Tag: localisation

2225: People Asking for “Literal” Translations of Games Aren’t Looking for Google Translate

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There’s been a lot of discussion over this topic on Twitter recently, thanks in part to the recent release of Fire Emblem Fates and its somewhat controversial localisation by Nintendo of America. There’s a lot of noise and ill-informed opinion being thrown around by both “sides” of the debate, so I thought it would be a good time to stick my own oar in and muddy the waters still further.

There are basically two sides to the argument over Fire Emblem specifically. It’s actually a little more complicated than that, but for the sake of simplicity we’ll look at two core beliefs.

On one side, you have people who are arguing that they want a literal, authentic recreation of the Japanese original, only in the English language. They want character names to stay the same; they want conversations to unfold in the same way; they want all the same content that the Japanese players had in the game.

On the other, you have people who are arguing that during the localisation process, changes are both necessary and inevitable in order to fit the needs of the new market. The exact definition of these needs varies according to who you speak to — some suggest it’s to do with a corporation (Nintendo of America in this case) wanting to continue curating a very specific brand image, while others suggest it’s a cultural thing: things that are acceptable, palatable or recognisable to the original Japanese audience may mean nothing to an English-speaking demographic.

Both sides have their points. I’ve enjoyed localised games that err very much on one side or the other. Slice-of-life visual novels, for example, very much benefit from remaining true to the original Japanese as much as possible: interpersonal relationships in particular unfold in very different ways in Japan, and maintaining things like the honorifics in a text help to reflect the different ways people defer to one another according to perceived social hierarchy. Along the same lines, role-playing games that are very much steeped in Japanese culture — the Persona series is a good example — also benefit from remaining as true as possible to the original Japanese script as much as possible, since, like visual novels, the relationships between characters are often dependent on Japanese societal norms rather than Western ones.

On the other side of the fence, some more drastic localisations have been very good, too. Few people would argue that the Ace Attorney series is extraordinarily well written in its English incarnation, but it’s very different to its Japanese counterpart, largely because a lot of the puns and jokes in the original Japanese simply wouldn’t make sense in English. Same with the Neptunia series, whose original translation by NIS America is the source of some ire for more die-hard fans, but which has also remained the standard by which the series continues to be localised today. And the same with Final Fantasy XIV, whose floridly Shakespearean script was so good in English a lot of the changes actually ended up backported into Japanese.

Personally speaking, my priority for the most part is getting to play games that I wouldn’t otherwise have the chance to play. I don’t like content being cut and I don’t like feeling that the experience I’m having is noticeably inferior to the Japanese original, but if it’s a game I want to play and the changes are relatively unobtrusive — Dungeon Travelers 2 is a good example, since this is technically “censored” in places through the modification of a few images, but the changes are minor at best, and the game probably wouldn’t have seen release if they hadn’t been made — then I’ll happily support the efforts of companies who attempt to bring games over as unscathed as possible.

I can’t say I feel massively strongly about Fire Emblem Fates in particular because I have no real attachment to the series, but there are a number of issues with the localisation that I really don’t like. One is the removal of content that wasn’t offensive in the first place — the “head-patting” minigame, which is a reflection of the Japanese tendency to use head-pats as a sign of affection — not necessarily attraction or lust — between characters. Another is the outright butchering of the script that has taken place in a number of parts, most notably the support conversation between two characters which was an in-depth discussion of finding common ground, honour among thieves and whatnot in Japanese, but which has been replaced with four screens of them going “…” to each other in English. That is not, in any way, acceptable localisation, because it’s completely changing the original intent of the scene.

Now onto the point I wanted to make with the title of this post: the “localisation means changes” brigade have a couple of favourite arguments. Let’s take them in turn.

You want a literal translation? Run the script through Google Translate and see how you like it.

This is by far the most common, and it’s based on a flawed assumption: the fact that people asking for a “literal” translation are literally asking for a literal translation, when they’re not. In a way, it’s their own fault for using the word “literal” perhaps incorrectly; “authentic” or “true to the original” might be a better description, but “literal” is the term that people tend to prefer to use, so let’s stick with that for now.

