Are there any plans to fix the 'Haurchefant' localization?

[Telkira]

Japanese localization from EN to JP is the exact same process: take the source, make it marketable to the JP market. Cultural sensitivity exists in all markets, not just the EN market.

It's...actually not always that, either.
A lot of productions are just direct translations with the necessary liberties taken to ensure that anything may be lost in translation remains conveyed. I'm less likely to find an American content with portions of its story edited because they might offend a JP audience (not counting overt censorship).

I've personally seen the process in my line of work, having run Localization QA stuff in games, and it varies.

Most localizations also employ transliterations, which is "make something we can't translate over well enough into something as close as possible to stay accurate." As I said, some of what they do in the EN version I would like them to not do, in overly technical explanations for something that is easier to understand in other languages because they feel the need to stay with ye olde English with some things or overuse of words ("aplomb" had my particular ire for all of 6.0, please use a different word, there are so many to get your point across) but if I'm getting the same experience overall, a slight misstep is not going to make me be miles off from where the end destination is.

I think you're overestimating this, and it's still not necessarily localization.
Such things are done seldomly and on an as-needed basis, but most translations never need to resort to this.

I'd prefer to have the game presented in such a way that was more 'direct' in its translation from Japanese, like a second language option so that way all the dialog was directly in-line with cutscenes, text and characterization was more 'direct', etc. I see no reason why it wouldn't be feasible, since it wouldn't be much to just go in. It wouldn't even be much to test, either.

I'm just going to quote all of this because it's a lot, and you're still not quite grasping why people are finding it a problem, and are instead brushing it off.

Here is mention of chikan, or sexual harassment on trains from the beginning of this year, something even more recent from earlier this month about chikan, and another on how often it happens - can't find a publish date, which is frustrating, but if a news article from this month is mentioning a push to end it or make people feel comfortable on reporting it, it's still a valid resource at this point, which is incredibly sad. Japan's take of "if we don't see it, it's not happening' isn't really a great take to defend, either, just saying, especially when more and more of the younger generations are going "this isn't great". They even recently OK'd a bill to pass in which makes the listed even more illegal than before for things like upskirting or whatnot... things that were common tropes in anime for the "loveable pervert" trope, and for good measure, the sharp rise of it as reported earlier in the year. "That's a small number" but as the other articles say, a lot of people don't report it - sounds quite familiar, as it's the same in the US. Not being taken seriously, nothing being done about it, or the least amount of things done about it is what keeps people (both men and women) from reporting a rape or other sexual assault. For people who have had this happen to them, someone being that forward can bring back traumatic memories, whether you believe it or not, because it can be how it happened to them, or similar enough that it makes them uncomfortable.

What does any of that have to do with depictions of fiction for the sake of comedy? Murder, assault, etc. are also just as illegal yet are shown in media all the same. You're seriously trying to draw parallels between real-life and fantasy/fictional depictions in fallacious and unworkable ways, a common talking point employed by proponents of censorship/suppression of 'problematic' elements in fiction. If that type of critique comes off as critiquing 'woke' approaches, it's not. I've never even commentated on 'wokeness' in JP-EN translations of things, but it's a genuine problem when anyone tries to inject politics into the adaptation of foreign media. Such things are NOT faithful to the original product and such revisions should be and are rightfully scorned at.

In any cas iet feels to me like you're responding to an argument that I never made by invoking media effects on Japanese culture and humor. These types of tropes and depictions in media are not to blame for incidents of assault or violations of privacy - people know the difference between right and wrong and how to appropriately contexualize these things from one another. It also feels like you're painting Japanese culture as largely insensitive, when in reality these types of social issues you're bringing are symptomatic of a larger set of problems far beyond the scope of this discussion.

As for cultural differences and media effects, I think there's a very clear difference between a fictional comedy trope seen in media vs. a real-life example of a sexual predator or incidents of real-world sexual assault. I don't think most people in Japan would take issue with this, and more and more people have begun to speak out and make corrections where they matter. One is a harmless joke in a video game and is received that way by their larger public, while the other is a real-life crime. That's the crux of my "me not getting why people are upset" statements, because once you learn to differentiate between the two, things genuinely are much better.

Just because it is fiction does not mean people can or will divorce it from real life easily, especially when they've had something similar or identical happen to them. I'm not sure how else I can really say that without going full 2004 sparkletext. Some things are easy, some things are not. When recent statistics are saying 1 in 6 women have experienced attempted or a completed sexual assault... that's a lot of women. Imagine if all of them who have experienced some degree of it came forward, that number would likely be a lot smaller. 1 in 6 is still incredibly small of a number. That would also apply to the users of this forum, who should not have to come right out and say "yeah I was raped and JP Haurchefant reminds me of that and that's why I'm uncomfortable," just saying "no it would make me uncomfortable" should be more than enough.

