It's meddling for the sake of getting easy "moral hero" brownie points with none of the risk. These people want to live like heroes? How about actually trying to make a difference and possibly dying in the attempt?
It's meddling for the sake of getting easy "moral hero" brownie points with none of the risk. These people want to live like heroes? How about actually trying to make a difference and possibly dying in the attempt?
May the Light of Zvezda Shine Throughout This World!
Spoiler:
You can take your bogeyman elsewhere, I didn't say anything about harming real children nor am I yelling about localization heroes saving kids.
I am extremely glad they changed it so the character I'm playing as isn't a pedo. It's a harmless change for the better. Keep crying if it bothers that much.
Except the character isn't a pedo even without any changes in the dialogue. Like, not even platonically.
shit BL says
Once and always and nevermore.
Crying, huh? My eyes may output tears, but my wallet will not output money.Originally Posted by pinetree
May the Light of Zvezda Shine Throughout This World!
Spoiler:
Yes, but by cutting it they'll get the money of the people who would avoid it if it was still there. And honestly, that's probably the larger group.
Binged All Of Gundam In 4 Years, 1 Week and All I Got Was This Stupid MaskMains:
Current FF XIV Progress (Patch 3.3)
>literally only using girls with a singular exception for the dancer0 children where harmed by the game. Also 0 children were helped by such noble "localization" (it isnt) effort of said game. Lets call things what they are, its meddling for the sake of meddling. Like, Anna is in the game and she is not going anywhere, might as well just give up.
Spoiler:
Translate the fucking game, thats the job, which they do poorly by the way, because i can hear Griss say very simple phrases in japanese which i know even without knowing the language and for some reason english text decides to insert additional text for no reason.
nice harem my fellow coomer
We always say that but the sales numbers never seem to reflect that.
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Yeah but M. Byleth though.
shit BL says
Once and always and nevermore.
Nah, that group buys the game anyway just to complain about "muh patriarchy". Me? I can abandon things without remorse when they outlive their usefulness.
May the Light of Zvezda Shine Throughout This World!
Spoiler:
there is like 3 good male characters in the game except dancer
its impressively terrible in that regard now that i think about it
funny vamp ends 7 years of gacha torture
YT: FGO Gameplay , YT: FGO OST, Twitch FGO Gacha, NP Table, Chaldea Archive Project - Complete
I like Diamant and Alcryst but otherwise yeah, they're really bad.
That's not quite what happens
I am generally against any form of alteration of the source material unless absolutely necessary or if it would require like 5000 TL notes just to get across what was even happening or being talked about. However, this isn't Joshiraku or Monogatari, and no alterations are necessary.
I think, personally speaking, that a wise and mature society needn't be "coddled" because cultural differences may lead to some material seeming morally questionable, or perhaps even unacceptable, when translated properly. The job of localization is to make it so that you can understand what's going on in a game even if you're not familiar with the original culture. It is not the job of localization to completely alter certain scenes because they're of the belief western audiences wouldn't like it. And certainly there would be people who wouldn't, but let's be honest, people would buy this game anyway, and if they don't like these kinds of scenes, many would just ignore them.
Three Houses was full of this kind of thing and scenes were altered either solely to remove language indicative of a more traditional view of gender roles ("you're a girl so therefore you should/shouldn't do this or this") or for no discernible reason at all (there's basically a yuri bait scene involving Annette and Mercedes that was rewritten to remove all of that for... no particular reason as far as I can tell. Do the translators not like yuri?)
examples
For another example, Danganronpa V3 was altered to remove implications that one of the important characters (Kaito Momota) was not as much of a homophobe. This is a problem because it explicitly alters artistic intent. The translators liked Kaito, so they made him not hate gay people as much. However, in an ideal world those implications would be kept, and people would have to determine whether or not they liked Kaito in spite of his incredibly toxic masculinity.
So no, this kind of thing doesn't bother me because it's lolicon stuff. It bothers me because this kind of alteration is what I disliked about official releases back in the day and sought out unofficial translations, except nowadays unofficial translations are basically dead because western publishers have figured out people want anime and have monopolized the translation of Japanese media. If this kind of thing happened, you could just find a patch or a fansub but now that is no longer possible most of the time. The only way to escape it is to learn Japanese myself but, well, that's a ways off still.
Last edited by Formless Creature; January 25th, 2023 at 11:44 AM.
What you see as coddling and arbritrary changes, I see as the translators doing their job. There's definitely a translation philosophy that would lead them to not changing Kaito at all and having the players from a (probably) less conservative culture deal with his toxic masculinity, but there's also the interpretation that the original text, coming for a culture that focuses less on such subjects on media, didn't intend for the reader to feel his statements were controversial at all and that changing it is actually the best solution so that the average english-speaking player feels the same way towards Kaito as the average japanese-speaking player. Both approaches are valid.
