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[Zoe]

Uh, I just want to ask something - where I live, 'junk food' refers specifically to stuff like candies and potato chip - snack food eaten mainly for the taste, and something people wouldn't normally consider for meals. 'Fast food' refers to the stuff like McDonalds, KFC, whatever.

Is there a difference in NA or wherever?

No, those are my definitions as well.

 

[Cep]

No, those are my definitions as well.

Mine too, but I have definately seen the word applied to anything not considered healthy/home cooked.

 

[Kurtofan]

Localizations are always better than literal translations with tons of footnotes.

 

[Zoe]

Localizations are always better than literal translations with tons of footnotes.

Nobody's asking for that in games.

 

[pakkit]

Localizations are always better than literal translations with tons of footnotes.

Always? It depends on what's being translated.

That said, game stories are usually so crappy that it doesn't really matter. But I do feel like I would've been a lot more drawn into Okami if I had a little exposure to the spiritual/religious elements that are so ingrained into its fiction.

 

[Pureauthor]

Always? It depends on what's being translated.

That said, game stories are usually so crappy that it doesn't really matter. But I do feel like I would've been a lot more drawn into Okami if I had a little exposure to the spiritual/religious elements that are so ingrained into its fiction.

I'm pretty sure nothing significant was lost in Okami's localization either way.

 

[Sqorgar]

Persona 4 could arguably not take place in Japan, at least in the Phoenix Wright sense, ...

There is no way that Persona 4 could take place anywhere but Japan, or at least some sort of fantasy country which is identical to Japan in every single way. Now, the first Persona is a different story...

Whereas Pokemon's only relation to Japan is a vague geographical similarity and the target audience doesn't give a damn so it isn't nearly as good an idea to keep RAGEDUMPLING in the game.

RAGECANDYBAR isn't really a better translation though. I'd argue that Pokemon is a very Japanese game, but those cultural elements are rarely explicit. Since the games are a contemporary fantasy, these cultural elements are learned via the same process that learns that Vulpix evolves into a Ninetails. So people are interpreting Japanese culture through Pokemon, which is actually kind of adorable.

 

[charlequin]

Because I believe that videogames don't have to be an ephemeral commercialized product.

I agree, but demanding that the ephemeral be rejected in favor of only the timeless is not the way to get there. Film didn't do that -- the early days of film are full of comedies that seem almost incomprehensible today and works that dedicate their efforts only to chronicling things of passing interest -- hell, even official-best-film-ever-Citizen-Kane is anchored in time by its portrayal of a contemporary public figure in a way that ensures it will be interpreted very differently today than when it was released (and that extra historical knowledge is needed to fully appreciate it.)

(the way most younger viewers of Animal House don't pick up on the ending's cheeky reference to American Graffiti, for example)

At this point in time we're already past the point where young people see that device in yet other movies and mistakenly think it originates from Animal House and probably moving on to the point where people see it in yet yet other movies and think it originated in the movies that ripped it off from Animal House.

Modern translators of literature generally favor keeping the foreigness of the work in the translation. They believe the reader should move toward understanding the culture and expanding their views over having everything dumbed down and domesticated for them.

I think it's kind of funny that you chose to spotlight a page about Eugene Nida, whose Dynamic Equivalence is very much about the sort of alteration of small-bore literal details to produce an overall product with a similar holistic "feel" that I and some others have been advocating for in this thread.

I, personally, found the pop culture references and the Americanized Japan to be distracting NOW, not because they were references but because they didn't fit the atmosphere of the game.

I don't see how you can possibly make a convincing argument about this with regard to the pop culture references specifically.

(Setting it in America vs. Japan is a tough one. Over the span of all five games in the series, I think either decision would inevitably produce quite a few awkward and questionable moments; I'm satisfied with the way they went but I'm not going to actively defend it as the "right" choice per se.)

Is there a difference in NA or wherever?

No, you can blame the nearly 100F (about 38C) heat for making me too stupid to use the right term. "Fast food" is what I meant.

 

[Josh7289]

So people are interpreting Japanese culture through Pokemon, which is actually kind of adorable.

Wow, talking down much.

 

[Torquill]

I am a pretty big proponent of having a mostly literal translation. I was reading Reeds and Mud by Ibanez, and was pretty upset when I found the translators taking liberties with the original Spanish.

I don't care about making it culturally familiar. I never really understood the reasoning behind that.

Sometimes literal is appropriate, sometimes it's not. It depends on the writers intent. If the line is about being Japanese then keep it literal, if the purpose was to evoke humor or nostalgia thru pop culture or illciting the familiar then that intent is lost when you do it literally. You can lose things in a literal translation.

 

[Zoc]

Break it down a little more carefully and look at legitimately analogous items and I think it becomes clear that the "pictures vs. words" angle doesn't really carry much weight. Change the ramen-cart angle out to a central plot element (like, say, Maya's lineage as part of a spirit-channeling medium family) and suddenly changing it becomes much less desirable, as I've talked about in this thread a few times already. Or conversely, look at the images in the game and select some relatively minor cultural element (some hypothetical street-scene background where there's a sign for, I dunno, "Jim's Kimono Shop" in the background) and the case for making minor alterations to prioritize the flow of the game experience over the literalist interpretation of the "original work."

I only made the picture/word comparison to put my feelings into terms you might more easily understand. I'll try again. Say there was a scene set in a suburban backyard, that happened to have a statue of Buddha in it. The localizers erase it in Photoshop, for no other reason than they thought American audiences wouldn't "get" it. Would that bother you? If yes, why doesn't it bother you when they erase references in the text? If it wouldn't bother you, the picture/word comparison was pointless from the start, I won't waste any more words on it.