No, as I discussed above, the people who want a “literal” translation are not asking for the text to be run through Google Translate, because, among other reasons, the differences in grammar between languages butchers the original intent of the scene beyond all recognition. What they are asking for is the scene to be correctly translated into its closest possible English equivalent, without any changes based on perceived appropriateness according to Western cultural norms. What they are also asking for is the maintaining of the text’s “Japaneseness” as much as possible: that means maintaining the use of honorifics and concepts with no direct translation such as senpai and the use of onii-san/onee-san to people who aren’t your brother/sister.

That’s not a particularly unreasonable ask, is it? Doesn’t that show a degree of respect to the original creators, an awareness of your audience and also has the added benefit of potentially teaching people about another culture? Some games actually run with this concept; visual novel Steins;Gate, for example, features an interactive hyperlinked glossary of Japanese terminology used in the game, including Japanese Internet memes and slang as well as more widespread cultural concepts.

So no. People asking for a “literal” translation aren’t asking for the script to be fed through the mangler that is Google Translate. So stop responding to arguments they aren’t making.

You want the authentic experience? Just learn Japanese. Oh, I forgot, learning a language is more difficult than complaining.

The whole point of localisation is so that new audiences have access to works from other cultures. Through a culture’s art, we can learn about them, understand them, appreciate them — or, in some cases, be happy with what we’ve got ourselves! By mangling the cultural authenticity of a text, be it by inserting random Internet memes — which not only spoil the character of the piece in most cases, they also date it horribly — or by stripping out elements that made it authentically “Japanese” in the first place, you’re doing a disservice to the original work, and to the audience who wants to know more about another culture that they find fascinating.

Moreover, a lot of people who argue in favour of drastic localisation changes are the same people who are constantly bleating on about buzzword of the moment “diversity” — used here to mean “celebrating anything that isn’t by a white man”. Isn’t stomping all over the text of another culture using Western sensibilities the very antithesis of the “diversity” that seems to be the Holy Grail among progressive types at the moment?

Anyway. Asking people to learn Japanese isn’t a terrible argument: not only does it let you play the original versions of localised games, it also gives you access to a huge library of titles that never make it across the ocean. But it’s also not a particularly practical option for a lot of people. Japanese is a complicated language that takes a long time to learn, and some people simply don’t have the right kind of mindset to effectively study a new language, particularly if they’re a little older and their brain finds it more difficult to take in entirely new language-related information. Should people who are unable to study Japanese for whatever reason be denied access to authentic experiences? No, of course not.

I’ve seen both sides of this argument unfolding recently and it’s frankly getting rather tiresome — mostly because many of the arguments, as we’ve seen above, are based on mistaken assumptions. This has been a worryingly growing trend over the last few years, and it’s this, in part, that has led to the overwhelmingly negative atmosphere a lot of online interactions carry over their heads these days; everyone is afraid to offend everyone else.

In this instance, I would be inclined to defer to the opinions of people who passionately consume Japanese games and other media, and who want an authentic experience from their localised material. It’s not as if we’re short of Western experiences for people who find heavily Japanese titles “too Japanese” or otherwise inaccessible for some reason, and ultimately keeping things as true to their original form as possible helps everyone to understand each other that little bit better, which is surely the best possible outcome to all this.

But I’m sure this argument will keep raging and no-one will pay any attention to what I’ve said here, so what do I know…

 

2183: Why It Would Be a Mistake to Not Localise Valkyrie Drive Bhikkuni

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Earlier today, a tweet from Senran Kagura creator Kenichiro Takaki did the rounds, apparently indicating that his newest video game creation Valkyrie Drive Bhikkuni — part of an ambitious transmedia project that involves anime, mobile games and conventional games — would not be localised.

Takaki’s wording is a little ambiguous, due to English not being his first language, but if I’m interpreting his words correctly, it seems that there are no current plans to release a localised version of Valkyrie Drive Bhikkuni, but that he does want to release a localised version.

In other words, there’s a shred of hope in that tweet thanks to the word “currently”, particularly as the creator himself has expressed a desire to bring the game over. However, the final decision will be in the hands of Marvelous and their frequent localisation partners XSEED Games and Marvelous Europe, and this is where things become a little worrisome.

