This video does an alright job at explaining why the Localization is so different

[Midareyukki]

I have something shorter for you that wont waste your time nor requires a video:

Japanese and Western cultures are different even without the language barrier. This prevents a 1:1 translation and some liberties with different core values in mind must be taken.

There.

I've already explained it in these forums before, but it's a bit more than just a lack of 1:1 translation. There are creative liberties that no good translation team would take without explicit consent from the editor or the author.

However, the leader of the English localization is Koji Fox, who is not only directly involved in the creative process, he's in charge of making the game's lore.

Thus, and this is from a professional standpoint because software localization is my professional field, this a very weird translation. I personally would not say it is translation at all. It's a form of localization to a level that usually, under any other circumstance, would not be acceptable. For all intents and purposes, their re-writing, additions and changes in nuance are too extreme for me to consider it as such. There IS translation and localization involved, but the outcome goes just one step further.

There are some blog posts by the localization team about having to rewrite stuff due to earlier "gaffes", such as Eula van Darnus suddenly being Nael's sister due to the Japanese language omitting someone's gender. Or the change to enemy names in the Crystal Tower raid series because of Japanese phonetics being different, but the translation into English being the same (the Primal Titan is "Tie-tan" while the boss Acheron was called "Tee-tan". Both are Titan, though). Stuff like this is normal, provided justification is given to the editor or publisher. Sometimes we don't do that, fans question it and we go on social media to explain a phenomenon that's been happening a lot on twitter.

But this really is something else. There are changes too notorious and drastic to the tone, message and manner of speech that shift perceptions and lore entirely. What we're getting is essentially a new script, very similar to the original Japanese, but with an added layer of nuance.

[Jojoya]

Translation - the process of translating words or text from one language into another.
Interpretation - the action of explaining the meaning of something.
Localization - the process of making something local in character or restricting it to a particular place.

Doing a strict translation from Japanese may not yield a story that would resonate with (or make sense to) Western players so it gets localized instead. Look at what you get out of Google Transale sometimes - it's an accurate translation but it seems like gibberish because it's been neither interpreted or localized.

If you want the original, use the original language.

However, the leader of the English localization is Koji Fox, who is not only directly involved in the creative process, he's in charge of making the game's lore.

When did Banri Oda step down and Koji take over for lore, especially since Koji is now committed entirely to the FFXVI project and has been for several months?

Koji worked closely with Oda-san on lore - he was not in charge of it. He had been the lead of English localization then was promoted to Translation Director before being moved to work on FFXVI. Kathryn (Kate) Cwynar (who co-wrote the Flow lyrics with Ishikawa) now oversees English localization.