The truth of the matter is that changes to video games don't bother me as much as changes to movies or books. Compared to a book or (good) movie, the script of most games will have gone through multiple hands already, so if one more pair is added, it doesn't really make a huge difference. If they change a reference to some exceedingly minor Japanese TV star, or obscure historical event, I can see that it would be effective, and I would consider it a legitimate part of translating and localizing.

What put the bee in my bonnet was your comment that if the original intent behind a reference was to make a character seem like a regular (Japanese) guy, then the translators, if they are doing their job well, will change the reference to make him seem like a regular (American) guy. That is in no way part of a translator's (or localizer's) job. It is no more a part of his or her job than it is part of an Alabama movie distributor's to change all the references in a Woody Allen movie to Nascar, or a Democratic radio station manager's to change the Republican references in a Rush Limbaugh broadcast.

 

[Zoc]

Okay, well, straight shit with you here, you've got a legitimate point of view. I don't think going for the long-term relevance is worse than going for the short-term pop. But I don't think it's better, either. They're different approaches with their own strengths and weaknesses, but basically it comes down to reaching more people now and fewer people later (and probably in sum less), or reaching fewer people now and more people later (but risking not making enough money now to continue the product line).

I think the games have a charm that transcends the scattered pop culture references, and in the future, if released untouched, I think they will still be appreciated while the occasional pop culture reference will be glossed over (the way most younger viewers of Animal House don't pick up on the ending's cheeky reference to American Graffiti, for example) because the games don't particularly lean on any of them. I'm pretty sure should someone play PW in twenty years, they will enjoy the carefully laid out stories and great characters and not bat an eye at the references to anything that hasn't kept its fame over time.

Right, but keep in mind that the translators of Phoenix Wright and Lunar added ephemeral references where there were none in the original. (Woolsey added weird things where there were none in the original, but they'll be no weirder in 20 years than they are today.)

Edit: I just went and checked the clown/Fresh Prince section in both versions of Phoenix Wright 2 (I played both versions, but a lot of the Japanese went by too quickly for me to make it out). Here are the Japanese and English scenes.

So, it turns out that the Japanese original was just gibberish. The English version added a joke where there was none! I have to admit I'm impressed, they did a better job than I remembered. My impression when I played the game in English was just that it added a bunch of pop references (which I still think is generally true), but replacing non-humorous gibberish with something funny is actually pretty inspired.

 

[Mael]

I remember being surprised and confused the first time I heard that people thought that Ted Woolsey had done something bad. I grew up on 8- and 16-bit RPGs that all available evidence suggested were translated by brain-damaged alpacas. Woolsey comes along, does a halfway decent job with Secret of Mana in the three days or whatever they gave him to pound out a script, and then practically in a vacuum actually writes a few game translations that actually read pretty well, which was essentially revolutionizing the process. His name was synonymous in my mind with "best translator ever."

A few years later and revisionist jackholes with oversized senses of entitlement and 20/20 hindsight whose first RPG was Final Fantasy VII decide that he didn't do a good enough job? How about fuck you.

which actually is hillarious seeing how botched FFVII localisation was...
And seriously I've never seen any problem in any localisation made on a Nintendo product, they manage to make sure the games are playable and enjoyable with the translations (now if they could hire good voice cast...)

 

[Shouta]

I... can't decide if that's cool or gross....

It's really good.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

And seriously I've never seen any problem in any localisation made on a Nintendo product, they manage to make sure the games are playable and enjoyable with the translations (now if they could hire good voice cast...)

Pokemon leaves a bit to be desired, particularly HGSS and especially Emerald.

So many "fufufufu" laughs....

 

[Mael]

Pokemon leaves a bit to be desired, particularly HGSS and especially Emerald.

So many "fufufufu" laughs....

Well I don't have the chance to play Pokemon in English as that would mean importing...
but I saw nothing wrong in Diammond (7badges in 110h! yeah!!)

 

[Sqorgar]

I agree, but demanding that the ephemeral be rejected in favor of only the timeless is not the way to get there. Film didn't do that -- the early days of film are full of comedies that seem almost incomprehensible today and works that dedicate their efforts only to chronicling things of passing interest -- hell, even official-best-film-ever-Citizen-Kane is anchored in time by its portrayal of a contemporary public figure in a way that ensures it will be interpreted very differently today than when it was released (and that extra historical knowledge is needed to fully appreciate it.)

Why does it have to be an either or thing? Obviously, all creations are anchored at a specific point in time. I'm not saying that you can't be a product of your time. Just that, as far as creating and localizing games, you have to be aware that you might not be creating ONLY for the time being.

Wow, talking down much.

I was speaking as a father of a four year old daughter who is addicted to Pokemon. I don't find thirty-five year old men who only know Japanese culture through Pokemon to be "adorable".

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

Right, but keep in mind that the translators of Phoenix Wright and Lunar added ephemeral references where there were none in the original. (Woolsey added weird things where there were none in the original, but they'll be no weirder in 20 years than they are today.)

I'll give you Lunar, where they replaced the boring-as-fuck NPC conversations with pop culture references, but Gyakuten Saiban has a ton of (Japanese) pop culture references in the scripts. I don't feel the English versions and Japanese versions differ at all in their tone.

 

[Christine]

What put the bee in my bonnet was your comment that if the original intent behind a reference was to make a character seem like a regular (Japanese) guy, then the translators, if they are doing their job well, will change the reference to make him seem like a regular (American) guy. That is in no way part of a translator's (or localizer's) job. It is no more a part of his or her job than it is part of an Alabama movie distributor's to change all the references in a Woody Allen movie to Nascar, or a Democratic radio station manager's to change the Republican references in a Rush Limbaugh broadcast.

Those are some pretty tortuous and nonsensical analogies. A movie distributor or radio station manager's job doesn't involve editing content, whereas a translator's job kinda centers around it.

