The same can be said for localisation: it’s the best English rendition in the history of Atlus USA thus far.

I’m sure everyone who already purchased the game will enjoy it, and I really hope that people who haven’t heard of the series before will give it a try. This game will take your heart.

Went with the twitter title.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

this explains a lot

 

[Frumix]

dameji controru ¯\_(&#12484_/¯

 

[MisterShine]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C8jk6nGUAAAcEcF.img][/QUOTE]

Eh, I've seen way worse. It's understandable, at least.

 

[sanstesy]

authentic af

 

[Kazuo Hirai]

HAHAHA, this and ducktroll thread...

So he is Japanese, nothing wrong with him

 

[Tonyx]

Interesting choice of post, on Sony's part, to advertise P5.
Wonder if it's a coincidence.

 

[WrenchNinja]

The same can be said for localisation: it’s the best English rendition in the history of Atlus USA thus far.

Oh geez

 

[LiK]

Was this a response to duckroll thread? The timing is almost too perfect.

 

[dmr87]

Post if you're ok duckroll.

 

[MaximumSpider]

this explains a lot

Lol

 

[Hoo-doo]

this explains a lot

Igor quotes? The dude's shtick is basically to talk as wordy and flowery as possible.

 

[DrROBschiz]

Dialogue should be translated how culturally spoken word is handled while text should read like text

People talk to each other loosely and efficiently

Written word is much different. Isnt this a well established thesis among language scholars?

 

[Two Words]

Do the Japanese actually pronounce "Sakamoto" like "Sa-KA-moto"? That always throws me off in Persona 5. I thought it was pronounced with no emphasis on any syllable, like "Sa-ka-mo-to".

 

[StereoVsn]

Yeah... Translation was certainly... authentic, that's the word I had in mind...

I find it fairly amusing that they posted an article about the quality of localization considering what I have seen in just first four hours. Both localization and VA direction (wouldn't say necessarily VA work as such) are off.

 

[Timeaisis]

So are the duckroll examples isolated incidents or is this dude straight up fooling?

 

[Gbraga]

dameji controru ¯\_(&#12484_/¯

Did you even read anything past the title?

When localising a Japanese game, there’s always something that simply won’t make sense to the Western audience if translated word for word. Similarly, there may be lines that are too long to fit in the text window or the time allotted in a scene.

How is this damage control when the criticism is exactly that they should have done more of that? He's not saying "we just wanted to keep it faithful to the original", on the contrary, the approach mentioned by him makes it so they can't defend themselves using that as an excuse. They are willing to make changes when necessary.

 

[213372bu]

Looking at GB/trailers some of the examples are some missteps, but I saw some lines that looked really stilted out-of-context but sounded fine with VA. Specifically, some of the stuff the cafe owner and investigators were saying sounded weird in plain text.

Not to excuse them of some actual errors, but people in the other thread were claiming this was worse than Mass Effect:Andromeda, so who knows.

 

[StereoVsn]

Did you even read anything past the title?

How is this damage control when the criticism is exactly that they should have done more of that? He's not saying "we just wanted to keep it faithful to the original", on the contrary, the approach mentioned by him makes it so they can't defend themselves using that as an excuse. They are willing to make changes when necessary.

Then they didn't do a very good job at least in the first few hours that I played. A lot of lines (not just Igor) are disjointed and clunky. That causes issues with VA because voicing those lines naturally is pretty much impossible.

Maybe it all gets better past the first few hours, can't tell you that.

Edit:

Not to excuse them of some actual errors, but people in the other thread were claiming this was worse than Mass Effect:Andromeda, so who knows.

Now, let's not get crazy here. It's not nearly as bad as MEA, not in the same ballpark and not even the same sport .

 

[Charamiwa]

So are the duckroll examples isolated incidents or is this dude straight up fooling?

There's been plenty of other examples in the thread. Though it's good to keep in mind that you can go through a lot of the game without anything awkward happening. It does stick out though, in the first 3 hours I played.

Overall I wouldn't call the translation great. At best it's fine, and at worst it reads like a mediocre fansub. The localisation of the UI is top notch though, the style is so cool.

 

[Frumix]

Do the Japanese actually pronounce "Sakamoto" like "Sa-KA-moto"? That always throws me off in Persona 5. I thought it was pronounced with no emphasis on any syllable, like "Sa-ka-mo-to".

