I hope they use a different localiser next time.

[AJ_Radio]

On 6/20/2022 at 6:14 AM, Eraezr said:

The treatment pop culture/Twitter gave Joss Whedon for Avengers 2 was kinda unfair but since 2017, Whedon really had it coming with how he's been tying his own noose then. I mean, locking a stunt double in a room and threatening to have her blacklisted from the industry just because she doesn't want to do a boob landing scene? What a dipshit. That was only one of many.

 

He's even lost his edge with what made him somewhat talented with Firefly and all that, now.

Firefly was a great series that ended prematurely, but that was a long time ago. 
 

This is typical behavior in the western film industry. Too many dipshits and con men who just want to make a buck.

[Amitte_Sukku]

Seeing as I've pretty much finished the game at this point, I wanna take the time to counter some of the ridiculous claims from this thread:

• changing a pet's name/absence of honorifics
  You answered yourself with this one - the pet is called Mi-chan, but since no honorifics are present, only "Mi" would be left. Now, is that read "mee" or "mai"?
  "Mimi", which is what the cat got renamed to, is as close as you could get to the original *and still* a decent pet name.
  In the end, though, that doesn't matter, cause the cat isn't pivotal to the story.
• the localiser doesn't care about distinguishing 'aniki' and 'onee-chan'
  You mean 姉貴, right? Either way, this also goes back to the absence of honorifics - while there is a difference between 姉 and お姉ちゃん, they both mean the same in English, so there's no distinction that needs to be made.
• the translator swapped out 'naginata' in favour of 'blade'
  You're referring to a single instance, which not only happened during a humorous scene, it also wasn't even in Saya's route at all.
  Synonyms are a thing. Also, consider the fact that wordwrapping definitely plays a part in how these translations end up looking.
• 'macha' being called 'tea' rather than 'green tea' all the time
  The MC drinks green tea in one route, barley tea in another, then ice tea in yet another.
  Does it matter? Not really, no. I can assure you I wouldn't know that if the game didn't specify, though.
• correct spacing with punctuation is neglected in the proof-reading stage of the script
  You've shown a screenshot of a single textbox from a ~30 hour game... really?

and last, but certainly not least:

• not being as accurate to context as I prefer
  Seems the localisers don't care about you. A shame, truly.  You might be too big of a weeb for them.

On 16.10.2021 at 0:53 PM, de_digibeet said:

The one that really struck me and has stayed with me ever since as an example between a translation and a localisation was the scene where Kiryu was chased by some american agents. Kiryu then starts asking him some questions and the agent doesn't respond. So Kiryu says: 'nihongo wakaranai no ka?' => meaning: 'don't you understand Japanse?' And the subs say: 'not the talkative type ey?'.

Imagine being scared of a foreigner whom you can't understand (and vice versa). And to add insult to injury, he's only asking if you can understand him...

 

To play devil's advocate for a bit: the glossary entries are, at times, a tad of a headscratcher - some of them seem to be a mix of the original definition and whatever the translator(s) came up with as an attempt at localising the particular entry.

On the other hand, however, there are a few places where the localisation got to shine, such as Yukino being jokingly referred to as "Sheer-Luck Holmes" or the comedy skit Maimi claims to have performed at the club getting the name of "The One Stooge", just so it makes sense to be bounced off Kensuke (because if translated literally, you'd just see him go "I wasn't performing a skit!" - boring, right?) These are just my two cents, however; perhaps someone with experience in localisation wouldn't think as highly of the examples I mentioned.

 

TL;DR - The game is great. The translation is solid. If you just stumbled upon this topic wondering whether or not you should check it out, go for it.

[Eraezr]

14 hours ago, Amitte_Sukku said:

 

• In the end, though, that doesn't matter, cause the cat isn't pivotal to the story.