And the point is not so much to change a regular (Japanese) guy into a regular (American) guy, it's to change the references that cue the (Japanese) audience into the character's archetype and identity as "regular guy" into references that will cue an (American) audience into the corresponding archetype, because what's important to the plot is that the audience perceive the character as "regular guy".

 

[Mandoric]

I only made the picture/word comparison to put my feelings into terms you might more easily understand. I'll try again. Say there was a scene set in a suburban backyard, that happened to have a statue of Buddha in it. The localizers erase it in Photoshop, for no other reason than they thought American audiences wouldn't "get" it. Would that bother you? If yes, why doesn't it bother you when they erase references in the text? If it wouldn't bother you, the picture/word comparison was pointless from the start, I won't waste any more words on it.

Translation is a matter of reconstructing rather than presenting, though, since perforce you can't display the original. It's more equivalent to a play calling for a priest of no other description; whether the actor onstage wears a Roman collar, a Canterbury cap, an exorasson, an eboshi cap, or a saffron-yellow robe is entirely dependent on local habits.

 

[webrunner]

There is a difference between a translation and a localization.


There's more to a locale then just the language they speak.

 

[charlequin]

Say there was a scene set in a suburban backyard, that happened to have a statue of Buddha in it. The localizers erase it in Photoshop, for no other reason than they thought American audiences wouldn't "get" it. Would that bother you?

No one is suggesting that localizers should censor content because they don't trust in the ability of their audiences to grasp the material; that never works out well for anyone and no serious professional localizer or student of translation theory would ever suggest doing anything like this.

What people are suggesting is that the correct level of translation is not always on the literal word or sentence level; it's often what I referenced above, the idea of "dynamic equivalence" -- that two things produce the same effect in the reader even though their nominal content is different. That's what the ramen -> burgers change in PW is about, and the reason it's appropriate there is that the nominal content of the original sentence really isn't important compared to what it's supposed to implicitly convey.

What put the bee in my bonnet was your comment that if the original intent behind a reference was to make a character seem like a regular (Japanese) guy, then the translators, if they are doing their job well, will change the reference to make him seem like a regular (American) guy.

That's not really my position. Pretty much the entire thrust of my argument is that you can't make statements like "translators who are doing their job well will do X in situation Y" because there are always so many different factors in play.

Context is everything in localization. In a properly translated work, every single sentence needs to be taken in the context of the overall work, the intended audience, the timeframe of the original work vs. when the translation is being released, the meaning of the sentence taken alone, the sentence's role in the broader work, and more. It is literally impossible to produce a "perfect" translation that satisfies the needs of every one of these contexts equally well, so a translator is also constantly forced to choose which to prioritize.

Sometimes a given translation is going to prioritize low-level textural fidelity to the original work even though that produces a very different context on a certain level -- look at Persona 4, where "story set in the exceedingly familiar locale of rural Japan" becomes "story set in the unfamiliar foreign locale of rural Japan." Other times the holistically preserving the tone is going to be more important, like in Phoneix Wright. In both cases I think the translators made the right call, even though the philosophy of these two translations is very different.

That is in no way part of a translator's (or localizer's) job.

Changing something's precise meaning to match the context it'll appear in within the translated work, where appropriate, is very much part of a localizer's job. You can ask NichM or john tv -- I'm pretty sure they'd know.

Why does it have to be an either or thing?

It doesn't! I'm just saying when something starts out as a pop culture ephemeron I don't see much reason to spiff it up and make it timeless when translating it. If people still care about Phoenix Wright in thirty years I don't think pop culture references are going to matter much either way in how much people appreciate it.

Translation is a matter of reconstructing rather than presenting, though, since perforce you can't display the original. It's more equivalent to a play calling for a priest of no other description; whether the actor onstage wears a Roman collar, a Canterbury cap, an exorasson, an eboshi cap, or a saffron-yellow robe is entirely dependent on local habits.

Excellently and eloquently stated.

 

[plagiarize]

I haven't played every game, and I can count the number of games which I've played in both Japanese and English using my fingers. I'm far from an expert in this matter. I could give plenty of examples of anime which do the negative things which I was talking about, so it's not like I was just making that stuff up. Thankfully, most games I've played have had pretty satisfactory translations in my opinion.

What I was trying to do was to talk about what makes a translation good or bad, and to respond to the idiotic idea that anyone who dislikes heavily changed scripts must want everything to just be a 100% literal translation. While some changes are acceptable, a good translation shouldn't be changing too much, and should capture the meaning and spirit of the original version.

The Magic Roundabout > Le Manège enchanté

turning something into a joke isn't an issue if it's funny and doesn't undermine the drama.

but even something like meaning and spirit don't always translate. a character commiting suicide say in a western game vs an eastern game conveys different meanings. treatment of other cultures... perceived stereotypes etc etc... can all seem weird without being localised. if something isn't meant to be notable but has more significance over seas, then yeah, change it.

in a fantasy game go for it. if the game is set in Japan then say what wouldn't need to be said in the original.

I doubt Fawful is nearly as funny or popular in Japan, for example as treehouse made him... making him more literal wouldn't make him a better character or the Mario and Luigi games better.

in cinema, i feel strongly about not changing cultural things in translations... but those are generally telling real world stories in real world locations.

Phoenix Wright may be a much more insane version of America than the Japanese version is an insane Japan, but maybe they didn't want people thinking 'that must be what Japan is really like'.

 

[Duane Cunningham]

I hate it when people cite "Clinton Jokes" as an example of localization run amok. There was one Clinton Joke in the very first Lunar on Sega CD. It was tucked away in an obscure npc in an obscure place in 1992. It didn't make the trip to future versions of the game.

 

[Sqorgar]

Translation is a matter of reconstructing rather than presenting, though, since perforce you can't display the original. It's more equivalent to a play calling for a priest of no other description; whether the actor onstage wears a Roman collar, a Canterbury cap, an exorasson, an eboshi cap, or a saffron-yellow robe is entirely dependent on local habits.