Japanese has pitch stress rather than accent stress and length of a sound is used for lexical distinguishing instead, but an ear trained to accent stress languages tends to approximate it into an accent stress anyway.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

I wonder if P5 will become the go-to example for uninspiring literal translations and a nail on the coffin for the "authenticity" argument.

I see it being a point of reference for a long time.

But I haven't played P5 yet so I really shouldn't be talking. I admit that. Translation is a subject I take a special interest in and I always have something to say about the merits and necessity of localization versus 1:1 translations.

Funnily enough, I am more eager to play the game now so I can know for sure how good or bad it really is.

 

[Hoo-doo]

So are the duckroll examples isolated incidents or is this dude straight up fooling?

Duckroll hasn't played the game yet, according to his OP. So he's going off isolated Twitter examples.

There's definitely some outliers in terms of dialogue that just don't sit right when you read them.
But honestly, that's to be expected from a niche japanese game that's basically 100+ hours of straight dialogue. Persona games have always had this.
It's a storm in a teacup, IMO. I think as more people start playing the actual game the less people will care about the way the dialogue is written.

But i'll leave this thread lest I get labeled as a fanboy defender or worse. I'm just really, really enjoying this game.

 

[antibolo]

Do the Japanese actually pronounce "Sakamoto" like "Sa-KA-moto"? That always throws me off in Persona 5. I thought it was pronounced with no emphasis on any syllable, like "Sa-ka-mo-to".

I sure am glad the game is dual-audio so I won't have to hear a bunch of Americans try to pronounce Japanese names.

 

[super-famicom]

Please take care of me, Namba-san.

 

[tuxfool]

I sure am glad the game is dual-audio so I won't have to hear a bunch of Americans try to pronounce Japanese names.

Apparently subtitles are erratic at points. i.e. it is missing some.

 

[Hasney]

Apparently subtitles are erratic at points. i.e. it is missing some.

Just the same as #FE I think. Battle and ambient dialogue aren't subbed.

 

[TankRizzo]

ah, first day "explosions" about errors and the game is now shit and canceled preorders everywhere. Like clockwork with new releases.

 

[TankRizzo]

I sure am glad the game is dual-audio so I won't have to hear a bunch of Americans try to pronounce Japanese names.

I am sure am glad that the game is dual-audio so I won't have to hear a bunch of Japanese actors that sound like cats in heat.

 

[-Horizon-]

this explains a lot

This one bothers me most of the bunch there. And I'm assuming its one of the dialogue options for the protag.

 

[antibolo]

Just the same as #FE I think. Battle and ambient dialogue aren't subbed.

Disappointing but I'll survive. Don't want a dub if I can avoid it.

 

[Renpatsu]

How does the translation compare to previous Persona titles? Because I don't recall P4 being notably distracting in that regard since I played it.

 

[thumb]

That's an oddly stilted blog post to write for a professional writer. It's not bad, it just feels like a collection of very general facts.

"We did planning, we worked hard, there were lots of people, when we encountered problems we did our best. P.S. Persona 5 is good."

 

[Jiraiza]

As expected of Namba-san!

 

[Finale Fireworker]

That's an oddly stilted to blog post to write for a professional writer. It's not bad, it just feels like a collection of very general facts.

"We did planning, we worked hard, there were lots of people, when we encountered problems we did our best. P.S. Persona 5 is good."

Maybe it was literally translated from Japanese.

 

[Frumix]

That's an oddly stilted to blog post to write for a professional writer. It's not bad, it just feels like a collection of very general facts.

"We did planning, we worked hard, there were lots of people, when we encountered problems we did our best. P.S. Persona 5 is good."

Sounds very Japanese to do.

 

[Flipyap]

I wonder if P5 will become the go-to example for uninspiring literal translations and a nail on the coffin for the "authenticity" argument.

I see it being a point of reference for a long time.

But I haven't played P5 yet so I really shouldn't be talking. I admit that. Translation is a subject I take a special interest in and I always have something to say about the merits and necessity of localization versus 1:1 translations.

Funnily enough, I am more eager to play the game now so I can know for sure how good or bad it really is.

I hope not, because it's a deeply flawed example.
Literal translation doesn't automatically result in poor grammar and sloppy writing. The issues with P5's translation shouldn't have popped up even in a messy first draft.

