His work on Vagrant Story was phenomenal. Japanese scripts tend to be really boring and samey. Without the work of a good localizer, you'd hear the same twenty anime one-liners interspersed throughout the entire game.

[–] Ashtear@lemm.ee 7 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Or in the case of his work on Ace Attorney, you wouldn't understand any of the puns if they were translated literally!

[–] VaultBoyNewVegas@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I used to see it all the time when I read unofficial transliterations of manga and the translator tried to make the pun work, they'd include a note explaining the joke. Personally I prefer localisation which keeps the spirit of what was meant but the text/lines flows in a much more natural way to a native English speaker.

[–] Ashtear@lemm.ee 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

It's a common fan translation technique, and--as far as the criticism sourced in good faith goes--I wonder if it's the genesis of a lot of the grumbling. Back when fans had to rely on independent, amateur translating to have access to more material.

Maybe some of them would just prefer the "literal with footnotes" approach.

[–] SuperSynthia@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

I’m one of these people. Translations/dubs can change the entire tone of the scene if localized incorrect.

Now if there isn’t a direct English equivalent to the Japanese, changes should only be done as absolutely necessary.

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 1 points 6 months ago

Just according to keikaku*

*TL: keikaku means plan

[–] dojan@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

There are exceptionally few puns that can be translated literally. One that comes to mind is from a Lipton Limone advert, where Miranda Kerr says 「おいチイ」, when I first heard it I thought it was just an accent thing, but the second time I realised it's a pun; Tealicious.

[–] Ashtear@lemm.ee 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Hah, love it. I'm sure there's also one or two with 軍人 .

[–] dojan@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

Haha, when I realised I got nuts about it. Tealicious is such a great pun. No one I knew got it, and it was so disappointing.

[–] xep@kbin.social 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I don't think anyone would've complained if the localization's quality was on-par with AA or Vagrant Story, but it looks to me like that isn't the case.

[–] Even_Adder@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I still can't find what people are taking issue with here. The article doesn't really explain.

[–] Ashtear@lemm.ee 4 points 6 months ago

The complaints are largely, as she says, "sacrificed accuracy for flowery prose." Japanese games in this setting still often follow in the footsteps of early Dragon Quest and the Final Fantasy games set in Ivalice by not strictly using contemporary English.

I think it's an interesting conversation when it can be divorced from "removing insensitive language is censorship" crowd.