I have wanted to do a video on this subject for a long, long time. Originally I was going to make a much longer video that would include interviews with a couple of the amazing localisation developers that I know but I never got past the planning stage. If that's something you'd like to see in the future, let me know!
For sure. Video game localisation is a very fascinating topic and I make it a priority to always try to understand the intent behind a localised line of dialogue, character name or whatever. It'd be very interesting to hear about it in detail from the horse's mouth in the case of Xenoblade 2 for example, but even a more general discussion would no doubt be interesting.
Yes i always enjoy interviews with developers cuz there very knowledgeable and u learn more about the projects there working on or completed and u learn about the developer's themselves and i always enjoy ur videos keep going strong 😁
I’m a filipino here in Japan, I studied Japanese few years ago and passed N2 on JLPT, I became addictive to studying and started to study even words that aren’t usually used like idioms, proverbs and yojijukugo, I realized that translating Japanese to English is harder than I thought.
Then you have Yokai Watch 3 localisation. In JP version the protagonist moves from Japan to USA. In the localisation, the protagonist move from arguably USA to a more Merican USA
Honestly that's one of the strangest localization I've ever heard of. it's impressive how they wrote themselves out of that big problem. But I think they should have just followed the orsource material and kept it Japan so when the third game came out they didn't have to come up with such a weird reason why the main character couldn't speak with people in his area or why he was experienced a lot of culture shock for everything .
I'm a university student who majors in Japanese education and has passed on the N1 JLPT. I've been doing light novel and manga fan translation (Japanese to English) for a couple of years now, and plan to work as a proper translator after I graduate. One of the things that I noticed with translation/localization is that, whatever you do, you lose. Regardless of how you translate something, stuff is bound to be lost or altered, it just the nature of things. Some common Japanese phrases (not just idiom) would inherently sound weird in English, or at very least would not sound the same way as it did to Japanese speaker. Japanese is a high-context language, which differs greatly to English which is a low-context language. In Japanese, context is greatly needed when it comes to understanding a dialogue which shaped how dialogue is phrased, and sometimes these contexts are stuff that is not even spoken of. Like for example, there is this scene where a mother asks her son "Have you brushed your teeth yet?" while holding her son's toothbrush, then the son responded with "I'm not sleepy yet". What's actually happening here is that when the mother said "Have you brushed your teeth?" what she actually saying is that "When will you go sleep?". In Japan, brushing your teeth at night means you're going to sleep. If you go with the line "Have you brushed your teeth yet?", it would make sense that she's holding her son's toothbrush, but then her son's respond won't make any sense. Meanwhile, if you go with the line "When will you go to sleep?", her holding her son's toothbrush would be weird. This is just an example given by a Japanese professor once during a lecture when she visited my university. While there are many ways you might think could be a way to solve this, you will bound to hit a deadlock in one way or another. And don't get me started on the whole cultural differences, it's another can of worm. The notion that a translation/localization should be "as close as possible to the original" is to my opinion would make things worse. Some people would argue that it's the best to "use the accurate translation", but there is actually no such thing as a truly accurate translation, all there is just different version of a translation (like in the example above, both translations is technically accurate). It's a battle with no winner. I just wish some people would be more aware of that.
@@nr1516 Yea you can totally go for an accurate route that is still localized enough so that it make sense in English. The problem is that historically that's not what translation is about. Translators have aways catered towards heavily localizing content to the point where over 90% of the dialog mean something different from the original Japanese. And those same translators go then to teach in university and pass those same failed ideals to the next generation. And don't even get me started on how university completely sucks when it comes to teaching language, especially Japanese. It's like the whole "how are you? I am fine thank you" routine but in Japanese.
I'm thinking something along the lines of, "Don't forget to brush your teeth before bed," or "Make sure to brush before bed." How the kid responds depends on what the next line is. If the mother just leaves, how the kid responds isn't too important. You just want him to respond in character. It would imply the scene was just to make sure the audience knows it's late at night, something like "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I will," or "Sure, mom, you got it," would be sufficient. If she gets mad at his response, you want the kid to sound as dismissive as possible. If the Japanese line from the kid was intended as rude, the kid could respond, "I'm busy, go away," or "Whatever, I will if I feel like it." The reason for the conversation should always be taken into account.
One of the best real life situation in game is Xenoblade Chronicles 2. In one scene, Nia called Zeke "Turtle head" because he is all about his turtle, and that he is from Genbu which is a turtle shaped Titan, in the Japanese/Chinese version of the game. I burst into laughter when I saw the scene. And then I wonder, "How would they localize this into English?" . . . That scene is the one where Nia called Zeke "one eyed monster", and we all know it's a dick joke. My first language is Chinese, so I know that "turtle head" is the slang used for the same part of the body in Chinese (and also Japanese) so the joke works in Chinese and Japanese, no need to localized that into a different ways to put it into a Chinese joke. So in this case, translation works perfectly. But the same does not work in English. So localization is required to make the joke work. Shout out to the localization team to localize "turtle head" into "one eyed monster" because Zeke is wearing an eye patch, making the joke works as well.
Hmm, I don't think think the first example was that good to demonstrate your point, JRPG Gaming. I mean: "Pulling water to my own rice paddy." vs. "Tooting my own horn." Both are totally incomprehensible in their meaning to me, even though I know English pretty well. So it's not exactly a meaningful localization.
A perfect example of translation vs localization is the Ace Attorney series. Instead of simply translating the entire game into English, the localization team decided to set the game to an alternative "Japanofornia" to keep the puns alive. Without the jokes the games simply wouldn't be the same. And by doing that they created a version of the US which got its own bizzarre but lovely charme the Japanese games don't have.
And after watching the anime I realize how the localization ruined the game. I was able to enjoy the setting far more that they were going for with the original names and locations. Granted an anime is tougher to do localization, so the whole "Burger" jokes don't work while Mayoi is eating Ramen.
I'd say the Ace Attorney series is one of the few games where what would normally be considered excessive localization makes sense. They still managed to shoot themselves in foot a few times, such as the when the Ramen stand owner showed up in Apollo Justice even though the localization changed Maya's favorite food from ramen to hamburgers. I also respect the hell out of the localizers for not censoring that one pivotal scene in Dual Destinies even though it earned them an M rating.
