#and lost myself in localisation discussion lol

[randomnameless]

Localization discourse has started to rear its head again because of some Funimation localizer defending a line from Dragon Maid but it really got me thinking, I feel like so many people are so quick on demonizing anyone who doesn't like localization changes as pro-GG when it's much more simpler. People don't hate localization changes because of the message itself but rather because it's not what the character is saying 9/10 and it comes off as calculated and cynical. I feel like it's kind of a direct consequence of transformative fandom, with the whole "I'm going to write the story the way I want it to be and fill up the spaces" but instead of a fanfic it's with the original source material.

Pro GG?

What is GG? AI?

I remember this argument of the "it's not what the character is saying" and people being pissed because they couldn't get the "right" script - and tbh, after reading some arguments here and there, localisation always comes with necessary changes/adaptation to the text, let it be grammatically or to convey ideas from a language to another, so if you want a 100% faithful script then... better start to learn the language lol

With Funimation though...

The Shinchan earlier post was telling enough of my opinion about drastic changes that aren't used to transcribe a meaning or convey an idea to a foreign audience, it's just... erasing the source material and swapping your own ideas on them.

Like, uhhh

Funimation acquired the Shin-chan US license in 2005. Funimation's dub takes many liberties with the source material and was heavily Americanized. Many sexual references, dark humor, and references to then-current popular American culture were added, including many jokes about subjects such as Jews, terrorism, and Viagra. Characters were given significantly different personalities and new, previously non-existent backstories. For instance, Shin is refused an allowance, on he basis that he could use it to buy drugs (crystal meth), his schoolmate Kazama ('Georgie Herbert Walker Prescott III' in this dub) was an absurdly hawkish ultra-conservative Republican, the unseen father of Nene (known in the dub as "Penny") was suggested to be physically abusive towards both his wife and daughter, Principal Enchou was rewritten as a half Romani, half Peruvian man with a complicated, checkered backstory that includes a stint as an accident-prone magician, The kids' teacher: Yoshinaga-sensei (known in the dub as "Miss Polly"), was rewritten as a kinky and often domineering nymphomaniac,

The earlier Vitello and Phuuz dub also edited some jokes and/or what was considered indecent exposure like shin's buttocks and tried to "occidentalise" a few references, but it wasn't like straight up changing what a character is or their personality!

No doubts funimation was "authorised" by whoever had the rights of the franchise to lolcalise and edit it as they did but it just comes out as a "why did they rewrite that stuff like they did", to make more money, to make another "mature cartoon" like Family Guy expy, idk.

And to be honest... I don't really care, because I grew up with the Vitello Dub and read some manga chapters of Shin-chan, so I know what the manga/anime (sure, the dog wasn't named lucky but shiro!) is supposed to say and/or be about.

I don't agree when you say those "lololcalisations" are a consequence of the transformative fandom in general, transformative works have existed since... forever lol (some dude wrote in the early middle ages (grégoire de Tours?) how Franks are descendans of Achilles or something to explain how kickass his king and his people are like, at this point, he's writing a self-insert OC story, right?)

But in modern times, there used to be a clear (?) divide between what was transformative work and what was canon - 50 Shades of Grey sort of started as a Twilight fanfic, but it became its own thing and no calls it a Twilight adaptation or "Twilight" anymore.

The Aeneid? Despite what devoted fans wants the world to believe, is "just" a fanfiction, aka someone writing about the characters he """loves""" no matter how OOC they are. It's a Fodlan fanfic and treated as such. Or should lol.

Still, if in a fanfic, Flayn can apologise for being born as a lizard because having lizard blood means she's automatically evil and oppresses humanity due to the fact she exists, it's only a fanfic. It's not something I like, OOC as fuck, but okay, moving on. Rhea eating ketchup is my own hc, also OOC since we don't see her eating any in the games, same thing - but fanfics are OOC by essence because they're a transformative work !

As I said, okay, moving on.

But when what is supposed to be as close as "canon", albeit translated, dips in the same "OOC" territory?

Sure, Eng!Raphael will say "I" instead of "ore" to refer to himself - and yet, imo, if professional localisers (at least the people picked by the company to bring games to an international audience!) have some sort of leeway with canon, their work is inherently transformative - since they're localising -they are still bound by some rules, unlike a fanfic author, because the aim of their work is not the same.