But that's not true! If you assume that the original is a work of art (it is), then the job of the translator is to convey as much of that art as possible given the language and cultural barrier. If that culture is a fundamental part of what makes the original Art, then it is the translator's duty to deliver that culture as well - or at least enough of it to convey the expression of its artistic contributions.

It is not the TRANSLATOR'S job to present a "separate but different" interpretation of the original art. A playwright is creating a blueprint for the creation of a new, separate play that differs with every actor, prop, and director. A translator isn't supposed to give their (almost always) inferior interpretation of a finished work of art, but to deliver that art to a new audience for them to arrive at their own, reasoned interpretation.

Ultimately, Art is universal, but that doesn't mean it has to be easy or dumb. It is well within people's capabilities to understand, for example, the cultural significance of eating ramen noodles from a cart. It doesn't take more than a sentence to explain it, and you never have to explain it again. Years down the line, you won't even have to assume that you have to explain it at all. It'll just be taken for granted. The only reason we are having this conversation now is because we've had years of ramen -> hamburger changes that insult our intelligence and we've never been given the opportunity to move past it.

Seriously, how many games has this been changed in? A dozen? Two dozen? A hundred? Probably more, just in the SNES era alone. It would've been easier, more appropriate, and more accurate to have just explained it in the first place.

No one is suggesting that localizers should censor content because they don't trust in the ability of their audiences to grasp the material; that never works out well for anyone and no serious professional localizer or student of translation theory would ever suggest doing anything like this.

It's a matter of degrees. It really comes down to where you draw the line. Obviously, there is a point where most people agree that Americans are too stupid to understand or appreciate certain references to foreign cultures, I just think that line is higher than everybody else.

That's what the ramen -> burgers change in PW is about, and the reason it's appropriate there is that the nominal content of the original sentence really isn't important compared to what it's supposed to implicitly convey.

Except that in Ace Attorney 4, there's an entire chapter dedicated to a ramen noodle cart, making the original decision to "censor" ramen somewhat premature, since they had to explain it anyway.

That's not really my position. Pretty much the entire thrust of my argument is that you can't make statements like "translators who are doing their job well will do X in situation Y" because there are always so many different factors in play.

One can sum up their position on localization simply by pointing out where their loyalties lie. If your loyalties lie towards sales, then anything which might potentially make even the dumbest example of mankind feel stupid is going to impact sales. If your loyalties lie towards the player, then you want a game which feels as natural as possible, even if it impacts (sometimes greatly) the original meaning and purpose of the work. Your opinion on localization lies somewhere between "good enough" and "better". If your loyalty is to the original game - the original Art - then your opinion is that people must rise to meet the art rather than the art lower itself to the people. That's my opinion (obviously).

Videogames are not just art, but also history. The fact that remakes of classic games get new translations is proof enough that history was compromised by the original approach.

Sometimes a given translation is going to prioritize low-level textural fidelity to the original work even though that produces a very different context on a certain level -- look at Persona 4, where "story set in the exceedingly familiar locale of rural Japan" becomes "story set in the unfamiliar foreign locale of rural Japan." Other times the holistically preserving the tone is going to be more important, like in Phoneix Wright. In both cases I think the translators made the right call, even though the philosophy of these two translations is very different.

Yes, but one approach lead to a more "pure" work of fiction, where there were no WTF moments where you had to stand back and excuse the localization as a necessary evil.

It doesn't! I'm just saying when something starts out as a pop culture ephemeron I don't see much reason to spiff it up and make it timeless when translating it. If people still care about Phoenix Wright in thirty years I don't think pop culture references are going to matter much either way in how much people appreciate it.

It's not about making something timeless. It's about making choices that are best for integrity and quality of the game - the things which contribute to and ensure that timeless quality. If you ask me, making flippant, fourth wall break anachronisms in localization that weren't there before is no different than releasing Final Fantasy 4 easy version. It's not made out of a loyalty to the players or to the game itself. It is made because they thought very little of the game and even less about the people who would ultimately play it.

The reason it was such a big deal that the REAL Final Fantasy 4 was released (with the correct numerical order even) wasn't because people would be able to revisit their favorite game, but that they'd be able to play it for the first time.

 

[charlequin]

But that's not true! If you assume that the original is a work of art (it is), then the job of the translator is to convey as much of that art as possible given the language and cultural barrier.

I'm getting the sense you really just don't actually know what a translator's job is, because you keep making these factually inaccurate assertions about it. The field of translation studies is quite deep and you're basically arguing for one extreme position on a huge continuum of philosophies in active use by actual professional translators. I'm pretty skeptical that any of the actual game localization professionals who post to GAF (there's a surprisingly large number of them) would agree with your fairly limited definition of their "job."

It would've been easier, more appropriate, and more accurate to have just explained it in the first place.

Yes, those "keikaku means plan"-style gloss-titles would've gone over real well on 16-bit RPGs. I'm sure that would've made Chrono Trigger sell twice as well, at least.

It's a matter of degrees. It really comes down to where you draw the line.

Right, but... I'm drawing the line in different places on every project based on the specific context, while you're drawing the line in one place all the way over to one side and refusing to let anyone ever move it. :lol

Obviously, there is a point where most people agree that Americans are too stupid to understand or appreciate certain references to foreign cultures, I just think that line is higher than everybody else.

You're full of shit here, sorry. Nobody, literally nobody, is saying anything about "Americans" being "too stupid" except you with your weird self-hating strawman here, and it's honestly kind of rude that you keep attributing that attitude to the people like Alexander O. Smith (one of, I'll note, the absolute best people working in video game localization) who made the specific decisions we're discussing. (Your assertion below that anyone who supports players would obviously insist on slavish translation and only someone in it for the $$$ would ever support localization changes is even more insulting.)