Great video! Personally, I speak 2 languages & trying to translate from 1 language to the other while keeping context, intention & meaning can be extremely tricky. I also agree with the last point about companies changing a thing or 2 to keep the rating on their game the way the want internationally.
Don't forget that there are many localizers (and people who support content alterations) that use this reason as a universal excuse to justify every change they made and all the liberties they take to rewrite the dialogues. I've seen something like "walls have ears." and "it's a hundred years too soon for you to defeat me." for the examples, these sentences exist in BOTH Japanese and English, but some translators decided to rewrite the dialogue completely anyway. Even your example of "pulling water to my own rice field." would've been fine. People will learn about new idioms in no time. Humans can actually learn new things. Localizers shouldn't take the chance to learn new things away from people. English isn't my native language, and I'll learn new English idioms within the first time I hear it. The name changing is also unnecessary. Like... Hikari from Xenoblade. Many people know that Hikari means "light", but what is a mythra? Removing Japanese folklore related like Suzaku, Byakko, Seiryuu, Genbu... these things appeared in so many games and anime, people should've known about them already. Think about it. By altering the content to help some dumbass noob gamers understand the game better, you also take it away from other group of players who know about the things they removed.
Mythra is some mythological reference connected to light. It's a neat thing conceptually, but mighty awkward for the localization as a whole when it makes it harder to understand without googling instead of easier. They should have just called her "Ray", which may sound like some generic anime dub-localization, but would actually be more literal(And would mirror how Homura, a stylish way of saying flame, was reasonably changed to Pyra, a female form of Pyro, which means Fire).
@@lpfan4491 No they shouldve just kept her Japanese name. A name is a name. If you are translating a french game you aren't changing Jean-Pierre to Tom so why are we changing japanese names to made up english names? If the original works then you keep it.
@@luminous3558 That was clearly not on the table for some reason, otherwise they would have just done so. The point is that if they are going to localize nomatter what, then they should at least keep as much consistency as they could.
I find myself still laughing to some extent at jokes, even when it's something I don't fully understand, so I'm in the camp that jokes should be translated as closely as practically possible. At worst, I'm also in the camp of wanting to learn about those things as well, so I can't argue the perspective of people who just want to play a localized Japanese game that they can understand instead of chocking it up as another poorly done story that failed to keep their attention due to traditionally lengthy time spent on storytelling over gameplay.
The rice paddy and tooting my own horn were very good examples on translation vs localization. Both are also two separate skills, but both can be gained.
this is why i like fans translation and jrpg community. fans translation treat people who play as people who already have basic knowledge about japan culture and keep everything as original as possible. but for me localizing isn't important because there's nothing wrong playing a game while learning other country culture especially if the game itself is located in japan, changing tokyo tower to eifel just because kid will confused what tokyo tower is stupid (just example). especially nowadays game have japan dub and people can easily find bad translation/localize because of it.
I'm not so sure on the guaranteed dedication to proper localization regarding fan translation. Ever heard of the Daikaijū Monogatari fan translation? That one in particular is quite popular despite the creator putting in a bunch of right-wing AND left-wing political jokes that were nowhere to be seen in the original. Regarding fan translations, I think it's just up to the person, just how some official translations put in unimportant nonsense.
@@YellowpowR No. never heard of it. and yes i know some people doing this but it's so rare. it's popular? i doubt it i saw a lot of people hate it when i check their comment. Most people who like it is reddit people and yes a lot of translation from reddit people like this kind of thing. btw it's look like re-localization fans not actually someone who translating it from JP.
I can see some localisation can be necessary sometimes but it's the unnecessary stuff that winds me up. Example:(from an anime rather than jrpg but same concept) A scene in which Brock was having a snack of rice balls yet that got translated to donuts, even though the animation clearly showed rice balls. You could argue they wanted to portray that it was meant to be a popular snack but then I see that as treating your consumer as being too dumb to realise where the show is set and that rice balls would be a popular snack there.
You do realize that your example is over 20 years old at this point, right? Such a thing would never happen nowadays. At worst, they'd reanimate the scene so that they were eating donuts
@@NinjaKIngAce You do realize stuff like this still happens today? Just look how they localized the yokai watch games. The first two games took place in Japan but for the Western release they decide to change the name of the country to America.
Looked at another way, I could have learned about the Japanese phrase from context clues and maybe understood the joke as well. Instead, I didn't get given the opportunity to learn or understand.
That would be a fundamentally different experience to the one that native Japanese speakers had; an experience that goes against what the original developer envisioned and intended.
@@JRPGGaming "an experience that goes against what the original developer envisioned and intended" How are you so sure about that? Is there interviews that suggest that since most Japanese devs are unaware (or usually don't care) about how their product is viewed outside their home country.
@@doniarts It's not about how the original creators might be indifferent to if other countries get the same experience from a game, it's about giving other countries, especially fans, a translation that matches the original intent nonetheless. JRPGs get a lot of bad rep in the West for having stupid and embarrassing writing, but I would say a lot of that is due to akward translation and the differences in cultural contexts.
@@YellowpowR You missed the point of that comment my main point is that he says changing things in localization can help show the intent that author wanted, but when they also change the meaning without properly finding the equivalent in another language then is that really what the author wanted? either way tho modern localization is pretty bad especially with companies like Seven seas. Also he says it goes against the intention of the author but I'd like to know where has their been a case where that was true. Heck you know how I mentioned seven seas? Well they published a manga about cross dresser and made it about a story for trans when in reality that story was boy love. would you say that change is the authors intent? I sure would not cause the same peeps are getting away with this kind of thing in games as well since they work on both. But the big problem I have really is the culturalization that happens in these localization.
@@doniarts If a game is being shipping globally simultaneously there will be a developer point of contact in the chain somewhere answering questions on intent (this person typically then escalates to scenario writer, and from there to the director) for games where localisation is done after the JP product is complete though, it can be mixed. Also, the interviews you had in mind might be old or for companies that are not global (for example, having an independent western brand, or outsourcing to various publishers) game -- in recent years most larger global companies have restructured funding so that sales of the western version of the game tie directly into bonuses for the Japanese development team, incentivising them to actually care about the localised version (especially now that western sales are several times larger than Japanese ones). It used to be quite hard to get developers to cooperate with implementing fixes for localised versions (like allowing more text to appear on screen, changing how line-breaking works, implementing language-specific gender/counter tags), but that's largely becoming a thing of the past and not representative of the direction the industry is moving in. So back to intent: you don't need to be psychic to understand intent because the developer communicates intent through their work with the intention of it being understood by their native audience (which the translator, as someone who understands the language, is an extension of). It's not a one-sided "guess" on the translator's part, but a game of catchball between creator and audience that we simply call "communication". Further, there are other ways to understand intent even when it is less obvious such as playing the entire game, noticing patterns in naming, game design documents etc (many of which explicitly note developer intent) and yes, sometimes just asking.
