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[Joeku]

I'm just glad there's more and more conversation about this. Atlus USA has set a high standard for the industry in localization over the years and when their marquee release falls short of the greatness fans should expect, I think they deserve to know. Nothing is gained from not telling someone that you know they are capable of better. Defensive fans should realize that the majority of people criticizing Persona 5 for this are huge fans ourselves. We're not shitting on Atlus, we just want them to realize they can do way better.

To back this up, I am fucking adoring the game. But good fucking lord, could the dialogue be better for me, an english speaker. Like, fuck. This shouldn't be this much of an issue. It's Atlus' biggest game in the West ever, for fuck's sake.

To the deniers: yeah, it could be better. Your fucking golden child isn't perfect by all accounts. Fucking deal with it.

Ugh. When people say "this is overblown" they're saying "people care less about anime bullshif than I do". What a worthless point.

 

[StarSketch]

yakisoba pan ---> yakisoba bread
"DO NOT ERASE THE FOREIGN TONGUE"

Yeah, I caught this and was like- "Wouldn't this confuse anyone who doesn't know pan = bread in Japanese?" (And Spanish because loanword.)

...I mean Yakisoba technically could be translated to Noodles too, but uh Noodle Bread sounds a bit...weird.

but it's better than eating cookware o_o.

 

[AtomskEater]

Yeah, I caught this and was like- "Wouldn't this confuse anyone who doesn't know pan = bread in Japanese?" (And Spanish because loanword.)

...I mean Yakisoba technically could be translated to Noodles too, but uh Noodle Bread sounds a bit...weird.

but it's better than eating cookware o_o.

Yakisoba is fine the same way sushi is, since it's a specific dish with no analogue in English language/Western culture. But yeah the "pan" bit is weird and stood out for me, we have a word for that!

*pets the neko that hangs out with the gaijin barker in Shibuya*

 

[Hypron]

yakisoba pan ---> yakisoba bread
"DO NOT ERASE THE FOREIGN TONGUE"

lol that's some keikaku means plan level of stupid.

 

[Toxi]

Thieves who steal from others need to be severely punished.

Along with the murderers who kill people, but only if those people die.

It means that cats are so resilient that they wouldn't die even if you killed them.

 

[Joeku]

lol that's some keikaku means plan level of stupid.

I'm gonna call the self-identified Fox guy Inari.

Translator note: Inari means fox.

 

[StarSketch]

Along with the murderers who kill people, but only if those people die.

But do they die when they are killed?

 

[Kuro]

Played 100 hours so far, didnt notice anything minus a few mistakes here and there. See people making an entire website nitpicking crap. Not surprised. The english speaking world gets all high and mighty and offended if dialogue doesn't perfectly match some popular standard but at least the game doesnt go to Nintendo levels of bad localization.

 

[Joeku]

Played 100 hours so far, didnt notice anything minus a few mistakes here and there. See people making an entire website nitpicking crap. Not surprised. The english speaking world gets all high and mighty and offended if dialogue doesn't perfectly match some popular standard but at least the game doesnt go to Nintendo levels of bad localization.

Yeah, guys, we're all too offended by the lackluster translation.

Lock the topic up, y'all. We got shut down by an aimless opinion.

 

[Messofanego]

By comparison, how was the translation or localisation effort for Yakuza 0 or Nier Automata received? Are there more trustworthy localisation teams or is it down to the amount of support/funding by the publisher (in this case, Atlus dropping the ball)?

What does 8-4 Play think of all this?
https://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/8-4-play-4142017-puddin-pops/1600-1947/
Oh, they specifically didn't want to discuss Persona 5's localisation because it would be "poor form".

 

[Zakalwe]

Stop being hyperbolic, almost no one is saying it's flat out bad. I love most of it but as a native English speaker I do notice more of the text-only lines than I'd like just not reading in a way that sounds natural. They just don't sound like sentences anyone who speaks English would say.

Thankfully the voiced stuff is mostly fantastic, the VAs did excellent work.

The site is called "How Atlas Fails Fans".

 

[Geg]

Played 100 hours so far, didnt notice anything minus a few mistakes here and there. See people making an entire website nitpicking crap. Not surprised. The english speaking world gets all high and mighty and offended if dialogue doesn't perfectly match some popular standard but at least the game doesnt go to Nintendo levels of bad localization.

A localization from NOA Treehouse would be vastly superior to what we got.