It has nothing to do with stupidity or intolerance to other cultures and everything to do with what's important in a given context and what isn't. Things that are familiar are quickly processed while things that are unfamiliar draw the audience's attention and cause them to stop and think about what they're seeing. It makes sense to draw elements of the work you know are intended to be quickly processed towards the familiar to aid in that while leaving elements that are intended for close scrutiny unfamiliar since the audience will already be focusing closely on them.

Except that in Ace Attorney 4, there's an entire chapter dedicated to a ramen noodle cart, making the original decision to "censor" ramen somewhat premature, since they had to explain it anyway.

Like I've said, context is king. In AA4, there's plenty of room to provide any information the player needs about Japanese-style fast-food ramen because the whole case revolves around it; you can squeeze in little bits of exposition here and there when needed. (Although in that case it really isn't needed; the cart is a key part of the case but the noodles themselves really aren't.)

(But this is why, as I said, there were inevitable pitfalls to either keeping the game set in Japan or moving it to America. Maybe you don't run into this particular problem if you go out of your way to leave it in Japan, but then you have to address why everyone has these crazy English-style names -- or even worse, make the game dramatically less approachable by using the original names -- and so on.)

Yes, but one approach lead to a more "pure" work of fiction, where there were no WTF moments where you had to stand back and excuse the localization as a necessary evil.

Have you even read the text of any of the ultra-literalist translations you're defending here? Have you stopped to think about the broader implications of this sort of translation (the need to preserve meaningless Japanese names in a game like Ace Attorney, for example)? Slavish devotion to this constructed ideal of the "original text" is certainly no stranger to WTF moments.

Translation is always a tradeoff, always. If you don't understand that that's the core immutable principle in play every single time a work is taken from one language and put into another, you really don't know enough about it to offer meaningful commentary on how it should be approached.

If you ask me, making flippant, fourth wall break anachronisms in localization that weren't there before is no different than releasing Final Fantasy 4 easy version.

The Working Designs "punch it up" localization style where you insert gags where none were present before and noticeably change the tone of the work is way out towards another extreme and also totally fucking unrelated to what we're talking about here.

 

[Fugu]

Context is everything in localization. In a properly translated work, every single sentence needs to be taken in the context of the overall work, the intended audience, the timeframe of the original work vs. when the translation is being released, the meaning of the sentence taken alone, the sentence's role in the broader work, and more. It is literally impossible to produce a "perfect" translation that satisfies the needs of every one of these contexts equally well, so a translator is also constantly forced to choose which to prioritize.

This seems more like a problem for marketing and less like a problem for translators/"localizers".

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

I just want to add that the Japanese names in GS/PW aren't meaningless in Japanese, but if you kept them the same in the English version, they would be. Virtually every character's name is a pun or joke of some kind.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

The localizations in the SNES days were mostly produced the fact that English writing takes up more space and memory than Japanese, and you're proposing adding in explanations of Japanese culture?


EDIT: The only time a Japanese name was kinda messed up in PW was Don Tigre, but that's because there was no way to express the "dragon/tiger" pun when Phoenix's name isn't Ryuuichi anymore. And, you know, Americans wouldn't really get the pun even then.

 

[OptimoPeach]

I enjoyed Engrish and pseudo-Engrish translations because they kinda added that element of quirkiness (see the earlier Final Fantasy games). It's kinda hard to ignore how shitty and embarrassing the writing is when it's grammatically correct (see FF13).

And oh look, nerds throwing giant walls of text at each other

 

[cress2000]

charlequin. Have I ever told you how awesome you are?

 

[NichM]

This seems more like a problem for marketing and less like a problem for translators/"localizers".

Not really. Consideration of one's audience is something every writer, whether translating or producing original material, must take into account.

 

[Fugu]

Not really. Consideration of one's audience is something every writer, whether translating or producing original material, must take into account.

I disagree that a translator needs to consider their audience beyond considering their lack of comprehension of the source material because anything beyond that makes it essentially an adaptation and not an original work. It makes it Final Fantasy VI: The Adaptation for Viewers Like You and not Final Fantasy VI.

EDIT: For that matter, I disagree that a translator is a writer in anything but the literal sense of the term.

 

[I AM JOHN!]

I disagree that a translator needs to consider their audience beyond considering their lack of comprehension of the source material because anything beyond that makes it essentially an adaptation and not an original work. It makes it Final Fantasy VI: The Adaptation for Viewers Like You and not Final Fantasy VI.

Wat.

The audience is incredibly important in considering how you localize something. As charlequin has said, good localizations are ones that understand the audience they're going for and adapting the concepts and ideas implicit in those localizations to fit that audience. Let me give you a perfect example: Captain Rainbow for Wii is very much a send-up of classic super sentai shows in the archetype of the character. If someone was to bring that over, should they keep it that way even though we have very limited exposure to those types of shows in the West (and even then, said exposure is very different)?

 

[NichM]

I disagree that a translator needs to consider their audience beyond considering their lack of comprehension of the source material because anything beyond that makes it essentially an adaptation and not an original work. It makes it Final Fantasy VI: The Adaptation for Viewers Like You and not Final Fantasy VI.

EDIT: For that matter, I disagree that a translator is a writer in anything but the literal sense of the term.

But a translation is an adaptation. You're adapting the source material from one language to another. And when you do so, you have to consider who it's for. You may have some of the same team members at the Treehouse working on Pokemon, Fire Emblem, and Paper Mario, but the approach they take and the language they use will be different in all three cases, because the Pokemon games are aimed at young kids, the Fire Emblem games are aimed at fantasy RPG devotees, and the Paper Mario games are aimed at as wide a spectrum as possible.

And if translators didn't have to be writers, my own job would be unnecessary.

 

[HK-47]

For the time and place... it was fine.

