Https://youtu.be/TbZCGCd1nK8

Sephiroth:

Mass murderer

Child soldier

Lab experiment

Demigod

Enemy of humanity

Actual child

Monopoly host

High school student

Uninvited Smash attendee

Udon salesman

Impossible to take seriously anymore

‘Course she did.

"With you by my side, I'll never give up no matter how bad it gets."

Zack’s Last Stand 

Find the differences!

CRISIS CORE vs FF7R comparison

you know-

no

Im not gonna shut up about it actually - you season 5 spoilers so if you're not insane and didn't consume that season at the speed of delirium scroll now

But season 1 and the way the story was told was truly a testament to the way Joe saw the world and the way he stole Beck's voice the entire time and THAT is why she came across as bland and boring and irresponsible and messy in the first season and why she was so unsympathetic to so many (not me but some of y'all know who you are) because she WAS Joe's trope and she only existed because he SAW her in season one - her light was only applicable when we saw it shine on him and he was so fucking good at making it seem like he was the only thing that drew out her radiance and creativity and fucking brilliance and everything else in her life diminished her, Joe diminished her and capitalized off her insecurities to do so. He championed breaking women down so he could try to be the one to "build them back up"

And the above being inherently untrue is why she haunts him so much because the reality is - Joe was the one who was absolutely nothing special without someone's light shining on him and Beck shone SO fucking bright

But then!!!!! Season fucking five!!!!!! We finally, FINALLY, see Beck through the light of someone who looked up to her!!! Who ACTUALLY saw her!!!! For her brilliance, for her kindness, for her light. We saw the fact that Guinevere Beck touched so many lives and she drew people in to the point where her impact stayed even when she wasn't aware of it.

Guinevere Beck is the perfect showcasing of a character who's light draws good people in to bask and bad people in to corrupt and/or diminish and capture. Joe wanted to capture her light and steal her intelligence - he never would've written in the first place if not for Beck and her creativity - he had to steal her voice to give himself one. Joe was a pro at playing feminist and him claiming to be Zelda to Beck's Fitzgerald is a PERFECT example because in THAT lies the most insane metaphor that Joe sees himself as the visionary and Beck as the one capitalizing off him - the way he accredits himself for Beck's essays about Peach, accredits himself for Beck's novel, accredits himself for all of Beck's success and beauty. Painting himself as the victim at every turn when in reality, Beck was always Zelda and Joe was always stealing from her the same way Fitzgerald stole from his wife.

And in the end, he's the one who lost anything interesting about him. Louise gave Beck back the most important thing, her voice, her writings, and she took away from Joe what never should've been his in the first place. No one will ever read his legacy because he doesn't deserve to have one, but EVERYONE will read Beck's and know the truth and THAT is the most glorious ending i could've hoped for

Season 4 was such a clusterfuck horror show of what happens when misogynistic men are so good at undermining women by convincing them they are feminist and season 5 was all about the power of women finally seeing the light and coming together to save each other and take back their voices

Joe stole from every single woman he came across AND the show being so starkly in his head even stole sense from the audience so to have the wrap up be a collective wake up and criticism of societies willingness to forgive and romanticize bad men made me shed several tears.

He lost his voice because nothing about it was his in the first place - he was NOTHING without all of those women

Marle's dog...??

A question about Kingdom Hearts, but can be for other stuff too. Do you think some important context or subtext is lost in the translation process from Japanese to a second language, even if it's translated to the best of a translator's ability, and if so, do you prefer a more literal translation over an official dub?

Hello! Thanks for the ask.

To answer the first question, there's different points to be made given the case by case nature of the topic. Important or simply interesting (these are not the same thing) information absolutely can be lost in the process of translation, but there's a lot of things fans need to understand:

Per discussion, is it actually lost, whether in the specific line or that of the overall context elsewhere?

Is the meaning actually *important* or imperative for understanding context [subtext]?

If lost, is it something that could've been localized creatively within the limitations of its presentation (voice acting/lip-sync, text space, etc.)?

Was it something that couldn't even be translated literally within the corresponding localized language? And/or did it not naturally flow into the writing of the actual scene itself for the given language?

Keep in mind that some interesting nuances built within a language system is really tailored for THAT language, and doesn't have to (or can't be) be transferred to another language smoothly in the production process of localization—if it's actually important, they might have to find a way, and chances are a literal translation may not even be enough to accomplish this. So to the second question—it isn't really “literal” vs localization for me, because whether one or both of these things can get the job done is circumstantial. Ultimately, what I care about most is whether what is written makes sense and can still be seen to retain what matters contextually (and sometimes, this means you can even get MORE or something more direct from a localization as opposed to “literal”). I’m using “ “ because really, you don’t want literal, for the majority of the text, it just doesn’t work that way as smoothly as people think. But I understand sometimes literal is actually “close to definition as possible” for people. (sometimes, indeed)

Anyway, if there is an issue with what's written, I know a "literal" translation doesn't always solve the inherent factors dependent upon the specific nature of the JPN language. The "literal" definition doesn't always fully capture how the Kanji is contextually used in the writing for another language. If I ever felt something was completely missed within a localization, my instinct is to first check the nature of the JPN and how it's written contextually to see how it fairs.

Of course, if it's information that isn't really based on the nature of the Kanji and how it's used, that it's something just being misunderstood in translation, then that isn't even a matter of whether it was literal or not—it was just wrong, and could've been right in any form if the text was understood (meaning, I'd take it literal or localized as long as the information is correct). In comparison to the amount of important storytelling text actually localized in video game projects, this doesn't nearly happen that often, though.