@@fantoniumnitrous Most people aren't going to learn Japanese to experience Japanese media and to deliver the closest experience without learning the language, you localize the product to local equivalents. And that shit isn't going to carry with literal translations. That's literally all there is to it.
@@slopernafti902 I really wish there was a console that would auto translate the game for you because clearly these localizers don't seem bothered to put even a bit of effort into them. Skies of Arcadia is one fo the worst examples of this.
@@fantoniumnitrous Your statement is complete nonsense. I guarantee you're cherry picking specific parts that only differ in a few words here and there or are saying the same thing with different words and going "this is bad localization" because it isn't exactly the same in terms of word choice. Over 90% of the time, localization is at least fine. It conveys the meaning across effectively and maintains the personality that would be lost with a literal translation. That one series of Pokemon Red's localization comes to mind. That guy criticized the most minor changes and said "lol localization bad".
I enjoy your content for the most part but I have to disagree with the notion that changing outfits etc. isn't censorship. If asking for a content complete version is too much then I can't be bothered to support the localization team in question. Importing the original work is what I will do in cases like this. This is just my opinion and isn't meant to attack anyone btw.
Tbh this is rarely the case. Most of the time it seems like localizers just do whatever they want shown by the fact that they change the meanings of basic words. Recently for me for example ff13 hope says "she left me" in a whining/sad voice about his mom, when in jp version they say a simple word like "mom" (kasan) in a sad voice... Instead of focusing on the meaning, they just completely ignore it. Another one for me is nier, one of the end fights a character says soudana in a sad tone after being called an idiot and it's translated to "sorry" instead. That's just completely different in character and translation in general. Properly it would be "you're right.." or "I agree.." I think it should just always be as it originally is, why change it in the end. For your example, it's not a very weird thing to say especially since the next scene would probably be with the other character calling out that it's a joke and if it's similar to "tooting own horn", then simple words like "oh, I'm just pulling water" including the tone of voice would show thats its a similar type of joke.
In those examples the translators are taking the nuance (i.e the true meaning) of what is being said and writing that in the English. That’s not inaccurate translation, it’s taking care that things aren’t lost in translation. For one thing, the translator might not know if the line will be voiced or not, so they can’t rely on the vocal performance alone to carry the nuance (even if it could), and the translator may not be the one on hand to provide voice direction at the studio, so it’s safer to hedge their bets and make sure the nuance is kept in the translated text. There are good examples of bad translation, but those two really aren’t good examples and show that understanding words and understanding a language are not the same thing.
@@shehzaanaabdulla3047 if you are saying my examples are anything but a lazy mistranslation when I literally gave you the real words in English, then you are massively coping.
I'm a Japanese to French translator for a Japanese news website and I totally agree. Japanese sentences have many different possible translations. It gets worse in French as French is higher on context than English and a lot of Japanese just don't make sense of they are translated literally. In my opinion, games that are in a fantasy world or in every places except Japan are not hurt by the localization. But a game like Mirage Session FE is very hurt by this. The game is about Japanese Idol Industry in Japan and therefore there's too much things that were part of that industry that disappeared during the localization. I think things like Gravure Idol (bikini modeling) should have been explained instead of being changed. That kind of cultural changes regularly ends up by making the story a bit weird, like in Mirage Session having the character talking about her fear of modeling in stupid clothing even though it's normal modeling and she's already quite a big idol. The Gravure Modeling is in bikini so her fear makes more sense. There's other comments that explains the problem as well in other games and medias. TLDR; I think that as long as the game is not set in Japan and therefore is not as much influenced by Japanese culture and subculture, localization is OK. If it's in Japan, changing things will certainly make some things awkward.
@@davimag2071 How nice of you to ask! This is still my goal. I just received my bachelor's and I'm planning to attempt to apply for some localization jobs soon.
Interesting points. Though sometimes localization is done terribly and that needs to be pointed out too. Sometimes localizers add in english idioms where they didnt need to. An example: In Tales of Hearts R's opening scene we see a brother and sister running away from someone. As they get cornered on a cliff the person chasing says In JP: "I've found you" and in EN: "Like moths to the flame". Not only does this english idiom not make any sense for the context of this scene, no such idiom was used in the original script. So why was it added?
I think you should also do translating songs. Not just songs in games and shows but songs in general. It's actually much harder than translating text and dialog. Its not possible to do a literal word for word translation and make it fit the original melody and beat. You have two choices. Translate the lyrics with changes here and there. Or completely rewrite the lyrics. Oh let's not forget that most singers are not multi lingual like Bonnie Pink. She sings Ring A Bell from Tales of Vesperia both in Japanese and English. Not only does the original meaning get lost but it also costs more money and time. Especially if another singer is hired to record the transition. In my opinion that's why songs rarely get fully translated. And we don't get OST cds.
4 years late, but it really depends. Do you just need lyrics or do you need to sing them? If the song is not getting dubbed/covered, then literal all the way. And tbh, that is the better way of doing it anyways. Singing can sound good in any language, but people want to know what it says...which is not given if you rewrite it. One could argue blind people cannot read the lyrics, but the counterargument is that simply not understanding is better than getting wrong info entirely.
Fun video as a life long fan of the rpg jrpg being my number 1 genre I had always wondered and thought on this but really never heard someone break down the how to they do this. Was a fun watch for that reason. Thank you for the time and the upload.
I've stated my thoughts on this many times, and they go something like this: I don't care if words are changed, as long as the meaning is still there. Changing words for them to make sense... makes sense. What I don't like is changing other things. Changing people's entire personalities, sexual orientation, or design to make it "more acceptable" in a certain country (with the exception of underaged characters or things that are just downright offensive, those can be changed). Obviously this isn't entirely the localization team's fault. Rating systems have a lot to do with it, and I personally don't like rating companies, although they're a necessary evil. And I do think it's important to know the difference between translation and localization. A lot of times people will hate a company over a few lines of text being changed when that doesn't really matter, but changing other stuff impacts the game more significantly.