This is why these internet discussions over localization are so terrible, people can't take any nuance and know nothing about translation. They believe in the myth of literal translation, that any literary translation could happen without the translators subjectivity affecting it. They think authorial intent is always obvious, that the translators always have the opportunity to check with the original writers, or even that every translator should value supposed authorial intent above everything else.
They also have a persecution complex that clouds any attempt at analysing the translation in good faith. If something is different it's because the translators are arbitrarily going after my anime! It's us against them. Even your own comment was dripping with doomerism over the state of anime translation. Comparing changes in text in a scene to extensive alterations of a cartoon so that it fits an age-range it was never intended to is silly. As aozaki so readily pointed out, it's not like they took her off the game or changed her outfits.
I will elaborate on my take on Anna's scene. It's clearly written for lolicon appeal and obviously romantic. I've read arguments from both sides and I think the attempt at arguing it's more ambiguous than that are laughable. The context says it all, you are literally giving her an engagement ring. The player is not supposed to be grossed out by the scene, so if the translators judged they would be, it's a perfectly reasonable choice to change it. In fact, it's their job to do it.
Her and other minors in the game apparently not putting them on their ring finger might be just them covering their asses, but I also think it's a pretty fair justification for the translation team writing these scenes as more platonic than the Japanese might have come off as. Would I have liked some of those scenes to be more romantic? Depends on the character and how heavily changed they were, I guess, I haven't gotten to them yet.
Last edited by pinetree; January 25th, 2023 at 03:27 PM.
I fear we'll just have to agree to disagree then. I don't believe literal translation is a thing that exists (obviously the only way to get a "pure and unsullied" interpretation of the text is to simply read it in the original Japanese), but I pursued anime in the early 2000's specifically because I enjoyed that the cultural context and ideas were so different from those of my own country. I don't find this kind of thing appealing or defensible, because I don't think it's actually necessary to begin with. But I'm under no illusion I can convince you to think otherwise either.
From my perspective, the most charitable reading I can give to these translations is that they're deliberately trying to make sure it has as much mass market appeal as possible. And like, okay, I guess. I can't actually blame the translators themselves for that. I can, and will, blame corporations. But I do still miss the in-group, the fact people didn't need to translate the word 'tsundere' because they expected only weeaboos to be reading the translation and people just assumed you'd be familiar with the vernacular.
In the end I think the thing that makes me most uncomfortable is the fact that these translations are no longer made "for me". They are made "for everyone". And "everyone" is a big group, one you have to handle with too much tact. But I guess there's really nothing anyone can do about it.
I can't say it's unexpected that Engage would make these alterations, since they seem to be explicitly encouraging people unfamiliar with anime to play it. I don't like it, but it's not a surprise either. I do find it really frustrating when it happens to things like obscure eroge though. Like what's the point, you KNOW the only people reading those are degenerates, just translate it assuming such.
Last edited by Formless Creature; January 25th, 2023 at 02:13 PM.
I know what you mean. I'm kind of happy that nowadays hentai isn't localized as commonly as back in the day. The stuff that does come is the stuff that's completely intact and not something that's taken with pieces removed. Really hard to find a JP (or Spanish because apparently some copies of the Spanish version are uncut too for some reason) version (not the global version with JP audio but the actual JP version) of the Dragon Rider hentai because everyone just does the easy route and uploads a rip of the global version. Without that easy route, uploaders would have been forced to upload the original one, like they do for stuff not localized.
Then those aren't translators. Those are culturalizers, and they shouldn't do those jobs.
Oh, my dear. For me, it's not so complicated. It's me determining who is worthy of my money. IIRC, in one of the Harvest Moon games, you got relationship points with the goth girl purely by denying the others. Basically that for me. I understand that a lot of what I like is offensive to others. My decisions are not out of ignorance but cold indifference. However, I find cutting out that content is offensive to me, and well:
FYI, depending on the context, 負 Fù can mean betray, offend, do wrong, mathematically negate, etc.
The job of translators is to change the words from one language to another, not run psyops to figuring out how to make the player one way or another (though, I must admit, I did feel vindicated by Yashahime confirming the Sesshomaru x Rin relationship, but I digress). FYI, for the sake of fair play, I will admit that I'm also annoyed when certain modern takes on ancient legends change the hero and villain character/personality types to more "modern" standards just so that the viewers feel good about the heroes and feel bad about the villains (for example, the original novel portrayal of Sun Wukong and his monk brothers in Journey to the West was a buttload more ruthless than pretty much all modern portrayals that I can think of; on the flip side, the portrayal of the villains, which is to say, the demon lords and their minions, express a certain level of camaraderie that is uncommon in modern villain factions), rather than have everyone be as they were in their original versions and let the viewers root for who they want. Obviously, the biggest offender of this is probably Disney.
For example, making Zeus look better, while making Hades look worse, because Christian views of the lords of the up place and the down place (I could go into how Yahweh committed his own share of atrocities, but I digress). LOL, if someone made a "modern" version of Merchant of Venice, I bet that all instances of vilifying Shylock by calling him Jewish will be changed to vilifying him by calling him a capitalist.