That doesn't necessarily mean that the divorce from reality and fiction is less pervasive, as you think it does. I know people who were also victimized by this and they're neutral to it, as are the broader Japanese public as previously stated, otherwise these tropes wouldn't be as entertaining. I've seen what Japanese reviewers say about things, and many of them still seem to be as critical as, if not equally, as the West are when voicing their opinions on things they don't like, and companies tend to respond to feedback all the same.

As stated before, people can and do engage with such material irrespective of what happened to them in real-life. You keep overstating the discomfort associated with Haurchefant's JP characterization, when it's very clear to anyone who'd seen it that it's really minimal, or a non-issue to veteran consumers of Japanese content. I genuinely don't see why it should matter anyway since it's a joke. People shouldn't have their insecurities pandered to and sated because that only tells them that they're right for being offended, when such things shouldn't matter at all.

We also don't get those LINE stickers here, because who in the US uses LINE? It's mainly Asia who uses it. Yes, we get the rips from people who use it in the US or by people who use it to connect to their family members in Asia, but they're a drop in the bucket compared to Asia as a whole who use it as their main messaging app.

I use LINE sometimes... and it was to illustrate how the character is depicted in external media. If they were to license depictions of the character for external use (such as merchandising or spin-off media) it's highly unlikely that they'd localize even that just to keep it consistent with the inconsistent characterization situation (further illustrating why it was a mistake).

The only censorship and changes I'm finding in any search is for the Chinese version of Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid. I'm not seeing any instance of what you're talking about happening in the Crunchyroll version of the anime, and seeing that we have an uncensored sub on Crunchy. It's wholly possible I missed something in going back some to see what may have been changed, but if you have sources beyond "just trust me bro" that'd be great.

I wasn't talking about that.
It was the debacle with Funimation (who is now merged with Crunchyroll), my mistake. They changed whole parts of a character's dialog to make certain depictions seem political when, in the original script, they weren't. The Dragon Maid fiasco was a mini-culture war, in a way.

[Telkira]

Banri Oda, the main world and lore builder for the series, looks outside his Japanese roots to create correct environments for every area in FFXIV, he's stated repeatedly on record that he loves learning about other cultures and reading different kinds of books that give him inspiration for everything he's created for FFXIV. The only true Japanese holiday that's celebrated in XIV is the way New Year is celebrated as more of a Lunar New Year, and Little Ladies Day which is just Children's Day. Halloween, Christmas, Valentines are pretty obvious Western holidays that are popular in Japan. Summer is debatable as there are many holidays in a lot of cultures that happen during what we'd see as the Summer months. The only collabs that XIV has done are within their own franchises - FFXI, Dragon Quest, FFXIII, and FFXV. All of them take place in fantasy worlds that are not confined to Japan, and the only real argument that you can get to in that is "FFXI's Summer event is distinctly Japan", but the rest really aren't, and XIV is pretty similar to their holiday quests.

I mean.. that's fine, lots of artists do that, but it's still ultimately a Japanese product. The environment artists behind Fallout New Vegas also traveled around the real-life Mojave desert on a motorbike, taking pictures and recording ambient audio, in addition to researching old Las Vegas history and lore, but it doesn't change the fact that it's still a modern-American's take on Americana.
Lunar New Year isn't the only one, in fact I'd hardly consider it Japanese, it's far too generalized. But SE also celebrates Tanabata in FFXIV, also known as the 'Star Festival', which is a summertime holiday that originates from a festivity in Chinese mythology where the convergence of two gods is represented by stars and is commemorated with wishes.

They've also done collabs with NiER Automata (literally, who hasn't) and Yo-Kai Watch. There are probably a few others, but they're JP properties nonetheless.

[Telkira]

It might not be on par with "haha weeb" or namecalling, but that's still fairly insulting to those who did come back with well thought out responses to you but disagreed. I said what I said because with others that have said similarly, they've been called "soft" or "woke" when they're likely talking from experience.

Well, literally the only points that aren't baseless insults and assumptions about my character is "it's offensive to us!" and "we prefer the changes!" which aren't really valid responses. It's fine to have preferences, but you should have the intellectual discipline to concede that the changes should have never happened. It requires a respect for, and understanding of artistic and literary integrity, which the localization approach towards the adaptation of foreign media is egregiously and disgustingly prone to. We shouldn't want any media, let alone foreign media, to only exist to regurgitate and not discomfort. These are not tranquilizers, they're video games and forms of art.

SE's approach is 100% a business one, one that I take serious issue with, despite understanding.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Well, literally the only points that aren't baseless insults and assumptions about my character is "it's offensive to us!" and "we prefer the changes!" which aren't really valid responses. It's fine to have preferences, but you should have the intellectual discipline to concede that the changes should have never happened. It requires a respect for, and understanding of artistic and literary integrity, which the localization approach towards the adaptation of foreign media is egregiously and disgustingly prone to. We shouldn't want any media, let alone foreign media, to only exist to regurgitate and not discomfort. These are not tranquilizers, they're video games and forms of art.