You forgot about clothes that's also another big one. Honestly character designs and personalities should never be altered. And while we're on the subject certain mechanics or features should not be removed when localizing from one country to another (looks at fire emblem)
“A likely localization candidate to translate the meaning into something that we understand in English would be: “Tooting my own horn”” Yes, of course I do understand what tooting your horns really mean, indeed I do.
Tbh, the given example can also be reversed. While localization standards improved a lot, there are enough localizations to this day that would completely ignore the entire context of the scene and rewrite it because it's too bothersome to deal with or they simply don't get it and mistranslate it(especially since they STILL don't always give the localization team proper context for the lines, so they couldn't even know the character is on a rice field). Meanwhile, the more direct translation(if it is done well of course. Also, since almost no official examples exist, I just assume fantranslations here) could see the line, see the context and could try preserving something at least after long deliberation. Something is going to get lost either way, you have a 0 chance of giving the reader the same experience as someone speaking the native language regardless of what you are doing. The only thing you can do is figure a way out to get as much of the original intent across as you possibly can.
The distinction made is a bit strange. Translation and localization is real just translation. Ask any translator and I believe they would say the same thing. Translating text literally is a type of translation obviously, and translating text while trying to cater to the target language and target audience is is also just a type of translation. Calling the latter localization is a bit redundant to be honest.
As a profesional translator, I do not approve of the nuance that they give to "localization" in the video game industry, because what they consider localization as you explained in your video, is simply translation well done. Not considering cultural nuances and jokes and etc and translating them quite literally is not translation, that is some google ass sh*t. a good translation considers all this subjects and deals with them immediately. Localization to me goes far beyond the wording stage, for it even deals with the cultural and monetary aspects of games. For example, the country where we want to take our game, does people use more cash or credit cards. Therefore we prepare a sales strategy to cope with those things. That is true localization to my eyes. Translating jokes or wordplay considering the cultural nuances is simply a good translation, not localization. Great video, thou man. I just wanted to get this out of my chest hahaha. what better place than a youtube comment
sorry for reply 1y old post but i agree. if they keep localizing it people will keep blind about other culture difference, this is like play game and learn at the same time. btw isn't people who love japan game mostly have basic knowledge about japan ? why must localize it and change the original meaning ?
@@Luca-nq4gyyes you're right that's why a lot of people learn and how they grew to love Japanese culture. Now your other question about why are they changing it , there's a lot of different reasons. One of them is they thought that westerners where to stupid to understand Japanese culture and it would be confusing for them. Thankfully that rarely happens now but it still happens. Another one is it they like to change things around to push their own political agenda around ( I'm not kidding.) So they change things around to help push their politics on people. You see this one a little too much and it needs to stop. Now this one of the biggest reason, apparently it will "offend" some people. Some people will get offended when they see something they don't like, they will then try to get the game company to change it. (this actually works more than you think) which it can be anything from culture stuff to even the clothes the characters are wearing. And last but not least the whole cultural appropriation thing. Some people actually think that's it's wrong for Westerner to experience and try things from other cultures. Saying it's not appropriation and it makes them racist. So they try and get other culture's stuff removed from the Western releases of games. I don't know how or why people actually believe these but thats all of main reasons why they changing and sensor stuff. It's just all bull shit but that's your answer.
Some of us don't want an educational experience, we just want entertainment. I can't be bothered to look things up outside of the game, so I want the game to be as self-contained and standalone as possible. A good localization facilitates that.
@@DeeeFoo not every game is for everyone. Niches exist for a reason. I don't really like exploration in video games, so instead of playing open world and MetroidVania games while demanding they be more linear, I simply play a different game that I know will be more to my tastes.
People so badly need to hop off the censorship bandwagon, just because something changed it does not mean it is censoring but people will say anything and everything is censoring these days
Uromastyx Does that mean the changes to the outfits in the bravely default series released in the US version in comparison to the JP version is not censorship being used to lower the rating of the US version when it can have kept the JP version rating for the risqué outfits it received as content?
@@ZarcYuya I never said ALL censorship is false now did I? I am saying however lot's of people are calling localisations and such censoring, there is for sure a difference, it is not always for malice reasons and that shouldn't be such a hard pill to swallow but it is for so many people. For the record, the game you mentioned from the info I could find, the characters are referred to as 15 years old, FIFTEEN, that is considered a minor in almost all parts of the world so I am personally fine with any censorship that comes to stuff like that, you do not have to agree with me either but I am not going to argue on why censoring characters that are under-age is OK.
Because it is. Localizers are given way too much freedom and its ruining the experience for everyone, sometimes even without them knowing. You likely never experienced an accurate JRPG like it was intended if you play with both localization and dub. Most of the time if a game's story or characters felt odd then its due to localization messing up at several points and just winging it. Localizers are paid very little money so the only ones doing it are people who have extra motivation to do it and thats often failed writers or political activists on a power trip.
Thank you! It's sometimes frustrating watching people get mad that their favorite character's "sex appeal" was turned down or an outfit was changed. Most of the time the developers are OK with these changes
I have wanted to do a video on this subject for a long, long time. Originally I was going to make a much longer video that would include interviews with a couple of the amazing localisation developers that I know but I never got past the planning stage. If that's something you'd like to see in the future, let me know!
For sure. Video game localisation is a very fascinating topic and I make it a priority to always try to understand the intent behind a localised line of dialogue, character name or whatever. It'd be very interesting to hear about it in detail from the horse's mouth in the case of Xenoblade 2 for example, but even a more general discussion would no doubt be interesting.
I'm glad your doing this! I just wish more people would understand this
I really would like that.
Please do! I would love that!
Yes i always enjoy interviews with developers cuz there very knowledgeable and u learn more about the projects there working on or completed and u learn about the developer's themselves and i always enjoy ur videos keep going strong 😁
I’m a filipino here in Japan, I studied Japanese few years ago and passed N2 on JLPT, I became addictive to studying and started to study even words that aren’t usually used like idioms, proverbs and yojijukugo, I realized that translating Japanese to English is harder than I thought.
Then you have Yokai Watch 3 localisation. In JP version the protagonist moves from Japan to USA. In the localisation, the protagonist move from arguably USA to a more Merican USA
'Merica!