Translations even went far into the shitter for a few years later, after Sony started translating most of the games...

The later translations that came into play with Square EA, Nintendo Treehouse etc were much better though. They weren't stridently in line with the original Japanese scripts either... but they stuck to the original intent of the dialogue, while often improving on them with colorful dialogue styles (Vagrant Story, Paper Mario, FFXII and FF Tactics War of the Lions, to name a few)

War of The Lions is overly purple. Its still decent, but its not XII, TTYD or VS.

 

[ITA84]

So, it turns out that the Japanese original was just gibberish.

Are you sure it was just gibberish? Couldn't it be some play on words? Just throwing out a guess, but couldn't 'magyara' be 'magyaku' (opposite) combined with 'gyara' (guarantee)? I haven't played the game, but are there any puns like that in it?

and the Paper Mario games are aimed at as wide a spectrum as possible.

I think that with Super Paper Mario they steered a bit away from that.

Of course there's a difference between the intended audience of a game and the actual audience (the translation rarely influences it), so it may happen that a game gets more popular than a publisher anticipated, and the translation type they went for becomes inadequate (but it hardly matters at that point).

 

[Fugu]

Wat.

The audience is incredibly important in considering how you localize something. As charlequin has said, good localizations are ones that understand the audience they're going for and adapting the concepts and ideas implicit in those localizations to fit that audience. Let me give you a perfect example: Captain Rainbow for Wii is very much a send-up of classic super sentai shows in the archetype of the character. If someone was to bring that over, should they keep it that way even though we have very limited exposure to those types of shows in the West (and even then, said exposure is very different)?

Yes they should, because that was what the original dialogue was about. Again, the issue of "will Americans get this" is an issue for marketing, not translators.

 

[HK-47]

And then there's the quizzes. Persona 4 had it right (outside of food preparation iirc), but the classroom questions in Persona 3 are one of the most glaring examples of a poor localization choice I can think of. Questions about Japanese history, literature, and grammar? What? Most of the Japanese language questions were pretty simple, which makes me think they were probably questions about english in the original, and they pulled a 'well, let's just make all the english japanese and all the japanese english, and call it translated!' Which is a totally unfair assumption. English speaking study of Japanese isn't even close to as common as the opposite -- I'd think Spanish would be a better substitute in America, honestly. But the point remains, I had to google basically every question I came across. (Honestly, I googled more than I should have in Persona 4 as well, but at least that was shit I should have been embarrassed not to know, as opposed to shit I should be embarrassed to know)

You mean the questions that just had the answers discussed right beforehand. I remember lots of those being answerable if you paid attention. Not to mention, it is suppose to be a Japanese classroom. I liked it.

 

[I AM JOHN!]

Yes they should, because that was what the original dialogue was about. Again, the issue of "will Americans get this" is an issue for marketing, not translators.

Why? What is it about the original dialogue that is such a sacred cow that cannot be touched? Why is preserving the actual words more important than the intent (since to harken back to charlequin's example about burgers vs. ramen in Phoenix Wright, certain things have different meanings in different cultures and you will lose that authorial intent in not changing them)? Not to mention that when you just preserve the original language, you more often than not get "This is White Town, a town filled with snow; please enjoy the world of snow."

 

[Sqorgar]

I'm getting the sense you really just don't actually know what a translator's job is, because you keep making these factually inaccurate assertions about it.

I'm arguing for what I think it should be. Obviously, it is an extreme, simply because if I argued for a middle ground, it would be arguing over semantics and specific examples. Ultimately, I do believe what I preach, but I'm purposely ignoring certain realities to better clarify my point. I suspect our opinions are closer than you think, but I've adjusted my opinion to be more starkly in contrast to keep the debate more interesting and fruitful. If this is an obstacle to us having this conversation, I understand and will withdraw quietly.

If one were to translate, say, Dante's Divine Comedy from Italian to English, in what way would they approach it differently than, say, translating Stephen King to Spanish? If you were translating The Seven Samurai, how would you approach that differently from translating a Godzilla film?

Now, I'm fully aware that most games tend more towards Godzilla than The Seven Samurai, and are thus translated as such, but I'm worried that we will end up applying Godzilla-style localization to all games, regardless of quality of virtue. Themes, subtext, allegory, and metaphor will all be lost in a "like shit through a goose"-quality translation. At the moment, I can only think of a few games off the top of my head which deserve such treatment - none of them Japanese. But at the very least, I'd like a level of localization which doesn't turn cigarettes into lollipops and ramen into hamburgers.

I guess the real difference is that the guy who translates The Seven Samurai is also likely to be a fan or historian who is well versed in the film, possibly even an expert on it, while the guy translating Godzilla vs Mothra probably doesn't give a shit.

You're full of shit here, sorry. Nobody, literally nobody, is saying anything about "Americans" being "too stupid" except you with your weird self-hating strawman here,

You must agree that certain localization changes are based on such things. All sorts of assumptions are made about the audience. This game is for kids, so we're going to translate this into a "milk" bar (where people get drunk). Americans won't understand the cultural significance of ramen, so we're going to change it to hamburgers. Americans won't identify with a Japanese high school, so we're going to make the characters white and set it in a college. Americans are deeply religious and might be offended by priests in Dragon Warrior, so let's replace it with a generic old guy. That man is taking a bath with his nine year old daughter, Americans will think he's a pedophile.

Obviously, not every localization results in cultural censorship, but enough do.

It has nothing to do with stupidity or intolerance to other cultures and everything to do with what's important in a given context and what isn't.

Really? You really think that changing ramen to hamburger made that big a difference? That the cultural significance of junk food absolutely must be retained at all cost? Fried octopus balls and meat buns must absolutely be changed into something else, not because they feel too foreign for American audiences, but because the context of optional, insignificant healing items is THAT important?