To look at Kingdom Hearts:

There have been many, many examples, especially between #1 and #2 discussed within fandom over the last 20 years. lol The majority is very miniscule and inconsequential (if even non-existent of a difference with proper understanding)—in KH3 I tend to think of some scenes between Sora and Kairi that has been discussed. @phoenix-downer has some excellent JPN/ENG comparisons of Sora and Kairi's Paopu Fruit and Light in the Darkness scenes (plus more) that serve some examples—Phoenix might be more readily able to remember some things over the years than I. There’s also this line from Xemnas about finding the Ancient Keybladers in KH3—this one can reasonably create a misunderstanding, but at the same time we don’t exactly have all the information at this point in time anyway.

One thing I do tend to think of is the scene between Aqua/Terra/Ven and the Disney Passes—where the term hogosha 保護者 (guardian, protector, patron, parent) is used in JPN, while in ENG it was written as "grown ups". There's a subtext here that has been missed by some ENG speakers. Similar to #4 (about literal translations), this is one of those cases where contextually speaking, the ENG went with what made sense for the scene and all factors corresponding to it, while still retaining something similar to the concept context-wise. As you can see based on the definition, the term hogosha is very flexible in use due to its span of multiple different words, but in its usage, it always has the connotation of something "parental". But, translating it as straight up "parent(s)" doesn't always work because of the nuances of the word. e.g. From FFXIII, Lightning is a hogosha to Serah, but this isn't to say that Lightning is literally her parent/mom—the contextual nature of hogosha tells more than this but with the same connotation. Sometimes it can be directly "parents/legal guardians", like how it's used to refer to what is essentially PTA school meetings (hogoshakai 保護者会). There's a reason why hogosha is distinct from just more direct words for parent (like oya 親 or ryoushin 両親).

This flexible nuance isn't readily and neatly packaged in a single word in ENG, however, and while, say, “guardian” [parental] can fit in some situations on its own, the connotation of parental isn’t so readily available like it is for hogosha alone. (A good example is this post I made) So, contextually there are other ways to capture it, and that may have to be with a non-literal translation. But, its meaning was missed by some ENG speaking fans, so when they hear "Aqua and Terra are like parents to Ven", they have no idea where that's coming from. Of course, some people were able to understand how this is carried contextually by the word "grown ups" and the situation of the Disney Passes—otherwise, some people completely missed that parental nuance, which would be significant of representing the relationship between Aqua/Terra to Ven.

Sometimes it isn't a localization issue, but a perception one.

With that being said, if in the case of other fandoms/series? It's all over the place. I've seen it all, between something being lost (important or just interesting [unimportant]), something being a mistranslation, or something being retained and people are honestly just trippin' because of misunderstanding things. Straight up. #4 (literal translation/context issues) happens a lot, in that case.

For example, recently I made this post and a follow up post about functionalities of JPN pronouns for (I, me) and the differences that lay there—there's also an extra layer I think I didn't include, which is that between using a specific pronoun in the form of hiragana/kanji/katakana, sometimes it's a stylistic choice as well. (Don't worry about this if you're confused lol). Point is, in this situation I also talked about how this was something that only applies for the JPN language and not necessarily others (especially ENG).

But again, a lot of this is case by case and we'd have to consider the #1-4 above, and for me, I know that to get the job done, it doesn't even have to be literal in order for this to happen.

As an extra note, fans REALLY need to understand localization, if even for SE specifically, to really talk about it efficiently. A lot don’t, and don’t care to. There is a sea of information to gather to form a perspective, and if they had this information, it’d change what they think about the “changes” a localization will make. One of the most blunt translators I can think of (Tom Slattery) gave this thought towards this very topic, and it’s just the tip of the iceberg. So I’ll leave it with this:

Vocal fans on the internet often complain about translators "changing" things in the English versions of games. This always amuses me, as we're very often working alongside the team to help name those things in the first place. For example, on Final Fantasy XIII, we were asked to help with the naming of the roles--Medic, Synergist, Ravager, and so on. We were intending to use different names in Japan and the US/EU from the start, and we (the English translators) brainstormed and proposed both sets. For the Japanese version, they needed English words that (A) sounded cool when rendered into Japanese, and (B) would be understood by non-English-speaking Japanese players, so we worked with the writers to come up with a set of consistent-sounding terms that met those criteria. For the localized version, our focus was on creating names that would have a more sci-fi feel to a native speaker's ear, and also abbreviate to three letters in a way that looked natural and made the short forms quickly and easily distinguishable from one another. We didn't "change" anything; we just generated two different sets of names for two different audiences.

Retroactive integration of the English translation into the Japanese version happens on projects quite often as well. For example, we were asked to come up with a translation for the names of the transporters in the Nautilus theme park. The Japanese name at the time was not something that really worked for us, so we went with "Nautilift." A few weeks later, that started popping up in the Japanese script. That kind of thing is always a huge compliment. It's a collaborative process. No one is going out stomping all over each other's work just for the heck of it.

“But that’s all right. As long as I’m with you… As long as you’re by my side… I won’t give up even if I’m scared.”

 (Pic on pixiv: みなと)

Welcome 🎉

CHAINSAWMAN SPOILER!

Denji bragging about his previous dates..

...His actual previous dates

A good match indeed