Honestly that's one of the strangest localization I've ever heard of. it's impressive how they wrote themselves out of that big problem. But I think they should have just followed the orsource material and kept it Japan so when the third game came out they didn't have to come up with such a weird reason why the main character couldn't speak with people in his area or why he was experienced a lot of culture shock for everything .
I'm a university student who majors in Japanese education and has passed on the N1 JLPT. I've been doing light novel and manga fan translation (Japanese to English) for a couple of years now, and plan to work as a proper translator after I graduate.
One of the things that I noticed with translation/localization is that, whatever you do, you lose. Regardless of how you translate something, stuff is bound to be lost or altered, it just the nature of things. Some common Japanese phrases (not just idiom) would inherently sound weird in English, or at very least would not sound the same way as it did to Japanese speaker.
Japanese is a high-context language, which differs greatly to English which is a low-context language. In Japanese, context is greatly needed when it comes to understanding a dialogue which shaped how dialogue is phrased, and sometimes these contexts are stuff that is not even spoken of.
Like for example, there is this scene where a mother asks her son "Have you brushed your teeth yet?" while holding her son's toothbrush, then the son responded with "I'm not sleepy yet". What's actually happening here is that when the mother said "Have you brushed your teeth?" what she actually saying is that "When will you go sleep?". In Japan, brushing your teeth at night means you're going to sleep.
If you go with the line "Have you brushed your teeth yet?", it would make sense that she's holding her son's toothbrush, but then her son's respond won't make any sense. Meanwhile, if you go with the line "When will you go to sleep?", her holding her son's toothbrush would be weird.
This is just an example given by a Japanese professor once during a lecture when she visited my university. While there are many ways you might think could be a way to solve this, you will bound to hit a deadlock in one way or another. And don't get me started on the whole cultural differences, it's another can of worm.
The notion that a translation/localization should be "as close as possible to the original" is to my opinion would make things worse. Some people would argue that it's the best to "use the accurate translation", but there is actually no such thing as a truly accurate translation, all there is just different version of a translation (like in the example above, both translations is technically accurate). It's a battle with no winner. I just wish some people would be more aware of that.
I would just translate the boy as "I`m not sleepy yet so I`ll do it later" In my view that is acurate enough.
How about: "Shouldn't you have brushed your teeth by now?"
@@nr1516 Yea you can totally go for an accurate route that is still localized enough so that it make sense in English. The problem is that historically that's not what translation is about. Translators have aways catered towards heavily localizing content to the point where over 90% of the dialog mean something different from the original Japanese. And those same translators go then to teach in university and pass those same failed ideals to the next generation. And don't even get me started on how university completely sucks when it comes to teaching language, especially Japanese. It's like the whole "how are you? I am fine thank you" routine but in Japanese.
I'm thinking something along the lines of, "Don't forget to brush your teeth before bed," or "Make sure to brush before bed."
How the kid responds depends on what the next line is. If the mother just leaves, how the kid responds isn't too important. You just want him to respond in character. It would imply the scene was just to make sure the audience knows it's late at night, something like "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I will," or "Sure, mom, you got it," would be sufficient.
If she gets mad at his response, you want the kid to sound as dismissive as possible. If the Japanese line from the kid was intended as rude, the kid could respond, "I'm busy, go away," or "Whatever, I will if I feel like it."
The reason for the conversation should always be taken into account.
One of the best real life situation in game is Xenoblade Chronicles 2.
In one scene, Nia called Zeke "Turtle head" because he is all about his turtle, and that he is from Genbu which is a turtle shaped Titan, in the Japanese/Chinese version of the game. I burst into laughter when I saw the scene. And then I wonder, "How would they localize this into English?"
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That scene is the one where Nia called Zeke "one eyed monster", and we all know it's a dick joke.
My first language is Chinese, so I know that "turtle head" is the slang used for the same part of the body in Chinese (and also Japanese) so the joke works in Chinese and Japanese, no need to localized that into a different ways to put it into a Chinese joke. So in this case, translation works perfectly.
But the same does not work in English. So localization is required to make the joke work. Shout out to the localization team to localize "turtle head" into "one eyed monster" because Zeke is wearing an eye patch, making the joke works as well.
Shout out to the wokelizers you mean?
In your follow-up, you may want to include Transliteration & Internationalization.
In anime, I still prefer literal translations with TL notes above when necessary but they don't do this in videogames though.
Hmm, I don't think think the first example was that good to demonstrate your point, JRPG Gaming. I mean:
"Pulling water to my own rice paddy." vs. "Tooting my own horn."
Both are totally incomprehensible in their meaning to me, even though I know English pretty well. So it's not exactly a meaningful localization.
A perfect example of translation vs localization is the Ace Attorney series. Instead of simply translating the entire game into English, the localization team decided to set the game to an alternative "Japanofornia" to keep the puns alive. Without the jokes the games simply wouldn't be the same. And by doing that they created a version of the US which got its own bizzarre but lovely charme the Japanese games don't have.
And after watching the anime I realize how the localization ruined the game. I was able to enjoy the setting far more that they were going for with the original names and locations. Granted an anime is tougher to do localization, so the whole "Burger" jokes don't work while Mayoi is eating Ramen.
I'd say the Ace Attorney series is one of the few games where what would normally be considered excessive localization makes sense. They still managed to shoot themselves in foot a few times, such as the when the Ramen stand owner showed up in Apollo Justice even though the localization changed Maya's favorite food from ramen to hamburgers.
I also respect the hell out of the localizers for not censoring that one pivotal scene in Dual Destinies even though it earned them an M rating.
Great video! Personally, I speak 2 languages & trying to translate from 1 language to the other while keeping context, intention & meaning can be extremely tricky. I also agree with the last point about companies changing a thing or 2 to keep the rating on their game the way the want internationally.
Don't forget that there are many localizers (and people who support content alterations) that use this reason as a universal excuse to justify every change they made and all the liberties they take to rewrite the dialogues.
I've seen something like "walls have ears." and "it's a hundred years too soon for you to defeat me." for the examples, these sentences exist in BOTH Japanese and English, but some translators decided to rewrite the dialogue completely anyway.
Even your example of "pulling water to my own rice field." would've been fine. People will learn about new idioms in no time. Humans can actually learn new things. Localizers shouldn't take the chance to learn new things away from people. English isn't my native language, and I'll learn new English idioms within the first time I hear it.
The name changing is also unnecessary. Like... Hikari from Xenoblade. Many people know that Hikari means "light", but what is a mythra?