When you write a fanfic, you write it for yourself, to tell the story you want.

Of course it depends, like the funi shin chan dub showed, but usually, I think, when you are a professional localising something (a manga, anime, book, tv series, myth, story, anything!) you are supposed to only bring "necessary" changes to the source material to bring this source material to the "targeted audience".

And it's kind of hard to determine at what point is a "change" necessary or not - back in the 2000, "Jonouchi" had to be changed in "Joey" because, supposedly, non japanese children wouldn't be able to understand/connect/watch/idk a show with a foreign name (even here in France, we got "Petit Coeur" aka Small/Little Heart for... Piccolo in the early 90s!) - but now in the 2020s Midorima isn't dubbed "Mike".

(even if 2013 saw a localised Fates edit "Suzukaze" to "Kaze" for reasons as foggy as Fodlan's 10k years of lore)

And we of course have the notion of "targeted audience" - here in France, in the 90s, basically any "animated cartoon" was supposed to be targeted for children, like 3 to 10 years old. Which is the reason why we got lunar dubs for Hokuto no Ken and City Hunter (no "brothels", but instead, "vegetarian restaurants"!).

Yugioh was dubbed for a younger audience than, I guess, what was the targeted audience for the manga (even the original anime, regardless of the dub or not, feels like it was made for younger "children" than the ones who would read the manga!).

And this is where I wanted to come with the modern "transform the source material!" lolcalisations - are they "heavily" edited because they target a specific audience?

Like... the funimation Shinchan dub was obviously not aimed at children the manga, or even the original anime, hell even the Vitello dub, were targeting.

It's almost as if we're not talking about "bringing this definite thing to random people", but "finding/tweaking random things to definite people".

Take Fodlan's lolcalisation, especially Treehouse/Pat's.

NoA was the only regional branch to have, on the official website, something like "the Church controls Fodlan".

Through the 4 (already 4!) years of coverage, some people are still finding dub exclusive lines that portray the CoS as "BaD" or in a more negative light than the original text. Pat completely missed (or was it on purpose?) Rhea's character, so Leigh had to dub Rhage, when Supreme Leader was scrubbed off her most, uh, dubious personality traits (tfw no information campaign anymore :( or calling Rhea a Nabatean as an insult :()

Why? Why those changes? Is it because Pat/Treehouse didn't want to bring the game to the US, but wanted to bring this game to the "Dany revolution yas slay kween" crowd + the "organised religion especially catholicism BaD" crowd? Or because they thought bringing "a game" to this crowd would bring more money than to bring "Fire Emblem Three Houses" to the general US crowd? So they "reworked" FE16 to have messages that would attract this certain crowd ?

(and apparently it worked, iirc the US sales made up for 50% of FE16's sales, so it was very popular (and profitable!!))

The Pat/Treehouse changes weren't "necessary" to understand the source material, or try to find similar references (a trip to a hot spring in Shinchan was replaced with a trip to Paris, because children who might not be familiar with japan might not know what is a hot spring, or what a "trip to the hot spring" is supposed to be), so why were they made?

Is it like the Funimation dub? To reach specific people, even if the meaning and essence of the original material is lost?

In a nutshell, I don't think localisation companies (Treehouse or Funi) work in a vaccum, if they can lolcalise so much, it obviously means they got the authorisation of whoever has the rights to the original source material (maybe even the creator themselves!) to "edit" the content...

But that's what I came to regret the time where localisation, even if they had westernised names and more westernised refs, wasn't that "free", as in, Funi and Pat/Treehouse write their fanfic of Shinchan/FE16 ? Sure, why not, I mean, everyone can write a fanfic. Can I get a peak at the original source - edited as necessary because i'm not reading in the original language and I might not catch all references - please? No, because the only thing available is either something I cannot understand, or a fanfiction that takes liberties, as fanfic do, with canon.

Take Shinchan.

OG : Shin is a preschooler who has a dog named Shiro - meaning white - because his dog is white.

Vitello dub : Shin is a preschooler who has a dog named Lucky.

Funi dub : Shin wants an allowance but his parents are afraid he will buy meth and he has a dog named Lucky.