 

[Iva Demilcol]

Played 100 hours so far, didnt notice anything minus a few mistakes here and there. See people making an entire website nitpicking crap. Not surprised. The english speaking world gets all high and mighty and offended if dialogue doesn't perfectly match some popular standard but at least the game doesnt go to Nintendo levels of bad localization.

P3 and P4's localizations were better. P5 is an amazing game but the localization is not at the same level of its predecessors.

People wouldn't be talking about this if Atlus USA weren't one of the best at handling games localization.

 

[StarSketch]

A localization from NOA Treehouse would be vastly superior to what we got.

No, that'd just be replacing weeb-level Japanese with memes.

 

[Kuro]

A localization from NOA Treehouse would be vastly superior to what we got.

Yeah sure, full of shitty memes and alterations that would change entire meanings.

 

[StarSketch]

I brought this up in the "There's a problem" thread, but I think maybe there were just too many cooks in the kitchen on this one. That interview with Yu Nanba said that there were more people than usual working on P5, and it probably messed up something.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Yeah sure, full of shitty memes and alterations that would change entire meanings.

Ah, that rumored scum... that would change entire meanings. It can't be helped.

 

[Geg]

No, that'd just be replacing weeb-level Japanese with memes.

Yeah sure, full of shitty memes and alterations that would change entire meanings.

As expected of gaf-san. I suppose it can't he helped

 

[meltingparappa]

I brought this up in the "There's a problem" thread, but I think maybe there were just too many cooks in the kitchen on this one. That interview with Yu Nanba said that there were more people than usual working on P5, and it probably messed up something.

I'm willing to bet that the biggest problem the localization had was simply a matter of time and budget. A lot of the machine-code translation almost feels like a placeholder meant for someone to do another pass on if time permitted.

Also these 'can't be helped' jokes are perfect and killing me.

 

[Acid08]

It can't be helped that Breath of the Wild is a scum localization.

 

[Joeku]

The thing I don't get the most is people being against the idea that they can do better. Where does that come from? "No, this quality of translation is exactly as good as it can be!"

What are you gaining by defending this as completely fine?

 

[Geg]

PS Persona 5's localization has a meme in it too

It means that cats are so resilient that they wouldn't die even if you killed them.

Unless, of course, they translated it that way without the slightest bit of self-awareness, which would honestly be even worse.

 

[StarSketch]

PS Persona 5's localization has a meme in it too


Unless, of course, they translated it that way without the slightest bit of self-awareness, which would honestly be even worse.

Despite not noticing this one, It's just barely unsubtle enough.

If you're gonna use memes, you need to be subtle with it so that it's not fucking confusing if someone doesn't know the meme. Since I guess this one sounds like redundancy out of context, I guess it didn't work.

 

[Kuro]

And people are dogpiling shitty memes now, I'm out. I still stand by the fact that only a few lines had issues and with a game this long there are bound to be repeat phrases.

 

[Joeku]

And people are dogpiling shitty memes now, I'm out. I still stand by the fact that only a few lines had issues and with a game this long there are bound to be repeat phrases.

Instead of bailing out, just defend what you said, even a bit. Nobody will think less of you. Please, genuinely.

Tell me how this is all completely okay and couldn't be better.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

And people are dogpiling shitty memes now, I'm out. I still stand by the fact that only a few lines had issues and with a game this long there are bound to be repeat phrases.

So this is the power of the shitty meme... impressive. I underestimated "that" poster's resolve.

 

[sonicmj1]

PS Persona 5's localization has a meme in it too


Unless, of course, they translated it that way without the slightest bit of self-awareness, which would honestly be even worse.

By any standard, Persona 5's translation has memes in it.

It makes sense in context, so it doesn't bother me. But some people have a weirdly hard-line stance against memes.

 

[Tookay]

Yeah sure, full of shitty memes and alterations that would change entire meanings.

The only shitty meme here is the one some people trot out about Nintendo games being full of memes.

Even an average Treehouse translation is better than the dumb stuff I've seen in Persona 5.

 

[Toxi]

It can't be helped in order to ascertain the truth.

真相を突き止めるためには仕方ない。

What is the character even trying to say here?

 

[Joeku]

What is the character even trying to say here?

"I have to find out the truth!"

 

[like.a.ser]

Yeah, I caught this and was like- "Wouldn't this confuse anyone who doesn't know pan = bread in Japanese?" (And Spanish because loanword.)