Removing Japanese folklore related like Suzaku, Byakko, Seiryuu, Genbu... these things appeared in so many games and anime, people should've known about them already.
Think about it. By altering the content to help some dumbass noob gamers understand the game better, you also take it away from other group of players who know about the things they removed.
Mythra is some mythological reference connected to light. It's a neat thing conceptually, but mighty awkward for the localization as a whole when it makes it harder to understand without googling instead of easier. They should have just called her "Ray", which may sound like some generic anime dub-localization, but would actually be more literal(And would mirror how Homura, a stylish way of saying flame, was reasonably changed to Pyra, a female form of Pyro, which means Fire).
@@lpfan4491 No they shouldve just kept her Japanese name. A name is a name. If you are translating a french game you aren't changing Jean-Pierre to Tom so why are we changing japanese names to made up english names?
If the original works then you keep it.
@@luminous3558 That was clearly not on the table for some reason, otherwise they would have just done so. The point is that if they are going to localize nomatter what, then they should at least keep as much consistency as they could.
I find myself still laughing to some extent at jokes, even when it's something I don't fully understand, so I'm in the camp that jokes should be translated as closely as practically possible. At worst, I'm also in the camp of wanting to learn about those things as well, so I can't argue the perspective of people who just want to play a localized Japanese game that they can understand instead of chocking it up as another poorly done story that failed to keep their attention due to traditionally lengthy time spent on storytelling over gameplay.
The rice paddy and tooting my own horn were very good examples on translation vs localization. Both are also two separate skills, but both can be gained.
this is why i like fans translation and jrpg community.
fans translation treat people who play as people who already have basic knowledge about japan culture and keep everything as original as possible.
but for me localizing isn't important because there's nothing wrong playing a game while learning other country culture especially if the game itself is located in japan, changing tokyo tower to eifel just because kid will confused what tokyo tower is stupid (just example).
especially nowadays game have japan dub and people can easily find bad translation/localize because of it.
I'm not so sure on the guaranteed dedication to proper localization regarding fan translation. Ever heard of the Daikaijū Monogatari fan translation? That one in particular is quite popular despite the creator putting in a bunch of right-wing AND left-wing political jokes that were nowhere to be seen in the original. Regarding fan translations, I think it's just up to the person, just how some official translations put in unimportant nonsense.
@@YellowpowR No. never heard of it. and yes i know some people doing this but it's so rare. it's popular? i doubt it i saw a lot of people hate it when i check their comment.
Most people who like it is reddit people and yes a lot of translation from reddit people like this kind of thing.
btw it's look like re-localization fans not actually someone who translating it from JP.
@@Luca-nq4gy From my understanding it was popular simply out of monopoly, in that it was the only translation to English of that game for a while.
Would've enjoyed more examples but that would just be me dragging my feet on a clean floor........
Yeah localization really is hard lol
I can see some localisation can be necessary sometimes but it's the unnecessary stuff that winds me up.
Example:(from an anime rather than jrpg but same concept) A scene in which Brock was having a snack of rice balls yet that got translated to donuts, even though the animation clearly showed rice balls. You could argue they wanted to portray that it was meant to be a popular snack but then I see that as treating your consumer as being too dumb to realise
where the show is set and that rice balls would be a popular snack there.
You do realize that your example is over 20 years old at this point, right? Such a thing would never happen nowadays. At worst, they'd reanimate the scene so that they were eating donuts
@@NinjaKIngAce you do realise the comment you're responding to is over a year old, right?
@@NinjaKIngAce You do realize stuff like this still happens today? Just look how they localized the yokai watch games. The first two games took place in Japan but for the Western release they decide to change the name of the country to America.
I remember that Goro Majima fight. Everything that guy does is priceless
Looked at another way, I could have learned about the Japanese phrase from context clues and maybe understood the joke as well. Instead, I didn't get given the opportunity to learn or understand.
That would be a fundamentally different experience to the one that native Japanese speakers had; an experience that goes against what the original developer envisioned and intended.
@@JRPGGaming "an experience that goes against what the original developer envisioned and intended" How are you so sure about that? Is there interviews that suggest that since most Japanese devs are unaware (or usually don't care) about how their product is viewed outside their home country.
@@doniarts It's not about how the original creators might be indifferent to if other countries get the same experience from a game, it's about giving other countries, especially fans, a translation that matches the original intent nonetheless. JRPGs get a lot of bad rep in the West for having stupid and embarrassing writing, but I would say a lot of that is due to akward translation and the differences in cultural contexts.
@@YellowpowR You missed the point of that comment my main point is that he says changing things in localization can help show the intent that author wanted, but when they also change the meaning without properly finding the equivalent in another language then is that really what the author wanted? either way tho modern localization is pretty bad especially with companies like Seven seas. Also he says it goes against the intention of the author but I'd like to know where has their been a case where that was true. Heck you know how I mentioned seven seas? Well they published a manga about cross dresser and made it about a story for trans when in reality that story was boy love. would you say that change is the authors intent? I sure would not cause the same peeps are getting away with this kind of thing in games as well since they work on both. But the big problem I have really is the culturalization that happens in these localization.
@@doniarts If a game is being shipping globally simultaneously there will be a developer point of contact in the chain somewhere answering questions on intent (this person typically then escalates to scenario writer, and from there to the director) for games where localisation is done after the JP product is complete though, it can be mixed.
Also, the interviews you had in mind might be old or for companies that are not global (for example, having an independent western brand, or outsourcing to various publishers)
game -- in recent years most larger global companies have restructured funding so that sales of the western version of the game tie directly into bonuses for the Japanese development team, incentivising them to actually care about the localised version (especially now that western sales are several times larger than Japanese ones).
It used to be quite hard to get developers to cooperate with implementing fixes for localised versions (like allowing more text to appear on screen, changing how line-breaking works, implementing language-specific gender/counter tags), but that's largely becoming a thing of the past and not representative of the direction the industry is moving in.
So back to intent: you don't need to be psychic to understand intent because the developer communicates intent through their work with the intention of it being understood by their native audience (which the translator, as someone who understands the language, is an extension of). It's not a one-sided "guess" on the translator's part, but a game of catchball between creator and audience that we simply call "communication".
Further, there are other ways to understand intent even when it is less obvious such as playing the entire game, noticing patterns in naming, game design documents etc (many of which explicitly note developer intent) and yes, sometimes just asking.