You might recall that a few weeks back there was something of a hoo-hah over Dead or Alive Xtreme 3, with a widely quoted comment apparently from a Tecmo Koei employee seeming to indicate that Western territories would not be receiving an official release of the game due to the unwelcome influence of loud-mouthed outrage megaphones in the games press and on social media at large. Whether or not those comments were actually true is beside the point; plenty of people believe them and have no reason not to given recent happenings. As a result, import specialist Play-Asia scored something of a coup by pointing out that there was an Asian English version available, and that, conveniently, they were offering it to those who wanted it — along with a cheeky biting of the thumb at so-called “social justice warriors” along the way, too. Fine with me.

The thing Valkyrie Drive Bhikkuni and Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 have in common is that they’re both provocative, sexy games that feature exclusively female characters in cute outfits, suggestive poses and varying states of undress. The similarities end there, of course, with DOAX3 being a beach volleyball/dating sim type affair, while Valkyrie Drive Bhikkuni is more along the lines of Takaki’s successful Senran Kagura franchise, but to the eyes of those who thing everything involving depictions of the female form — particularly in works of Japanese origin — is somehow worse than ISIS, there’s little difference; these are games for neckbeard basement-dwelling virgins, they’d say — games for desperate losers who’d never get their hands on a real woman.

This is enormously reductive thinking, as I’ve argued on a number of occasions in the past. I think it’s extremely important that video games as a medium feels that it is able to explore sex, sexiness, sexuality and deliberately provocative aesthetics. And, over the last few years, we’ve started to see more and more developers, publishers and localisation outfits apparently feeling the same way, with PlayStation platforms in particular getting more than their fair share of games that are unafraid to revel and delight in explorations of sexuality. Sure, a few have made it over with some edits here and there in the name of differing cultural norms — particularly with regard to the depiction of young-looking (“loli”) characters in provocative situations, even if, canonically, they are of an appropriate age to be engaging with such activities — but for the most part, the last two generations of hardware in particular have been a wonderful time to be a fan of Japanese gaming and sex-positive titles.

What the loud-mouthed outrage megaphones threaten to do, though, is undo this amount of progress we’ve seen over the last few years. Because yes, it is progress, whatever you may personally think of the games in question. These games seeing a successful release to a passionate audience in the West demonstrates that it is possible to release games to a niche rather than a mainstream audience — and, thus, if it’s possible to run a successful business catering to those who enjoy games involving pretty anime girls (which isn’t just white cis heterosexual men, I might add, as my Twitter Following list will attest) then it is certainly possible to cater to other audiences too: gay men, heterosexual women, gay women, asexual people, bisexual people, trans people and even the genderfluid otherkin bullshit that Tumblr seems to make up on a regular basis.

As such, seeing a relatively high-profile title from a high-profile niche-interest creator like Takaki at risk of not coming over for reasons as-yet unknown — but you can bet it’s something to do with the recent controversies, along with the amount of outright ill-informed abuse that has been spewed at the Senran Kagura series in particular over the last few years — is both saddening and worrying, but perhaps understandable. To be honest, were I in Takaki’s situation, as a creator who clearly loves both his work and his creations, I would feel enormously demoralised every time the mainstream press covered my games and wrote them off without, in many cases, even playing them — though I would take heart from the fact that there are plenty of passionate fans out there willing to spread the good word, even if the press isn’t. And in this age of social media, as the traditional games press becomes more and more irrelevant, sadly, it’s word of mouth that really counts more than anything.

I sincerely hope that Takaki, XSEED and Marvelous are able to reach some kind of arrangement where Western fans are able to pick up Valkyrie Drive Bhikkuni officially, without having to resort to possible Asian English imports, because refusing to release this sends a message to the wannabe “progressive” bullies of the world that their tactics — shaming creators and audience members of niche-interest products rather than being the change they want to see in the world and creating their own media that better reflects their interests — are working. And I really don’t want them to get that message, because for all their bleating about “diversity” and “representation”, nothing good ever comes from denying groups access to the media they want to enjoy; in fact, if anything, it makes the world a less diverse and representative place overall.

So fuck that. Takaki-san, XSEED, Marvelous: you announce an official Western (preferably European — we’re a lot more open-minded over here!) release of Valkyrie Drive Bhikkuni, and I — and numerous others I know — will more than happily pre-order it immediately, particularly if there’s a lovely limited edition on offer with, say, posters, figurines, soundtracks, dakimakuras and the like.

