I would like to express my opinion regarding all of the four sides you listed:
Quote
The Positive Consumer
This is the starting point for obvious reasons. The real issue is that most people stop at this point, which can impact an official localization in many ways (something I get in depth during the negative consumer part).
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The Negative Consumer
This is a difficult beast to talk about, at least for me. That's because i'm both a somewhat part of this side, but mainly because i'm not a native english speaker. As always, liiteral translations, can't exist as a whole; if anything, I can understand a translation project which aim to be as close to the original script as possible, which can end up with either:
a) a sloppy translation which can be somewhat hard to follow or feel too much unnatural;
b) a translation which while keeping literal at its roots, allows edits in order to facilitate reading, although it rarely happens.
Now here comes the most difficult part (and the reason for which not being a native english speaker could impact me differently): if there is one thing that I noticed in the past 15 years of playing games (from jrpg, to vns etc), rather than a mere translation/localization, scripts are heavily edited or worse, simplified in such a way that makes me question how could the translator go that far.
One of the worst example I can recall right now is from a jrpg PSP game called "dragoneer's aria" in which at a certain point in the main plot, the mc in the japanese script reveal that he has strong feelings for the main heroine, although he is reluctant from saying that directly, while in the english script he outright says that he loves her.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg for that and other games. I also noticed that localization quality worsened toward the years (although that could be caused by the change in the gaming industry, starting from not being a niche thing anymore, to the increase cost of developing games).
Also, we have some history with bad localization (like the neptunia franchise, which is widely know for being ruined with meme and scripts wrote from scratch, you can find some example here and here .
You see, as an aspirant translator, I really can't comprehend why a translator should (or COULD in the first place) make changes to characters/backstory/whatever. Localization should imply making a game understandable by the target audience, NOT adding/editing/deleting something with your personal taste (by your i mean the translator of the project).
We also have a bad time with nintendo localizations, due to the huge censorship and again, edit issues, so I can't really blame the negative consumer.
Personally I hate to purchase a game and not being able to switch to japanese language (i mean interface other than voices), which is a rampant problem with STEAM.
Quote
The Neutral Consumer
I don't have much to add to this, but can't be part of it as I really can't accept most of the localizations out there.
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The Producer
Here not much is left from what you said. No matter what you do, people will always blame you for something.
Quote
As a rule, avoiding pop culture references and slang is a good idea. One thing I don't like is when someone goes off and searches for an equivalent pop culture reference to a Japanese pop culture reference and utterly screws it up...
Also, Japanese usage of foul language is a lot more mild than in America... there is a much more limited range of words, and some of them are borrowed from English or other language, because Japan didn't have them in the first place, lol. Leftovers from an era when saying the wrong thing to a person above your social status could result in beheading or forced suicide, most likely...
Honestly, I'm tired of hearing foul language everywhere, and I find it a nuisance when is so overused, while the original script doesn't have much of it in the first place...
I saw cases in which こいつ got translated into "son of a b****", while there are more valid and less rude alternatives.
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Changing views of localization
in Clephas' VN home
A blog by Clephas in General
Posted · Edited by きょうすけ
I would like to express my opinion regarding all of the four sides you listed:
This is the starting point for obvious reasons. The real issue is that most people stop at this point, which can impact an official localization in many ways (something I get in depth during the negative consumer part).
This is a difficult beast to talk about, at least for me. That's because i'm both a somewhat part of this side, but mainly because i'm not a native english speaker. As always, liiteral translations, can't exist as a whole; if anything, I can understand a translation project which aim to be as close to the original script as possible, which can end up with either:
a) a sloppy translation which can be somewhat hard to follow or feel too much unnatural;
b) a translation which while keeping literal at its roots, allows edits in order to facilitate reading, although it rarely happens.
Now here comes the most difficult part (and the reason for which not being a native english speaker could impact me differently): if there is one thing that I noticed in the past 15 years of playing games (from jrpg, to vns etc), rather than a mere translation/localization, scripts are heavily edited or worse, simplified in such a way that makes me question how could the translator go that far.
One of the worst example I can recall right now is from a jrpg PSP game called "dragoneer's aria" in which at a certain point in the main plot, the mc in the japanese script reveal that he has strong feelings for the main heroine, although he is reluctant from saying that directly, while in the english script he outright says that he loves her.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg for that and other games. I also noticed that localization quality worsened toward the years (although that could be caused by the change in the gaming industry, starting from not being a niche thing anymore, to the increase cost of developing games).
Also, we have some history with bad localization (like the neptunia franchise, which is widely know for being ruined with meme and scripts wrote from scratch, you can find some example here and here .
You see, as an aspirant translator, I really can't comprehend why a translator should (or COULD in the first place) make changes to characters/backstory/whatever. Localization should imply making a game understandable by the target audience, NOT adding/editing/deleting something with your personal taste (by your i mean the translator of the project).
We also have a bad time with nintendo localizations, due to the huge censorship and again, edit issues, so I can't really blame the negative consumer.
Personally I hate to purchase a game and not being able to switch to japanese language (i mean interface other than voices), which is a rampant problem with STEAM.
I don't have much to add to this, but can't be part of it as I really can't accept most of the localizations out there.
Here not much is left from what you said. No matter what you do, people will always blame you for something.
Honestly, I'm tired of hearing foul language everywhere, and I find it a nuisance when is so overused, while the original script doesn't have much of it in the first place...
I saw cases in which こいつ got translated into "son of a b****", while there are more valid and less rude alternatives.