Things that are familiar are quickly processed while things that are unfamiliar draw the audience's attention and cause them to stop and think about what they're seeing. It makes sense to draw elements of the work you know are intended to be quickly processed towards the familiar to aid in that while leaving elements that are intended for close scrutiny unfamiliar since the audience will already be focusing closely on them.

So, you are assuming that your players can't or won't want to process foreign culture. That it being slower is an obstacle to their enjoyment. You are saying it is too hard for them to understand, so you'll understand it for them. You have to understand why I would take offense at someone making such fundamental assumptions on my behalf.

 

[Fugu]

Why? What is it about the original dialogue that is such a sacred cow that cannot be touched? Why is preserving the actual words more important than the intent (since to harken back to charlequin's example about burgers vs. ramen in Phoenix Wright, certain things have different meanings in different cultures and you will lose that authorial intent in not changing them)? Not to mention that when you just preserve the original language, you more often than not get "This is White Town, a town filled with snow; please enjoy the world of snow."

The original dialogue is what's being translated; that's what makes it a sacred cow that cannot be touched.

While the idea of hamburgers has a similar notion in American culture as ramen does in Japanese culture, the word "hamburger" refers to a specific thing (it's a type of sandwich and notably not a type of noodles). "Hamburger" is not a culture-dependent variable for some variety of junk food and neither is ramen.
A properly translated dialogue will sound as clumsy as its source material. It may be difficult for Americans to understand the cultural intricacies of the dialogue but that makes sense considering the dialogue is Japanese in nature. A "translation" that adapts for different cultures is not a translation; it's an adaptation. Hamburgers and ramen are two very, very different things.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

The original dialogue is what's being translated; that's what makes it a sacred cow that cannot be touched.

While the idea of hamburgers has a similar notion in American culture as ramen does in Japanese culture, the word "hamburger" refers to a specific thing (it's a type of sandwich and notably not a type of noodles). "Hamburger" is not a culture-dependent variable for some variety of junk food and neither is ramen.
A properly translated dialogue will sound as clumsy as its source material. It may be difficult for Americans to understand the cultural intricacies of the dialogue but that makes sense considering the dialogue is Japanese in nature. A "translation" that adapts for different cultures is not a translation; it's an adaptation. Hamburgers and ramen are two very, very different things.

uh yeah, that's a localization and what people are arguing in favor of

the developers and writers themselves usually work with the localizers and translators in making these changes, meaning that the people who wrote the original dialogue don't especially care if it's hamburger or ramen

 

[Fugu]

uh yeah, that's a localization and what people are arguing in favor of

the developers and writers themselves usually work with the localizers and translators in making these changes, meaning that the people who wrote the original dialogue don't especially care if it's hamburger or ramen

Fine, but a localization is not a translation and shouldn't assumed to be better than a translation and arguing it as a point against translations is absolutely ridiculous.

I don't care if they don't care, how is that even a point?

 

[charlequin]

charlequin. Have I ever told you how awesome you are?

Aww, thanks. Let's everybody dancing!

I just want to add that the Japanese names in GS/PW aren't meaningless in Japanese, but if you kept them the same in the English version, they would be. Virtually every character's name is a pun or joke of some kind.

Oh, yeah, sorry that I wasn't clear about that. If you carry the characters' names over directly, you lose the puns and wordplay, which would be a serious loss. (But once you're translating them, setting the series in Japan would obviously become kind of odd....)

If one were to translate, say, Dante's Divine Comedy from Italian to English, in what way would they approach it differently than, say, translating Stephen King to Spanish?

Well, for one thing, La Divina Commedia is a rhyming poem so you're already in the soup just to start. :lol Working out how to deal with that is one of the first decisions you have to make when tackling that work and it's going to affect every other single decision you make.

You must agree that certain localization changes are based on such things.

As long as you keep framing it about "stupid Americans," no, I really don't. Pretty much no game coming out today -- and absolutely no game anyone is really going to defend the localization of -- is doing this. It's a non-issue.

(There were certainly games making bad decisions like this back in the day -- "Revelations: Persona" is a pretty safe one to slag on, certainly -- but the result of this approach was near-universal commercial failure and critical and popular scorn. It is not a strategy that is helpful in any way to anyone and it died off very quickly; it's even less useful now that the internet makes it trivial to expose these kinds of changes.)

Obviously, not every localization results in cultural censorship, but enough do.

In fact, censorship is still sadly not uncommon in games coming over from Japan -- but it's almost never actually a result of the localization. Literally every semi-recent example I can think of is the result of an edict passed down to the localization team, or implemented without even involving them, being made on a higher level purely for commercial concerns (i.e. generally to get a T instead of M or E-10 instead of T rating.)

Really? You really think that changing ramen to hamburger made that big a difference?

No, but I think Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, as a whole game, is expertly translated, as a holistic result of all the little decisions made throughout its script. Making the opposite choice on that specific issue wouldn't ruin the script, because my entire point is it's one unimportant, throwaway line. But do it a few times and it starts to add up, and you start getting a less and less polished translation. (You can actually see this at play in PW:JfA, where the overall style is very similar but a lot of small choices that aren't made as well add up to an overall localization that's noticeably shoddier than the first game's.)

So, you are assuming that your players can't or won't want to process foreign culture.

I am assuming that someone who set out to play a comedy game about a wacky lawyer and a spirit medium who occasionally changes into her dead chesty sister for a few minutes of T&A don't want the game to pause and lecture them about what takoyaki is because they walked in front of a food stand, yes.

 

[Tellaerin]

uh yeah, that's a localization and what people are arguing in favor of

What some people seem to be arguing in favor of. The 'I want every game to be set in my country, with only the food and customs and culture that I know, and if it isn't already like that it should damn well be rewritten' attitude I'm seeing sounds like borderline xenophobia. If the game's set in Tokyo, and the characters are Japanese teens eating Japanese food and watching Japanese TV shows, leave it that way when you localize it. Don't rewrite the script to take place in Manhattan or London or something and twist everything to fit.