...I mean Yakisoba technically could be translated to Noodles too, but uh Noodle Bread sounds a bit...weird.

but it's better than eating cookware o_o.

I've never seen this particular dish called anything BUT yakisoba-pan on restaurant menus, etc. And I live in east Tennessee, which is not an area that is particularly known for having a large Japanese-American population.

Also, a quick Google search turned up plenty of Google videos calling it "yakisoba-pan" while teaching people how to make it, so I have to think I'm far from alone in that experience..

 

[sonicmj1]

Also, Breath of the Wild's English script is awesome, even if a lot of the voice acting drops the ball. All the NPCs have a ton of personality.

 

[StarSketch]

wait nvm

 

[NinjaCoachZ]

I'm willing to bet that the biggest problem the localization had was simply a matter of time and budget. A lot of the machine-code translation almost feels like a placeholder meant for someone to do another pass on if time permitted.

Also these 'can't be helped' jokes are perfect and killing me.

Yeah. I get the vibe that it's pretty typical for native Japanese speakers to do the initial rough translation, but then there's always an editor or two to go over things from a native English speaker's perspective and then smooth things over for the final result. It sounds like the second part of the phase wasn't quite as thorough as it could've been. The stuff about character voices all bleeding together is something really insightful to have picked up on as well.

 

[StarSketch]

I've never seen this particular dish called anything BUT yakisoba-pan on restaurant menus, etc. And I live in east Tennessee, which is not an area that is particularly known for having a large Japanese-American population.

Also, a quick Google search turned up plenty of Google videos calling it "yakisoba-pan" while teaching people how to make it, so I have to think I'm far from alone in that experience..

Huh. Interesting.

 

[Lord of Ostia]

The excellent and natural sounding VA does a good job of masking the awkward translation, but it's definitely noticeable, especially in the scenes that aren't voiced. I'm used to playing poorly translated Vita games, like Tales of Hearts R and Digimon Cyber Sleuth, which are a good bit worse, so I can ignore it for the most part. Still, it's undeniable that the game has translation issues that P4 didn't have. It's a shame, but the game is still quite good, and even the awkward lines still convey what they are supposed to, generally. It's not so bad that you can't enjoy the story or characters, but it's bad enough that you will notice it in spots, when you shouldn't notice it at all.

 

[Joeku]

Also, Breath of the Wild's English script is awesome, even if a lot of the voice acting drops the ball. All the NPCs have a ton of personality.

Yeah, if somebody put together the script of Breath of the Wild with the casting of Persona 5 we'd have the best localized game ever.

Ain't nothing in P5 reach them Urbosa heights.

 

[PixelatedBookake]

I'm near done with P5 and I only heard some of those weird lines in the first hour or so of the game. It didn't take me out of the game or anything nor did it hinder my enjoyment of it. I love JRPGs and the Persona series so I get if fans can get passionate about it, and as for why this guy is going this far in-depth into the problems of the game is fine, but I believe if kind of silly. I don't care if "Sakamoto" or "Takamaki" are slightly mispronounced. If you're losing your mind about that, you're a silly person and I don't care what you have to say about dubs. I'm all in for objective criticism for a game I love to death but with all controversy over some poorly translated lines in an 100+ hour game with over thousands lines of dialogue, I'll give the Atlus translators a pass here.

 

[Etrian Oddity]

And people are dogpiling shitty memes now, I'm out. I still stand by the fact that only a few lines had issues and with a game this long there are bound to be repeat phrases.

There is a difference between a predilection for memes with a competent translation, and grammatically bad English.

I want an industry where Jeremy Blausteins and Ted Woolseys interject a soul into a bad and uneducated effort to keep a "pristine vision" of the auteur's script -- when said auteur can't even speak the language it's being translated into.

 

[NinjaCoachZ]

Yeah, if somebody put together the script of Breath of the Wild with the casting of Persona 5 we'd have the best localized game ever.

Ain't nothing in P5 reach them Urbosa heights.

Funny since Urbosa and Sae have the same English voice.

 

[Acid08]

The excellent and natural sounding VA does a good job of masking the awkward translation, but it's definitely noticeable, especially in the scenes that aren't voiced. I'm used to playing poorly translated Vita games, like Tales of Hearts R and Digimon Cyber Sleuth, which are a good bit worse, so I can ignore it for the most part. Still, it's undeniable that the game has translation issues that P4 didn't have. It's a shame, but the game is still quite good, and even the awkward lines still convey what they are supposed to, generally. It's not so bad that you can't enjoy the story or characters, but it's bad enough that you will notice it in spots, when you shouldn't notice it at all.