Last edited by LegalLoliLover; January 25th, 2023 at 04:05 PM.
May the Light of Zvezda Shine Throughout This World!
Spoiler:
Fuck you guys I want to talk about the game.
I just finished ch19 of my first playthrough which I'm also doing on maddening. I'm really not enjoying unbreakable effectiveness-immune bosses with 3 HP bars. It feels like the only viable strategy (most of the time) is to surround them with as many Backups as possible and whittle them down with damage they can't mitigate, especially Mauvier, who the game has forced me to fight like 4 times now. At least Marny has low res so I can explode her pink lolita clown ass like the butt of a KonoSuba joke, but this is getting tiresome.
Otherwise I like basically every other facet of this entry's take on the core of FE gameplay. I miss gambits but Emblems feel sort of like pseudo-gambits sometimes. The only issue I can think of is how the game constantly handed me new units every other map, forcing me to deploy only 8 of the units I like, and then new units just have massively higher starting level and bases than even my most trained units. It just feels like you're blatantly nudged toward using the units the game gives you midgame and to bench /most/ of the oldies.
I should also note that it's not like people are just going to be satisfied because Anna happens to be in the game. Like, you literally can't take her out and that's a small victory for them, but I think it's pretty obvious that people want to romance Anna and are upset the English version does not help this purpose. Of course as players they have the right to want to play games that cater to them.
I believe the choice here they had was simple. They could've translated the game in such a way that would preserve the dating sim elements and the lolicon appeal. Some people do only play FE for that aspect, after all. This would've made those people happy, but would've gone less well with the 'normie' crowd. Alternatively, they could tone down these aspects and appeal to the 'normie' crowd more interested in FE's main story than the dating sim elements. Since the latter is bigger, it's obvious that the large corporation interested in making money would choose it.
It's a logical decision if you're operating under our current system. I still hate it, though. I also probably would've been more sympathetic towards localizers if some of them did not feel the need to gloat on Twitter whenever they made this sort of alteration, because it's quite clear that for some people at least, this isn't just about "doing your job", it's also about pissing off the people you don't like with what little power you have.
There are also sometimes translation choices that are just incomprehensible to me. For example, there's a scene in 3H where Bernadetta just screams, but in the EN it's an entire line. There's no real reason to change that - the mood of the scene would've remained the same either way. I don't even know if I hate it necessarily, it's not like it's an offensive change, it's just... why do that? Was it adlibbed somehow? I know adlibs can sometimes change text in localizations (which, by the way, I really dislike, but whatever)
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Glad to hear that the game is actually good though. I actually wonder if translation nonsense aside if the story itself is also any good.
Unlike 3H which has a time skip, are ages even plot relevant in Engage? If not, just remove that one line in the character bios. Seems easier than writing new dialogue... And it would get my money. Of course, for pure eroge, there is that disclaimer that everyone is over 18, even in high school, even in flashbacks, should those flashbacks have sex scenes. Also, Emelita from Kamidori Alchemy Meister is an orphan from an insurrection that happened exactly 18 years ago.
You underestimate my pettiness. I have it on good authority that Xenogears' story is good. Still not gonna play it because, despite being a legal loli, anyway, after a certain quest line, Emeralda is no longer a loli.
May the Light of Zvezda Shine Throughout This World!
Spoiler:
It does feel really bad how much the game pushes the new recruits, not only are their bases crazy good, some early units feel like they were gimped on purpose from the start with Personal Skills that rely on very specific conditions while later character get stats just for existing or entering battles.
But I'm up to chapter 17 on hard and this is my only complaint gameplay-wise, the game has been a joy otherwise. Chapter 11 spoilers
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No good news on that front, it's attrocious. The overrall plot is serviceable and there's been one actually good arc so far but otherwise it's baldy paced and structured. There's been one funny scene and one emotional scene in the entire game, all other attempts at humor fall completely flat and all drama is awfully underdeveloped.
There are some good supports but you'll have to go through a barrage of some of the worst I've ever seen in FE first. Most supports between stewards and Firene characters are bizarre or boring, no in-between.
Last edited by pinetree; January 25th, 2023 at 04:21 PM.
I respect the commitment, but that's too extreme for me personally. I can tolerate some translation changes I don't like if I find the rest of the story good (there's literally nothing I can do about it anyway, I'm part of a minority). I mean, I enjoyed Three Houses and everything. Probably would enjoy Engage too if the story is any good (since I play games mostly for story)
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Well that's depressing. I was looking forward to this because I really like Mika Pikazo's art
Actually, that's another minus for the game. She did a fantastic job but her actual art is nowhere in the game. It's even worse than Chinatsu in 3H.Well that's depressing. I was looking forward to this because I really like Mika Pikazo's art
It legit feels like they just don't want to pay these artists to do CGs and keep getting some in-house artist to do it instead.
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