Remove the "old school" Vitello dub, and either Shin is a preschooler who named his dog "white" because the dog is white, or Shin is... a young child who receives money but lives in an area where he could buy drugs.

I can't understand the OG material, and I know the Funi one is a fanfiction, so what should I do? Treat this fanfic as canon, or, learn the language/try to understand the material by myself using dubious tools like translating apps? Or am I cursed to forever miss on Shinchan, even in the 2000s, aka an era where people can translate and localise movies from one language to another, but apparently for this one manga/anime, it's not possible unless it's lolcalised? Snowhite was turned into "Blanche-Neige" but the story is mostly the same than the one told in the US, but for Shinchan, I can only get the "Family Guy" version that isn't told in Japan?

I remember there was a controversy about localisation (when the thing that sparked that controversy wasn't even localisation related!) where some people, annoyed with the "liberties" they have with their dub version, became intense and rude and want to see localisers as "mere" translators...

And it escalated to have some localisers basically saying a game they localised is "their take" on a story - which is true, because each translation/localisation works with the bias of the translator/localiser, even if they try to be as neutral as possible, they can't completely remove themselves from their work -

Still, in FE16, Pat'n'Treehouse removed the "Supreme Leader uses propaganda" mention. Why? Is it their bias talking, they don't want her to "look bad"? But the script, the game wants the player to know she uses "information campaigns". Pat's "take" is she doesn't use it, but as a player, can't I be offered the choice to make my own take after seeing the script that mentions it, or not? Is Pat the one who directed the script, and wrote it as the "main thread" that links everything in the game (regardless of Fodlan's consistency lol), or was it Kusakihara/someone else?

If pat arbitrarly "removes" this part of the script, but I see it because I play in Japanese/Chinese/Korean/heck maybe other languages whose dub wasn't overseen by Pat, can it be said I played the same game as the players who played with the Pat dub/script?

Pat's CF!Felix calls Dimitri a monster, OG CF!Felix calls him a man -> thankfully we can count on fans to find stuff like this out but, again, why this bias against Dimitri in CF - that comes here from the lolcalisation, and not from the original text?

Why is it there? What if someone wants to play, and hopefully, understand, not Pat's "take" on their relationship in CF, but the writers/developer's? Is that someone fucked, or kindly asked to learn japanese (aka to do Pat'n'Treehouse's job?).

I don't really have The Perfect Solution (tm) anon to the general localisation discourse, at one point I was on the "just translate" fence, but when you understand a pun or a reference, and how it connects to something else, the game/book/anime/movie you're watching takes another level and it's much more enjoyable!

And yet, growing up with 4Kids and seeing shit like Treehouse butchering stuff, or hearing about Funimation Shinchan is... disheartening.

The only thing I can say is I'll always be rooting for dual audio, let it be for preferences but also to get at least what is easily understandable to everyone (I mean intonations, shocks, laughs, etc etc) and a glimpse at what the game/moving/anime is supposed to be enjoyed, especially with story heavy scripts like the FE series - while reading subs, because even the script is translated/localised, at least with the audio, it's easier to spot "lolcalisations".

And let's not forget the most important lol

The Fandom itself!

Let it be for FE, Tales or anything else, what I find fascinating (on Tumblr but even on redshit and SF once upon a time!) is how fans will be able to compare scripts, people familiar/fluent/who know a language will be able to spot the changes, and inform anyone who wants to be informed in the community that, say, Xander and Marx are pretty different characters, just like Jp!Effie and "I love to eat"!Effie.

Of course sometimes there will be misinformation (remember the Dimitri is rude because he uses the omae pronoun?), but I still find fascinating how, faced with ridiculous lolcalisations, fandom itself - aka part of the people who were supposed to be the targets of said lolcalisation - tries to "correct" and remove the unecessary edits. There are still people who dgaf about what was lolcalised from what wasn't, but even if it's just a consequence of the lolcalisation growing more and more unrestrained/unchained to the source material - it makes fandom engagment all the more precious and fascinating.

Like, you have real people basically combing the script and/or providing a translation - for free! - to help other fans, when some lolcalisers are paid to... edit and "lolcalise" the script some fans want to see.

And so, we're back to square 1 : who is the targeted audience of Funi's Shinchan or FE Treehouse?