Pretty much this. I really do love the game despite the issues. To me the cast still comes to life in spite of some of the repeated phrase usage the site pointed out. I love them all.

 

[FluxWaveZ]

I brought this up in the "There's a problem" thread, but I think maybe there were just too many cooks in the kitchen on this one. That interview with Yu Nanba said that there were more people than usual working on P5, and it probably messed up something.

The site itself goes over this in the "Why did Atlus release such a flawed translation?" section, highlighting the six translators and eight editors that worked on P5.

 

[Joeku]

I'm near done with P5 and I only heard some of those weird lines in the first hour or so of the game. It didn't take me out of the game or anything nor did it hinder my enjoyment of it. I love JRPGs and the Persona series so I get if fans can get passionate about it, but as for why this guy is going this far in-depth into the problems of the game is fine, but I believe if kind of silly. I don't care if "Sakamoto" or "Takamaki" are slightly mispronounced. If you're losing your mind about that, you're a silly person and I don't care what you have to say about dubs. I'm all in for objective criticism for a game I to death but with all controversy over some poorly translated lines in an 100+ hour game with over thousands lines of dialogue, I'll give the Atlus translators a pass here.

Why comment to say you don't care if you don't care? What you are saying is "you all are caring more than me".

That's all. That adds nothing.

 

[Joeku]

Funny since Urbosa and Sae have the same English voice.

That is genuinely crazy because they are respectively the best and worst parts of the two games as far as voices go. Wow.

Edit: sorry for the dp

 

[Geg]

What is the character even trying to say here?

Without knowing the context based on the text, basically that the character needs to do something they would rather not (maybe morally questionable?) in order to uncover some kind of truth. Like a much better and more natural-sounding way to translate "it can't be helped" is some kind of variation on "I have no choice." I'm kind of amazed it can't be helped is still a thing.

To be fully serious for a second it's mostly because of the fact that I probably can understand more Japanese than most of the people defending the localization (yeah, I know that "won't die even if you killed him" is a common phrase in Japan and not really a meme) that the localization is so off-putting to me.

In the past six months I've played through several Japanese games and then went back to watch cutscenes in Japanese with the official English subtitles because I was curious about what they all sounded like in the original language. FFXV, Xenoblade Chronicles (very late to the party), Breath of the Wild, and Nier: Automata. Not once in any of those games did I cringe while listening to it and think "geez, even I could have translated this better" like with Persona 5.

 

[Toxi]

"I have to find out the truth!"

That simple huh? I guess it can't be helped.

EDIT

Without knowing the context based on the text, basically that the character needs to do something they would rather not (maybe morally questionable?) in order to uncover some kind of truth.

To be fully serious for a second it's mostly because of the fact that I probably can understand more Japanese than most of the people defending the localization (yeah, I know that "won't die even if you killed him" is a common phrase in Japan and not really a meme) that the localization is so off-putting to me.

In the past six months I've played through several Japanese games and then went back to watch cutscenes in Japanese with the official English subtitles because I was curious about what they all sounded like in the original language. FFXV, Xenoblade Chronicles (very late to the party), Breath of the Wild, and Nier: Automata. Not once in any of those games did I cringe while listening to it and think "geez, even I could have translated this better" like with Persona 5.

Thanks for the clarification. This thread is gonna ruin so many Japanese subs for me.

 

[sonicmj1]

I don't care if "Sakamoto" or "Takamaki" are slightly mispronounced. If you're losing your mind about that, you're a silly person and I don't care what you have to say about dubs.

I don't think the pronunciation of names in the English dub is even mentioned on the website linked in the OP, which makes me wonder if you followed the link at all.

 

[YianGaruga]

That is genuinely crazy because they are respectively the best and worst parts of the two games as far as voices go. Wow.

Edit: sorry for the dp

It's all in the VA direction. Extremely important and underappreciated

 

[Joeku]

That simple huh? I guess it can't be helped.

Looking for the truth like that is problematic. We'll just have to wait for this guy to reach what we expect.

 

[StarSketch]

The site itself goes over this in the "Why did Atlus release such a flawed translation?" section, highlighting the six translators and eight editors that worked on P5.

I missed the entire FAQ section, oops. Thanks for pointing that out.