Great video! Sony is ruining everything........
Solution: if you want the best experience possible when playing your favorite jrpgs you gotta learn Japanese
Then what's the point of even having localization in the first place?
@@fantoniumnitrousNone
@@fantoniumnitrous
Most people aren't going to learn Japanese to experience Japanese media and to deliver the closest experience without learning the language, you localize the product to local equivalents. And that shit isn't going to carry with literal translations. That's literally all there is to it.
@@slopernafti902 I really wish there was a console that would auto translate the game for you because clearly these localizers don't seem bothered to put even a bit of effort into them. Skies of Arcadia is one fo the worst examples of this.
@@fantoniumnitrous
Your statement is complete nonsense. I guarantee you're cherry picking specific parts that only differ in a few words here and there or are saying the same thing with different words and going "this is bad localization" because it isn't exactly the same in terms of word choice.
Over 90% of the time, localization is at least fine. It conveys the meaning across effectively and maintains the personality that would be lost with a literal translation. That one series of Pokemon Red's localization comes to mind. That guy criticized the most minor changes and said "lol localization bad".
I enjoy your content for the most part but I have to disagree with the notion that changing outfits etc. isn't censorship.
If asking for a content complete version is too much then I can't be bothered to support the localization team in question.
Importing the original work is what I will do in cases like this.
This is just my opinion and isn't meant to attack anyone btw.
Tbh this is rarely the case. Most of the time it seems like localizers just do whatever they want shown by the fact that they change the meanings of basic words. Recently for me for example ff13 hope says "she left me" in a whining/sad voice about his mom, when in jp version they say a simple word like "mom" (kasan) in a sad voice... Instead of focusing on the meaning, they just completely ignore it.
Another one for me is nier, one of the end fights a character says soudana in a sad tone after being called an idiot and it's translated to "sorry" instead. That's just completely different in character and translation in general. Properly it would be "you're right.." or "I agree.."
I think it should just always be as it originally is, why change it in the end.
For your example, it's not a very weird thing to say especially since the next scene would probably be with the other character calling out that it's a joke and if it's similar to "tooting own horn", then simple words like "oh, I'm just pulling water" including the tone of voice would show thats its a similar type of joke.
In those examples the translators are taking the nuance (i.e the true meaning) of what is being said and writing that in the English. That’s not inaccurate translation, it’s taking care that things aren’t lost in translation.
For one thing, the translator might not know if the line will be voiced or not, so they can’t rely on the vocal performance alone to carry the nuance (even if it could), and the translator may not be the one on hand to provide voice direction at the studio, so it’s safer to hedge their bets and make sure the nuance is kept in the translated text.
There are good examples of bad translation, but those two really aren’t good examples and show that understanding words and understanding a language are not the same thing.
@@shehzaanaabdulla3047 if you are saying my examples are anything but a lazy mistranslation when I literally gave you the real words in English, then you are massively coping.
I'm a Japanese to French translator for a Japanese news website and I totally agree. Japanese sentences have many different possible translations. It gets worse in French as French is higher on context than English and a lot of Japanese just don't make sense of they are translated literally.
In my opinion, games that are in a fantasy world or in every places except Japan are not hurt by the localization. But a game like Mirage Session FE is very hurt by this. The game is about Japanese Idol Industry in Japan and therefore there's too much things that were part of that industry that disappeared during the localization. I think things like Gravure Idol (bikini modeling) should have been explained instead of being changed. That kind of cultural changes regularly ends up by making the story a bit weird, like in Mirage Session having the character talking about her fear of modeling in stupid clothing even though it's normal modeling and she's already quite a big idol. The Gravure Modeling is in bikini so her fear makes more sense. There's other comments that explains the problem as well in other games and medias.
TLDR; I think that as long as the game is not set in Japan and therefore is not as much influenced by Japanese culture and subculture, localization is OK. If it's in Japan, changing things will certainly make some things awkward.
As an aspiring game localizer, thank you for this video!
Hey! How ya doing? Have you started already?
@@davimag2071 How nice of you to ask! This is still my goal. I just received my bachelor's and I'm planning to attempt to apply for some localization jobs soon.
@@aerithxx as an also aspiring game localizer how it went for you ?
Interesting points. Though sometimes localization is done terribly and that needs to be pointed out too. Sometimes localizers add in english idioms where they didnt need to. An example: In Tales of Hearts R's opening scene we see a brother and sister running away from someone. As they get cornered on a cliff the person chasing says In JP: "I've found you" and in EN: "Like moths to the flame". Not only does this english idiom not make any sense for the context of this scene, no such idiom was used in the original script. So why was it added?
The literal meaning of the expression is "seeking your own interests".
I think you should also do translating songs. Not just songs in games and shows but songs in general. It's actually much harder than translating text and dialog.
Its not possible to do a literal word for word translation and make it fit the original melody and beat.
You have two choices.
Translate the lyrics with changes here and there.
Or completely rewrite the lyrics.
Oh let's not forget that most singers are not multi lingual like Bonnie Pink. She sings Ring A Bell from Tales of Vesperia both in Japanese and English.
Not only does the original meaning get lost but it also costs more money and time. Especially if another singer is hired to record the transition.
In my opinion that's why songs rarely get fully translated. And we don't get OST cds.
4 years late, but it really depends. Do you just need lyrics or do you need to sing them? If the song is not getting dubbed/covered, then literal all the way. And tbh, that is the better way of doing it anyways. Singing can sound good in any language, but people want to know what it says...which is not given if you rewrite it. One could argue blind people cannot read the lyrics, but the counterargument is that simply not understanding is better than getting wrong info entirely.
it applies to english to japanese localization!
I still want the full version with no content removed.
Glad you're feeling better 😊 I think translation and localisation is a really interesting process so this was a great idea for a video!
Fun video as a life long fan of the rpg jrpg being my number 1 genre I had always wondered and thought on this but really never heard someone break down the how to they do this. Was a fun watch for that reason. Thank you for the time and the upload.
What game is that you have playing? it looks amazing!
The game from 3:30 is Xenoblade Chronicles X, then Yakuza Kiwami 2 leading into the outro :)
The games shown are Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Xenoblade Chronicles X, and characters of Final Fantasy X
I've stated my thoughts on this many times, and they go something like this:
I don't care if words are changed, as long as the meaning is still there. Changing words for them to make sense... makes sense.