The players/watchers?

FE Fates was, I suppose, ultimately lolcalised for a """western"" audience", aka an US one because no one gives a fuck about the rest of the world - and yet, assuming a majority of fans are from the US, said lolcalisation was mocked/ridiculed and ultimateld decried by part of that audience from who the game was lolcalised.

Some people (I've seen a redshit post about it today!) claim the lolcalised changed aren't made for the audience, but, much like a fanfiction, those changed weren't made to be more palatable to an audience, but were made for themselves - aka to push some agenda (see redshit's theory about funi pushing a "woke" agenda in their dubs and subs when it doesn't exist in the og scripts).

And to be fair, with FE16's US exclusive "Church BaD and controls the world!!!" + "Dimtri is not a man but a monster!", idk what Treehouse was trying to do, push their "organised religions BaD" agenda and "Supreme Leader is right so let's make her opponents BaD to highlight how right she is" bias? - but I can't help but wonder if it was indeed the case, and given how Pat sucked as a voice director, if the localised!version wasn't just some sort of trolley Treehouse used to convey their ideas, regardless of what the game wanted to say.

I mean, it's still fascinating, to this day, nearly 5 years after the release of the game, that we still find "Treehouse exclusive" lines, or how FEH who's still running, also has "Treehouse exclusive" lines for Fodlan characters that absolutely don't match the non global, aka, jp lines, let them be written or spoken - putting on the tinfoil hat, I wonder if Treehouse or whoever oversees the localisation isn't deadly afraid that if they don't pay extreme attention and/or rewrite anything related to Fodlan, global!players will realise that they were fed "Pat's Fire Emblem Treehouse", instead of FE16, thus takes extra care to comb and/or rewritte every line/dialogue that could make a global player think twice and note that this thing they're reading/hearing of in FEH (or even Engage!! See Dimitri's lolcalised line about people of different races living together!) is completely different from "Pat's Fire Emblem Treehouse".

Tl;Dr because I ranted and disgressed and idk where am I anymore with this post lol :

I think there's a difference between fandom's transformative works - done for fun, as a hobby! - and some lolcaliser's transformative works - they're paid for that and aren't supposed to bring a fanfiction to the audience, at least not as localisers ; so I wouldn't blame "fandom" for the fuckery that happened (Funi's shinchan is more than 17 years old!) and is sadly still happening.

On the contrary, given how fandom (at least some part of it) actively refuses to accept the lolcalised "fanfiction" - to the point of doing translation work! - I think fandom is the reason why this discourse is happening.

#anon #replies #sorry i ranted lol #and lost myself in localisation discussion lol #anyways that redshit thread had a meme about lolcalisation and using AI to push back against it #and I haven't changed my mind lol #AI sucks instead of letting Pat head Treehouse bring back human translators and people in general with a work ethic #who will localise what needs to be localised for an audience #but keep themselves and their messages/agenda out of their work #as much as possible of course #i wonder if at times all those lolcalised changes couldn't be sued for plagiarism #imagine if the french Snow White dub had her diss cream cheese to promote real cheese during the length of the movie #people would be pissed just like creators themselves #otoh if those ultra lolcalised changes passed the approval stage from the creator themselves... #then I'm just wondering what kind of idea they have of a 'western audience' or whoever the lolcaliser #said they were lolcalising for #Are we supposed to believe in 2015 IS really believed americans were too dumb to pronounce suzukaze so his name should be shortened to kaze #I say americans here because NoA exists when NoE doesn't and no one gives a fuck about us we're just eating scraps #idk #lolcalisation issues #real life issues #when you were saying calculated and cynical anon did you mean whedonspeak like the Supreme Replies #aka giving a witty one liner to sound cool? #I'm afraid I completely lost the message of your ask and replied with something compeltely unrelated :(

[mariethecrocheter]

Reflections of the Past Year & Thoughts For the Next

2016 was a pretty busy year, and for a whole lot of reasons. Some good, some bad, some...meh. (Whatever that means.)

I just wanted to take a few minutes to write about some stuff: a few games released over the past 12 months that were really important to me, some things that I plan to/hope to do over the next year, some personal challenges, and, most of all, my gratitude to everyone who has been putting up with me for the past...3+ years? That’s how long I’ve been on Tumblr? Time really flies, doesn’t it?