 

 

Actually, it does matter in emphasising characterisation of vernacular of said characters speaking. A grizzly, sullen Japanese man in his 50s may not care to put an endearment of honorific for a mere cat but it's a different with young girls who like cute things. Unless somehow, sub-par characterisation is your benchmark with a VN that makes a translation """"solid"""".

 

14 hours ago, Amitte_Sukku said:

 

• the localiser doesn't care about distinguishing 'aniki' and 'onee-chan'
  You mean 姉貴, right? Either way, this also goes back to the absence of honorifics - while there is a difference between 姉 and お姉ちゃん, they both mean the same in English, so there's no distinction that needs to be made.

 

 

If they were English-speaking characters sure, they would be no need to make the distinction for a product that supposed to be a cultural export.

 

14 hours ago, Amitte_Sukku said:

Seeing as I've pretty much finished the game at this point, I wanna take the time to counter some of the ridiculous claims from this thread:

• the translator swapped out 'naginata' in favour of 'blade'
  You're referring to a single instance, which not only happened during a humorous scene, it also wasn't even in Saya's route at all.
  Synonyms are a thing. 

 

Except that liberty of synonym doesn't happen in a single instance. If you paid attention to the script you would know that. Saya herself said 'blade' in her own route more than once. I citated that as an example of how this localiser diminished characterisation on purpose. Synonyms are meant to empower language and the viscera of its context and all peripheral information. This did the opposite, which by an epiphenomena gives this idea of someone who's also an amateur with English itself.

 

14 hours ago, Amitte_Sukku said:

'macha' being called 'tea' rather than 'green tea' all the time

• The MC drinks green tea in one route, barley tea in another, then ice tea in yet another.
  Does it matter? Not really, no. I can assure you I wouldn't know that if the game didn't specify, though.

 

Not really, no...?

Does it matter for a Japanese small town that makes an emphasis on traditional Japanese culture which the includes the subset of tea drinking culture; including anyone who might have grown up in this setting? I'm sorry, but I disagree. This seems imaginatively lazy to not care for why these characters would deign to differentiate 'macha tea' from ordinary tea, especially given the fact that macha tea (a popular dietary choice for its antioxidants for beauty and healthy metabolism, above ordinary tea) was offered by an idol who is in the business of maintaining good looks.

 

In case you missed out this detail, there is a major character in WES that is an idol.

 

14 hours ago, Amitte_Sukku said:

 I can assure you I wouldn't know that if the game didn't specify, though.

 

Well that I can agree and believe with what I've read so far in your comment.

 

14 hours ago, Amitte_Sukku said:

You've shown a screenshot of a single textbox from a ~30 hour game... really?

 

I showed one of its dozen examples from the visual novel, to maintain a level of brevity in getting my points across in regards to the quality of this localisation. Instead of spamming 12-16 screenshots across for one bullet point. Yes, really. And if you were paying attention to the localisation you would have known it happened that many times.

 

14 hours ago, Amitte_Sukku said:

not being as accurate to context as I prefer

• Seems the localisers don't care about you. A shame, truly.  You might be too big of a weeb for them.

 

Despite the sarcasm, I do agree with this. If the localiser does not care about curating the creative content properly from the developers themselves who worked hard effort and their hearts into this product, why would this localiser even care about those playing this? No. This was merely a lazy payday for them.

 

Funnily though, the total runtime of the amount of anime I've watched in the past 8 years is 129 minutes only (A Silent Voice). If someone like me is "too big of a weeb for them", this localiser is  probably in the wrong field. Further vindicated by the evidence that when I submitted this to Arc Sys's current community/localisation manager, he said he agreed with my feedback. He wasn't in charge of this game at the time, when it was released. So imagine it will be harder for these types of localisers to try for another lazy cop-out for a would-be sequel.

 

 

But as I've said in my parent thread, the visual novel is still worth checking out, despite the incompetent localisation. Thanks to the other elements like art, production values, etcetera.

 

 

Edited October 1, 2022 by Eraezr