First Koji and Kate aren't two random middle-men. They work directly with Oda-san and with the other localization teams. All of them bouncing ideas off each other and asking the other teams if things still make sense for the idea or concept that they want to get across if they use a different wordage. Second they both have explained in detail how more than once how this process is done and that there are times when these things are initiated from the English side and then have to be worked out to make sense in Japanese.Quote:
Originally Posted by Telkira
Haurchefant is still "lewd" in the English version. He is just more subtle about it than the other languages. Even from what was a lot of players 1st encounter with him from the 2014 Heavensturn that if the WoL was a horse they would be a horse he'd love to ride. Something that most tend to read as wanting to do said riding in a sexual manner. He is still "lewd" and suggestive in the English version he just is more subtle about wanting to drag the WoL off to his bed chambers for some anatomy studies for solely "art" purposes or whatever excuse he'd come up with than be blunt as hell about it all. He still does a fine job of showing his friendship and caring about the WoL in the English version. His officers are still worried he will end up creating a groove in the floor from all of the pacing he is doing while we are off dealing with Yasale as Shiva. Or that he praises Halone that you and your very athletic body hasn't been marred by the Vanu Vanu when he comes to the rescue of you and Emmanellain. Ready to fight to the last man until its made clear the Vanu Vanu mean to cause you to fall off the side of the island so that you can be eaten by Bismarck.
-
10-24-2024, 12:05 AMSannaR
-
10-24-2024, 12:23 AMAllenThylThe voice of the mage soul in p9 in the JP dub is young and energetic, but old and smokey in EN. Absolutely baffling how people can defend this. This isn't even some "nuance" thing, this is straight up change in character.Quote:
Originally Posted by Akria
-
10-24-2024, 08:24 AMTelkiraFirst, when I said 'middle-man' I was speaking generally about the adaptation of Japanese games as a whole. When things are re-written or revised by localizers in ways that contradict or 'invent' things that were not said by the original writers, it creates content disparities between parties that should not exist.Quote:
Originally Posted by SannaR
Second, I've seen their explanations of the process, and none of it detracts from, or is incompatible with giving us what is, in essence, a translation of the Japanese translation.
In one of the more recent fanfests, both Koji and Kate explain the process and most of it comes straight from the Japanese writers and has to be adapted by the Localization team, with their own individual processes, with a final series of checks done by all parties before it goes before implementation. I've posted about it earlier in the thread, please go watch/read it.
The Localizers, especially Koji and Kate, are (or were, in Koji Fox's case) not as involved with the conceptualization and writing process as you may believe. If anything, they seem to care more about voice direction than anything else.
True, they help spitball ideas and come up with a few things here and there, but the brunt of the game's narrative, characterization, world-building, and other contents are done primarily by Oda-san and his team. There's a quantitative disparity which a lot of people who find no issue with the localization or want to defend it from criticism seem to overlook or discard when these issues are brought up.
A little 'too' subtle, for my tastes, and those of others who felt that this watered-down and softened revision of his characterization did no justice to him overall. But all of that still goes deep into my point about how something was missing, particularly from his dialog. It felt like his character was intended to be ignored or overlooked by the localizers.Quote:
Originally Posted by SannaR
And no, he doesn't, because a lot of what he said (in my opinion, at least) in the English version felt like he had something that was missing. Without the overt but comedic sexual expressions, it felt like he was more GENUINELY interested in sex with my character than a comedic trope that could have been interpreted properly. They ruined him in English. -
10-26-2024, 10:08 AMPorxiesRCuteP9's voice actor choices in English were straight-up ridiculous, but that's not something that OP's suggestion would have changed; this suggestion is only about offering a different on-screen text that's more faithful to the Japanese dialogue.Quote:
Originally Posted by AllenThyl
OP has said multiple times they're not suggesting multiple VA recordings, and even if they were, "faithful translation" and "similar-sounding voices" are different topics. -
10-26-2024, 12:24 PMSannaRI don't think Haurchefant was ever meant to be comedic. The character archetype his appreciation of an athletic body is normally played for laughs, but as I said I don't think he was meant to be seen that way. I feel how he is animated more in the other three languages is meant to show off his enthusiasm. How spirited he is. I do feel that they could have made his friendship with the WoL more apparent. I'm not sure if his appreciation of the athletic body type needs to be improved as we already can see how many react to a much stronger version of that with Gegeruju. Where he is seen as of putting, creepy or uncomfortable. Knowing that the character archetype that part of him is supposed to be like tends to be worse than how Gegeruju already is makes me feel glad we didn't get that. Did they have to go as far as they did as some kind of course correction? Probably not. After all he's meant to be seen as a valiant knight that people like Laniaitte doesn't want to deal with unlike how she acts around Emmanellain.Quote:
Originally Posted by Telkira
-
10-26-2024, 01:53 PMTelkiraHe was intended to be that way in Japanese.Quote:
Originally Posted by SannaR
His personality type was the harmless debauchee, all of his sexualized interactions with the player is meant to be humorous. The tone of each interaction noticeably shifts to be more light-hearted, which compliments his other interactions with the player and makes him stand out more as a character.