I have met so many friendly people through Tumblr and Twitter, and I am deeply grateful for all the kind comments and support! Let’s make 2017 a good one, right? Even though the rest of the world may be pretty bad right now argh

Anyways, time to briefly(?) delve DEEPLY AND IN A RAMBLING MANNER into some of the highlights of 2016 and discuss what’s to come in 2017!

First and Foremost: Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns Japanese release: 23 June 2016 North American release (tentative): 28 Feb 2017

A game celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Bokumono franchise! 1996 was the 20th anniversary of the series in the Japanese market, while 2017 is the 20th anniversary in the North American market. (And we now have two different series in the English-speaking world: the original series, now called Story of Seasons and localized by XSEED, and Natsume’s independently-made Harvest Moon games!)

Trio of Towns was first announced at the end of 2015, and released in Japan during the summer of 2016. I’ve been covering it on a side blog, http://friendsof3villages.tumblr.com/, so check that out if you haven’t already. (Seriously, though, I think about 90% of the people who subscribe to this blog subscribe to that one too, haha. Hooray for Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons love!)

@xseedgames is going to be bringing this title to North America early this year. Just a couple more months! 

Just a couple more months until we can shear our rabbits in English!! Heh heh. 

One question that I get asked from time to time is: is this game worth getting? If you liked previous instalments in the series (Story of Seasons, Harvest Moon: A New Beginning, etc.), then my answer would be YES!! If, like me, you really enjoyed those games, you’ll probably like this one. The controls and basic systems are very similar, but there are a lot of new features that will keep you busy. 

They made some improvements based on feedback they got about Story of Seasons: The story is easier to clear, there are more heart events for each marriage candidate, and the reverse confession/proposal scenes are pretty easy to trigger this time around. 

If, however, you weren’t as much of a fan of the two previous games, well... I’d still suggest you give this game a fair try if you get the chance, but I understand if it may not be your cup of tea. 

I haven’t had the chance to try Natsume’s new game yet (Skytree Village) so I can’t say anything on it. I do hope to get the chance to play it sometime, though! I...kind of have a backlog of games I want to/need to play... xD

The next most important game was Fire Emblem Fates, which came out in North America in February 2016. 

I have no physical copy of Fates or its Japanese version, so here’s a picture of the only physical Fates-related object I own: the beautifully boxed Japanese soundtrack! ...plus the other two games that made my year. Ahem. ^^; (And this totally wasn’t a test for photographing items on that shelf with the intention of later photographing some crocheted kitchen items I plan to sell. ...Kidding. This was a photography test. xD)

I’ve been doing some translations for the DLC here on this blog: http://fe14festivalofbondstranslations.tumblr.com/ Fellow admin Kiyoshi and I are going to finish up the Hoshidan Festival DLC soon, and...we’d like to translate more CD drama tracks. 

...I have no idea why the Nohrian and Hoshidan Festival DLC isn’t available outside of Japan, but I hope we see it released in the English-speaking world this year! I’m dying to see what kind of adjustments they make in the English version. The conversations give us more insights into character relationships, and perceptions of them can change or give us greater insight depending on how the conversation is presented.

I plan to do some translation comparison posts on Fates after the festival translation is complete. I have a couple of topics that I want to write about I just...haven’t yet. (Most of them involve Kana, Forrest, and Soleil, who seems to have more changes to her English support convos than any other character.)

Slight changes in her conversations with her mother, for one... Details later. Mwahahaha. (They’re slight, though. But kinda cool.)

The Surprise Hit (For Me): Pokémon Sun & Moon

Until December 2016, I hadn’t touched a Pokémon game in about 15 years. But, I have fond memories of the early games...

Pokémon Red Version and Pokémon Blue Version (both for the Game Boy) came out when I was in high school. I scoffed at them until trying my brother’s Red Version one day when I was very, very bored...and I liked it! I had my own GBC and managed to get a copy of Blue Version, and I liked it a lot. I also got Yellow Version after it came out, and after Gold and Silver were announced and released in Japan, I was miffed that I would have to wait a year or more to play them. I was so miffed, I decided to get the Japanese versions (through...means that I later realized were less than legal ^^;;;;;;;) and teach myself Japanese! And...I managed to do it. Somehow. xD I went through the ENTIRE Silver Version with a hiragana/katakana chart, a dictionary, and basic grammar/phrasebook I repeatedly checked out from the library (and my dad later bought them for me). Maybe I didn’t understand much of what was going on, but I got enough out of it to enjoy the game.