SE's approach is 100% a business one, one that I take serious issue with, despite understanding.

So like...you know how in the original JPN script of this game they retain the traditional -ara, -aga, and -aja spells compared to how we went back to the boring numerical Fire I, Fire II, Fire III and so on and so forth?

Yet the only thing you bring up about your script purism is...horny Haurchefaunt. Just goes to show what you really care about

[Ghutts]

I'm not afraid to admit I have no idea what anyone is talking about here. It's been a while since I did that part of the story and all I remember is that Haurchefant took myself and Alphinaud in while we were on the run, gave us a place to stay, and died protecting me. The rest is fuzzy and I'm honestly not sure what the issue is. Can someone please, calmly, and efficiently explain why there is an issue, and what that issue is?

Edit: I've read through the posts and I'm more confused than I was. I don't remember any creepiness or sexual stuff at all and I'm super lost now.

[Iyrnthota]

I'm not afraid to admit I have no idea what anyone is talking about here. It's been a while since I did that part of the story and all I remember is that Haurchefant took myself and Alphinaud in while we were on the run, gave us a place to stay, and died protecting me. The rest is fuzzy and I'm honestly not sure what the issue is. Can someone please, calmly, and efficiently explain why there is an issue, and what that issue is?

Edit: I've read through the posts and I'm more confused than I was. I don't remember any creepiness or sexual stuff at all and I'm super lost now.

TL; DR in the Japanese version of the game Hauchefaunt is much more overtly sexually interested in you. In the English translation, they changed his dialogue to essentially cut out the sexual tones cause they didn't think it would be received as well for Western audiences.

[VeyaAkemi]

I'm not afraid to admit I have no idea what anyone is talking about here. It's been a while since I did that part of the story and all I remember is that Haurchefant took myself and Alphinaud in while we were on the run, gave us a place to stay, and died protecting me. The rest is fuzzy and I'm honestly not sure what the issue is. Can someone please, calmly, and efficiently explain why there is an issue, and what that issue is?

Edit: I've read through the posts and I'm more confused than I was. I don't remember any creepiness or sexual stuff at all and I'm super lost now.

Okay so, it works like this, in the original Japanese script, Haurchenfant's writing has him extremely sexually forward towards the WoL, this is meant as a joke, but it was something the English localizers figured would rub the wrong way for Western audiences, and toned him down substantially, so this was never present in the English version, OP is clamoring for them to go back and change Haurch's dialogue to match the Japanese script, and is being met with resistance from people who, rightfully in my eyes, believe the Japanese script was too much and that the change was good, in turn, OP is trying to argue they wouldn't have minded the original script, ignoring their claims that they would've very much minded it.

[Ghutts]

TL; DR in the Japanese version of the game Hauchefaunt is much more overtly sexually interested in you. In the English translation, they changed his dialogue to essentially cut out the sexual tones cause they didn't think it would be received as well for Western audiences.

Okay so, it works like this, in the original Japanese script, Haurchenfant's writing has him extremely sexually forward towards the WoL, this is meant as a joke, but it was something the English localizers figured would rub the wrong way for Western audiences, and toned him down substantially, so this was never present in the English version, OP is clamoring for them to go back and change Haurch's dialogue to match the Japanese script, and is being met with resistance from people who, rightfully in my eyes, believe the Japanese script was too much and that the change was good, in turn, OP is trying to argue they wouldn't have minded the original script, ignoring their claims that they would've very much minded it.

Ahhhhh, ok. I appreciate the responses. Thanks Y'all. I don't really have an opinion on this I guess. But I was curious and now I know. o7

[DayHealer]

I'm not afraid to admit I have no idea what anyone is talking about here. It's been a while since I did that part of the story and all I remember is that Haurchefant took myself and Alphinaud in while we were on the run, gave us a place to stay, and died protecting me. The rest is fuzzy and I'm honestly not sure what the issue is. Can someone please, calmly, and efficiently explain why there is an issue, and what that issue is?

Edit: I've read through the posts and I'm more confused than I was. I don't remember any creepiness or sexual stuff at all and I'm super lost now.

It seems the characterization of the japanese Haurchefant is more that of the friend that tries to flirt with the WoL at any chance, contrary to the Western characterization that is that of the big brother that helps and cares for the WoL.
For the best or for the worst the localization team did this change to appeal more to western audiences, and just thinking on change it back by now is just silliness.

[ronibosch]

I've said it before on this forum, but I've always wondered how impactful Haurchefant's death would've been on Western audiences if he remained overtly sexual.

I wish I could ask someone who experienced the story with his original characterization.