What I don't like is changing other things. Changing people's entire personalities, sexual orientation, or design to make it "more acceptable" in a certain country (with the exception of underaged characters or things that are just downright offensive, those can be changed).
Obviously this isn't entirely the localization team's fault. Rating systems have a lot to do with it, and I personally don't like rating companies, although they're a necessary evil.
And I do think it's important to know the difference between translation and localization. A lot of times people will hate a company over a few lines of text being changed when that doesn't really matter, but changing other stuff impacts the game more significantly.
You forgot about clothes that's also another big one. Honestly character designs and personalities should never be altered. And while we're on the subject certain mechanics or features should not be removed when localizing from one country to another (looks at fire emblem)
You don't like rating companies? A necessary evil? Mind elaborating?
Isn't it Localization? 🤔
Only in American English.
@@JRPGGaming Alright Thanks
“A likely localization candidate to translate the meaning into something that we understand in English would be: “Tooting my own horn””
Yes, of course I do understand what tooting your horns really mean, indeed I do.
Tbh, the given example can also be reversed. While localization standards improved a lot, there are enough localizations to this day that would completely ignore the entire context of the scene and rewrite it because it's too bothersome to deal with or they simply don't get it and mistranslate it(especially since they STILL don't always give the localization team proper context for the lines, so they couldn't even know the character is on a rice field).
Meanwhile, the more direct translation(if it is done well of course. Also, since almost no official examples exist, I just assume fantranslations here) could see the line, see the context and could try preserving something at least after long deliberation. Something is going to get lost either way, you have a 0 chance of giving the reader the same experience as someone speaking the native language regardless of what you are doing. The only thing you can do is figure a way out to get as much of the original intent across as you possibly can.
The distinction made is a bit strange. Translation and localization is real just translation. Ask any translator and I believe they would say the same thing. Translating text literally is a type of translation obviously, and translating text while trying to cater to the target language and target audience is is also just a type of translation. Calling the latter localization is a bit redundant to be honest.
As a profesional translator, I do not approve of the nuance that they give to "localization" in the video game industry, because what they consider localization as you explained in your video, is simply translation well done. Not considering cultural nuances and jokes and etc and translating them quite literally is not translation, that is some google ass sh*t. a good translation considers all this subjects and deals with them immediately. Localization to me goes far beyond the wording stage, for it even deals with the cultural and monetary aspects of games. For example, the country where we want to take our game, does people use more cash or credit cards. Therefore we prepare a sales strategy to cope with those things. That is true localization to my eyes. Translating jokes or wordplay considering the cultural nuances is simply a good translation, not localization. Great video, thou man. I just wanted to get this out of my chest hahaha. what better place than a youtube comment
Trust me. You're not that special. Just translate the damn thing.
@@03e-210aexactly 😂
Nobody cares about your little touches dude. Just translate it literally
Alternative, they keep the accurate translation in, people look it up, and it becomes an educational experience.
sorry for reply 1y old post but i agree.
if they keep localizing it people will keep blind about other culture difference, this is like play game and learn at the same time.
btw isn't people who love japan game mostly have basic knowledge about japan ? why must localize it and change the original meaning ?
@@Luca-nq4gyyes you're right that's why a lot of people learn and how they grew to love Japanese culture. Now your other question about why are they changing it , there's a lot of different reasons. One of them is they thought that westerners where to stupid to understand Japanese culture and it would be confusing for them. Thankfully that rarely happens now but it still happens. Another one is it they like to change things around to push their own political agenda around ( I'm not kidding.) So they change things around to help push their politics on people. You see this one a little too much and it needs to stop. Now this one of the biggest reason, apparently it will "offend" some people. Some people will get offended when they see something they don't like, they will then try to get the game company to change it. (this actually works more than you think) which it can be anything from culture stuff to even the clothes the characters are wearing. And last but not least the whole cultural appropriation thing. Some people actually think that's it's wrong for Westerner to experience and try things from other cultures. Saying it's not appropriation and it makes them racist. So they try and get other culture's stuff removed from the Western releases of games. I don't know how or why people actually believe these but thats all of main reasons why they changing and sensor stuff. It's just all bull shit but that's your answer.
Some of us don't want an educational experience, we just want entertainment. I can't be bothered to look things up outside of the game, so I want the game to be as self-contained and standalone as possible. A good localization facilitates that.
@@DeeeFoo not every game is for everyone. Niches exist for a reason.
I don't really like exploration in video games, so instead of playing open world and MetroidVania games while demanding they be more linear, I simply play a different game that I know will be more to my tastes.
@@RayOfTruth But I wasn't talking about game genres, I was referring to the localization. Nobody's demanding a game change its genre here.
We have to learn Japanese
Your Xenoblade Chronicles X gameplay made me really want a switch port for it still.
Great video :D
People so badly need to hop off the censorship bandwagon, just because something changed it does not mean it is censoring but people will say anything and everything is censoring these days
Uromastyx Does that mean the changes to the outfits in the bravely default series released in the US version in comparison to the JP version is not censorship being used to lower the rating of the US version when it can have kept the JP version rating for the risqué outfits it received as content?
@@ZarcYuya I never said ALL censorship is false now did I? I am saying however lot's of people are calling localisations and such censoring, there is for sure a difference, it is not always for malice reasons and that shouldn't be such a hard pill to swallow but it is for so many people.
For the record, the game you mentioned from the info I could find, the characters are referred to as 15 years old, FIFTEEN, that is considered a minor in almost all parts of the world so I am personally fine with any censorship that comes to stuff like that, you do not have to agree with me either but I am not going to argue on why censoring characters that are under-age is OK.
Because it is. Localizers are given way too much freedom and its ruining the experience for everyone, sometimes even without them knowing.
You likely never experienced an accurate JRPG like it was intended if you play with both localization and dub.
Most of the time if a game's story or characters felt odd then its due to localization messing up at several points and just winging it.
Localizers are paid very little money so the only ones doing it are people who have extra motivation to do it and thats often failed writers or political activists on a power trip.
i swear people who cry about localization, wouldn't, if they had even attempted to learn japanese.
I swear people who cry about bad food at my crappy reataurant should just learn to cook
Thank you! It's sometimes frustrating watching people get mad that their favorite character's "sex appeal" was turned down or an outfit was changed. Most of the time the developers are OK with these changes