 

[Gbraga]

Then they didn't do a very good job at least in the first few hours that I played. A lot of lines (not just Igor) are disjointed and clunky. That causes issues with VA because voicing those lines naturally is pretty much impossible.

Maybe it all gets better past the first few hours, can't tell you that.

Sure, I didn't even play the game yet, far from me to defend them from criticism. And if anything, it's even worse that it wasn't intentional. But then criticize them for that, like you're doing now, instead of saying something that doesn't even make sense considering the very post this thread is about.

If this is damage control, it must be the worst I've ever seen. It's only making things worse for them.

 

[StereoVsn]

How does the translation compare to previous Persona titles? Because I don't recall P4 being notably distracting in that regard since I played it.

Persona 4/4G was generally excellent both from localization and VA perspective which played a great part in its charm.

 

[zelas]

When asked to write about the localisation of P5, I thought about my methodology and whether things have changed as I devoted myself to bringing Japanese games to the Western audience for the last 18 years, and I realised: my goal has always been to deliver games in the most authentic and enjoyable form possible.

This statement being added to the conversation about particular lines... are they trying to tells us that the Japanese version also has dialogue that would also cause Japanese players to scratch their head? Dialogue that looks like a poor machine translation. And they kept it for the US version to be authentic?

 

[antibolo]

Literal translation doesn't automatically result in poor grammar and sloppy writing.

Going from Japanese to English? Yes, it does 100%.

A literal translation between those two languages is inherently impossible. There's a ton of missing information that you need to fill out.

People need to stop pretending that this is possible.

 

[ThatStupidLion]

did they read the localization thread on gaf? and then make a post explaining it?

did that happen or am I reaching?

yes teh localization isn't great, but i havent minded it. 20 hrs in and the game is fantastic. i'd take this localization over no localization...

 

[Nyoro SF]

That's an oddly stilted blog post to write for a professional writer. It's not bad, it just feels like a collection of very general facts.

"We did planning, we worked hard, there were lots of people, when we encountered problems we did our best. P.S. Persona 5 is good."

Yeah, it feels like a bullet list. Also it's not very informative, it can literally be summed up as "It was tough, we did a good job, hope you enjoy."

What on earth is going on at Atlus

 

[Finale Fireworker]

I hope not because it's a deeply flawed example.
Literal translation doesn't automatically result in poor grammar and sloppy writing. The issues with P5's translation shouldn't have popped up even in a messy first draft.

I would say that literal translations have the most potential for unnatural cadence, syntax, and sentence structure. This is especially true with languages as different as English and Japanese. It is simply impossible to adapt the languages with 100% accuracy.

But even French to English produces really unappealing and stilted adaptations when taken too literally. Writing is about more than the information presented. Writing has personality and flow and feeling to it. These things do not automatically translate from language to language and most often do not.

Victor Hugo's novels, for example, require considerable localization to not be a horrible boring slog to read. His French prose "sings" very beautifully and this has to be restored by an equally talented English writer who understands what makes Hugo's writing unique. The literal translations, many of which are older, are really only used as reference materials. Sometimes, as a curiosity, it's interesting to see the same lines translated different ways. But when it comes to actually reading and enjoying a novel like that, you don't read the literal translations. You'd develop quite a poor opinion of Victor Hugo if you did.

 

[StereoVsn]

Sure, I didn't even play the game yet, far from me to defend them from criticism. And if anything, it's even worse that it wasn't intentional. But then criticize them for that, like you're doing now, instead of saying something that doesn't even make sense considering the very post this thread is about.

If this is damage control, it must be the worst I've ever seen. It's only making things worse for them.

I am just hoping it's damage control and they are not genuinely thinking that localization is awesome and best they have done. Because if it's the latter... oh boy.

 

[GinoFelino]

That's some solid timing

 

[Keasar]

Spoiler

Still wanna play it, have yet to get into a Persona game and this seems as good time as any.

 

[family_guy]

Weird. Almost sounds like an apology.

 

[rhandino]

Yeah, it feels like a bullet list. Also it's not very informative, it can literally be summed up as "It was tough, we did a good job, hope you enjoy."

Yeah... it's even worse when you compare it to the very informative blogs XSEED had released about the localization process of the Trails of series.

 

[Yohane]

Duckroll was right