In other words, Pokémon Silver Version was the MAIN REASON I took up the Japanese language! Crazy, huh? 

But then I started college and lost interest. Gaming had to take a backseat for a while, and I just didn’t want to devote time to another series. (I lost interest in Fire Emblem for a long time due to this and other reasons, too.)

But, after hearing a lot of praise for Sun and Moon, especially praise about the story and character development (two things I love in a game), and attracted by the bright, cheery style, I decided to give them a try. And I love them! I’m fully hooked again! Goodbye, free time. Don’t need you anymore. 

The thing I found most intriguing is the number of languages available. This one was released simultaneously in English and Japanese!! I couldn’t even imagine that back in 1999 or 2000 or whenever it was that Gold and Silver were released!

I still have my copy of Yellow Version, and... I have my brother’s Red and (English) Gold versions. ...In fact, I have his Yellow, as well...? And where are my Blue and (English) Silver...? I have no idea, lol. He must have mine, and I have his...? Anyway, the battery that saves the data is long dead on all but one of them (I already forgot which one, though I know it wasn’t Gold but one of the older ones), so it doesn’t matter too much. 

In case you’re wondering: my favorite Pokémon of the original 151 (152 if you count Missingno! xD) are Clefable and Dragonair. (And Dragonite, but not quite as much.) Of the next generation, Pichu and Bellosom. (Who I always think of by its Japanese name: Kireihana.) I’ve now found myself quite fond of Lilligant (because it looks like Bellosom!), Comfey, and the various Oricorios! ...I’m a sucker for plant and fairy types, heh.

Moving Forward &  Personal Challenges & ...?

I want to branch out so I’m now doing a little work with Source Gaming, translating columns and such of one of my favorite game developer, Masahiro Sakurai. I’ve only done a couple, but this year I have some other interviews by a certain game producer that I want to translate and cover in-depth...

Yoshifumi Hashimoto Interviews

There’s a long interview with him in one of last year’s issues of Nintendo Dream. I’m sure others have already translated it, but... I want to do a FULL, thorough translation of the article because there’s a lot of interesting facts and trivia in it. He’s been the producer of the Bokujou Monogatari series since 2005, or for more than half the life of the series. (He took over upon the departure of creator Yasuhiro Wada.)

And there’s Mr. Hashimoto himself!

There’s an interview with him in the back of the guidebooks, too... AND some interesting trivia in the short official guidebooks! There’s a lot of trivia to be translated and shared! x)

In Conclusion

There’s so much to do this year, and I look forward to working on new projects when I’m able to! =D Unfortunately my health declined a bit in 2016, as some symptoms I hoped were temporary turned out to be long-lasting or even permanent, but it’s just one more thing learn to cope with and work around. That’s the nature of chronic illness, urgh. I’m used to it, but it still stinks. (In case you’re curious, I have something very similar to multiple sclerosis, so it really feels like I’m waging a war against the effects of time itself...)

Regardless of what happens, I’ve got a lot of stuff planned for the year. I’m especially looking forward to the English release of Trio of Towns, because I’m eager to see the writing in the English version! There are always small (and sometimes, big) changes and tweaks made to the localised English version, and comparing it to the Japanese one will be a lot of fun. I hope to get several more translated resident and heart events up before the game comes out in English, though! (And, if you must ask, my favorite bachelors are still Yuzuki and Ludus, and my favorite bachelorettes are the twins, Siluka especially. I like Kasumi a lot too. ...Actually, I like ALL the marriage candidates, so it’s hard to choose absolute favorites. The additional heart events and additional dialogue give the characters more depth and development than many of the previous games.)

That’s about all I have to say right now. Pretty much. Yep. Oh, wait, you read all this? Wow. xD Um, here, have a hug! **hug**

#personal #annual reflection #2017 #2016 #aaaaagggh this felt so cheesy but oh well #ok im having too much fun with these tags #TAGS #meow