I'm very upset that we didn't get that from him because his entire character in English felt incomplete and forced. I didn't need a character that my character didn't have very many intimate or emotional moments with prior to that acting so concerned with my well-being, and it made me wonder if there was a Localization failure. Maybe if that whole segment were re-written to be more in-line with that type of characterization across the board, then things might not have felt so awkward, but that's my opinion on the matter.
They ruined Haurchefant, and I think the misfire of that is probably the strongest argument for why a second EN translation should be implemented. I've even said before that if the localizers didn't acknowledge their mistake with how they handled him and apologize for, in their own words, depriving us of a memorable character, I think I would have dropped my sub long ago. -
10-26-2024, 01:56 PMTelkiraIt's semi-relevant. It goes to show that a lot of the localization choices factored in things like voice talent and how voice direction, accents, etc. influence how these characters are intended to be received or perceived by the playerbase. Like you don't want to give a character a certain type of voice or accent that the player might not 'hear' when they read their dialog in a text box.Quote:
Originally Posted by PorxiesRCute
But a lot of players (myself included) choose to play with Japanese voiceover and audio, so we're not considered in that.
As you pointed out, my ask would basically just be to have the EN text-content be representative of the spoken Japanese dialog you hear in cutscenes. -
10-27-2024, 11:36 PMSannaRI still have a lot of doubts that even in the other languages he was meant to be seen as comedic. As they tend to make such characters fairly obvious. Emmanellain, Gegeruju, Hildibrand, and Beatin the carpenters' guild master are all meant to be seen as joke characters. Meanwhile Haurchefant is taken as a serious character that has a flaw of having innuendos about how much he enjoys looking at sweaty bodies or an athletic physique in general. The same way that Beatin when he talks about wood has people in need of reminding themselves that he isn't openly talking about things a person might enjoy doing to various parts of a lover's body. That even tho I also feel his subtle suggestions is tame I'm sort of glad he isn't dialed up to where he is in the other languages as this dev team has a hard time finding a middle ground. As they either go with being very subtle about something or they choose the hit you in the head with a brick approach and for me that would put him on par with Gegeruju when it comes to his proclivities about enjoying finely muscled bodies pertaining to how healthy a person is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Telkira
-
10-28-2024, 09:31 AMKurokaWell we got tons of wacky stuff on german as well, that achievement is called "Samurai statt nur dabei" which..... i really dont know how to properly translate without loss xDQuote:
Originally Posted by Ghost_of_Ebina
something like "Samurai and not just there" or whatever. Basically they did a pun on playing the new job lol -
10-28-2024, 12:29 PMTelkiraI think you misinterpret Haurchefant in relation to Emmanellain, Gegeruju, and especially Hildibrand. Yes, those three are particularly designed to be comedic, but Haurchefant fulfills both a serious role while also retaining those particular aspects of his personality.Quote:
Originally Posted by SannaR
Weakening those aspects of his characterization, as opposed to the other three (which Hildibrand barely has) undermines his characterization in the other three characterizations because it creates a noticeable hole in how others react to him in-game.
And even then - I'm not talking about the other three languages, I'm talking specifically about the Japanese script and how he was improperly adapted, with noticeable deviations from how he was originally intended to be received - his canon character.
It sounds to me like you're trying to validate what you believe are your own preferences for what was an egregious and unjustifiable act of censorship on the part of the devs, rather than accept that certain principles were flagrantly violated. Haurchefant should have been as far into that realm as he could have faithfully been, because that's simply what he was.Quote:
Originally Posted by SannaR
Whether or not you feel that this revision of his character was better should be irrelevant, as they still toned him down and created tonal discrepancies that had to be shoehorned or outright ignored by other NPCs in ways that didn't logically make sense.
If he wasn't subtle in Japanese, then he shouldn't be subtle in other languages. Translation and faithful, consistent adaptations and translations are what they should have gone with.