I think localizations should strive to recreate the feel of the original material as faithfully as possible for a foreign audience. When there aren't direct equivalents for certain concepts or phrases, find the closest equivalent, one that conveys the same sense for the intended audience. Don't gratuitously add jokes where there were none before or otherwise try to 'spice up' or 'improve' the script - try to hew as close as possible to the original game's tone. Ideally, I want to have the same experience when I play that someone playing the game in its original language would - I want to laugh in the same spots, be moved by the same scenes, get the same impressions of personality from the characters, etc.

 

[ThatObviousUser]

Pokemon leaves a bit to be desired, particularly HGSS and especially Emerald.

So many "fufufufu" laughs....

With HGSS that's mainly because they tried to copy as much of the originals' script as possible. DPPt have much better scripts.

 

[charlequin]

The 'I want every game to be set in my country, with only the food and customs and culture that I know, and if it isn't already like that it should damn well be rewritten' attitude I'm seeing sounds like borderline xenophobia.

But no one has been arguing for this. :lol

It may help to identify my position on this matter more accurately to note that I've been in similarly heated arguments on GAF before where I was actually defending Persona 4's localization against the charge that it leaned too far in the opposite direction, and I know for a fact a number of the other people arguing similar points to mine in this thread feel pretty similarly about that game's localization.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

What some people seem to be arguing in favor of. The 'I want every game to be set in my country, with only the food and customs and culture that I know, and if it isn't already like that it should damn well be rewritten' attitude I'm seeing sounds like borderline xenophobia. If the game's set in Tokyo, and the characters are Japanese teens eating Japanese food and watching Japanese TV shows, leave it that way when you localize it. Don't rewrite the script to take place in Manhattan or London or something and twist everything to fit.

I think localizations should strive to recreate the feel of the original material as faithfully as possible for a foreign audience. When there aren't direct equivalents for certain concepts or phrases, find the closest equivalent, one that conveys the same sense for the intended audience. Don't gratuitously add jokes where there were none before or otherwise try to 'spice up' or 'improve' the script - try to hew as close as possible to the original game's tone. Ideally, I want to have the same experience when I play that someone playing the game in its original language would - I want to laugh in the same spots, be moved by the same scenes, get the same impressions of personality from the characters, etc.

You take down that scarecrow. Beat the fucking straw right out of him, how dare he want to change everything in your games ever.

 

[Sqorgar]

(But once you're translating them, setting the series in Japan would obviously become kind of odd....)

I'm not so sure about that. It would be odd, but that would be just one thing that sticks out as odd, rather than a dozen.

As long as you keep framing it about "stupid Americans," no, I really don't. Pretty much no game coming out today -- and absolutely no game anyone is really going to defend the localization of -- is doing this. It's a non-issue.

Like changing ramen to hamburger? Takoyaki to hot dog? Rage dumpling to Rage candy bar? It's still happening, though I admit the offenses are far less egregious than they used to be. In general, localization quality is worlds above the crap we used to get ("Now bear my arctic blast!"), but this is a thread in which a bunch of people are longing for the days of "son of a submariner".

In fact, censorship is still sadly not uncommon in games coming over from Japan -- but it's almost never actually a result of the localization. Literally every semi-recent example I can think of is the result of an edict passed down to the localization team, or implemented without even involving them, being made on a higher level purely for commercial concerns (i.e. generally to get a T instead of M or E-10 instead of T rating.)

It's the same thing. Ultimately, these games are being changed due to differences in cultural biases. A teen game in Japan may involve chain smoking and alcohol, but to make it a teen game in the US, that stuff must be removed and/or changed. Cursing is removed or toned down. Religious symbols are hastily covered up. Red blood is made green. In many cases, this censorship isn't even necessary and is instead preemptively done out of fear. (Lord knows the ESRB has a stick up their ass after the Hot Coffee thing)

Yeah, the censorship is a market pressure that can't be ignored, but ultimately, it is a difference in cultural opinions that is the root cause. Because Americans don't like smoking, the Japanese aren't allowed to do it either. What's worse, this censorship is usually done in the absolutely poorest way possible.

Obviously, if I had my way, there'd be a lot teen appropriate games with M ratings, but the ratings system is a whole different ball of wax. It all comes back to my opinion that we shouldn't dumb down games for American audiences, and if that means that they have to be a little older to appreciate them, maybe that isn't entirely a bad thing.

(Edit: I do think the pendulum has swung the other direction thanks to the CERO ratings in which it is the Japanese games that are now being censored with the American versions featuring MORE blood and violence. Still, we've got situations where poop references are being removed from WarioWare because unko is funny in Japan and vulgar in the US).

I am assuming that someone who set out to play a comedy game about a wacky lawyer and a spirit medium who occasionally changes into her dead chesty sister for a few minutes of T&A don't want the game to pause and lecture them about what takoyaki is because they walked in front of a food stand, yes.

Again, you are making assumptions on behalf of the players as if it were a universal constant. Phoenix Wright is somewhere between a visual novel and an adventure game, two genres most appreciated by older, more literate gamers. I don't think it is beyond the realm of imagination that they would be okay with cultural details that are not immediately obvious, especially when they can use context clues to intuit their significance.

I have a fairly healthy vocabulary, but I still encounter words I don't know or unfamiliar contexts in the novels I read. I would not like to live in a world where every book was written in short sentences with a seventh grade vocabulary. It is absolutely okay for the player to not know everything going on in a game. They can be easily educated or will be willfully ignorant of the subtle details just fine, just like if they were to attempt to read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. There's no reason to assume that people only play games is for a breezy fun time and that anything even remotely challenging must be silenced.