Do the right thing. Don’t let the crybullies of the world win. Take a stand. Show that you believe in your work, and in your audience. Tits are life, ass is hometown — and your games are happiness.

2137: Nintendoes

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I’ve been playing almost exclusively Nintendo games for the past week or two. This wasn’t entirely deliberate, but it’s just sort of happened. And it’s allowing me to rediscover my appreciation of what Nintendo does well.

Nintendo, more than pretty much any other company out there, puts out games that feel satisfyingly complete. They don’t come out of the door half-baked, lacking in content or riddled with bugs; they’re ready to play, bursting with things to do and full of enjoyment waiting to be discovered. And this is how they’ve always been, even since the days of the NES.

The other thing I rather like about Nintendo is that their work has a very distinctive “voice”. This is partly the job of the localisation teams who work on the various properties, but the overall “tone” of most Nintendo works is so very consistent — and has been for many years — that I find it difficult to believe that this is purely a regional thing. Rather, I feel that Nintendo almost certainly makes very careful decisions about how it’s going to localise things and make them accessible and tonally appropriate in territories around the world. This even goes as far as making the British/European English and American English versions of games different to quite a considerable degree in some cases, which always feels like a pleasantly “personal” touch.

Now, Nintendo have attracted the ire of a number of people over the last few years thanks to what these folks see as unnecessarily “butchered” translations of games such as Fire Emblem Awakening and Xenoblade Chronicles X. And, for sure, some notable changes have been made from the original scripts — and, in a number of cases, content has been edited or even cut to be in keeping with the perceived values of a particular territory. Memorable examples in recent memory include the shot of Tharja’s panties-clad bum in Fire Emblem Awakening (which featured a curtain being pulled across it in the English version, inadvertently making it look more lewd by hiding her panties altogether) and the inexplicable removal of the breast size slider from Xenoblade Chronicles X‘s character creation tool.

These sorts of edits are nothing new, however. The Legend of Zelda series, for example, has a somewhat different tone in Japan to in the West, particularly in installments such as A Link to the Past on Super NES. In the Japanese original A Link to the Past, for example, the story touched on religious themes, with one of the main villains being a priest. In the English versions, however, religious references were removed, and the “priest” became a “wizard”.

Why does Nintendo do this? For an attempt at inclusivity, I guess; the company has a carefully curated “family-friendly” image to uphold, after all, and “family-friendly” means different things in different territories. From its localisation decisions, we can interpret that Nintendo believes here in the West that “family-friendly” means something that the whole family can sit down and enjoy together without any material provoking arguments or awkwardness between one another. We’ve seen on all too many occasions that discussions and material relating to both religion and sexuality are very much capable of inducing arguments and awkwardness, so out the window they go. It’s kind of a shame for those who prefer their translations to be more literal and true to the original Japanese texts, but it is, after all, what Nintendo has always done — and, I have to admit, that warm, friendly tone most of their localisations tend to have is rather comforting, and quite unlike anything from other localised Japanese works.

This is even apparent in games such as New Style Boutique 2 and Animal Crossing, where there was unlikely to be any real “offensive” content in the first place; both have been localised in such a way as to be as inclusive and welcoming as possible to a broad audience; they’re games that invite you in to enjoy the experience rather than insist you must be this skilled to ride, or whatever. And that’s rather nice, really. Not something that every game needs, of course — some games are all the better for their laser-sharp focus on a very specific, niche-interest audience — but, to be honest, I find it hard to get too riled up about censorship talk when it comes to Nintendo games, simply because I’ve grown up with that warm, friendly, familiar tone of their localisations, and it would feel kind of strange for that to change now.

Anyway. I’m enjoying my Nintendo period right now: currently playing Zelda 3, Hyrule Warriors and New Style Boutique 2. All are very different games from one another. All are simply marvellous. All are proof that Nintendo doesn’t give a shit what its competitors are doing, because they’re quite happy doing their own thing, even if it ends up causing their sales figures to look dismal in comparison to those of Sony and Microsoft.

I hope this Nintendo never goes away. They’re an important part of gaming, and it would be sad to see them go the way of Sega, becoming just another third-party publisher.