This frequency of English localization issues is unacceptable

[OgruMogru]

tfw English-speaking children actually watched this and thought that onigiri were just Japanese doughnuts.

Americans still don't get it right because it should be jam.

[Boblawblah]

Why is it always that some people can't be bothered to actually learn Japanese, but instead spend their time getting angry at the Japanese who decide to make the English version more culturally friendly to the West?

Want the Japanese version? Learn Japanese. And you should probably live in Japan for a few decades to start to understand their culture, because culture will play a big part in understanding exactly what the Japanese version is conveying.

[Fawkes]

Why is it always that some people can't be bothered to actually learn Japanese, but instead spend their time getting angry at the Japanese who decide to make the English version more culturally friendly to the West?

Want the Japanese version? Learn Japanese. And you should probably live in Japan for a few decades to start to understand their culture, because culture will play a big part in understanding exactly what the Japanese version is conveying.

[Telkira]

omg this whole post has genuine reddit energy.

Why is it always that some people can't be bothered to actually learn Japanese, but instead spend their time getting angry at the Japanese who decide to make the English version more culturally friendly to the West?

Because I don't play Japanese games, watch Japanese cartoons, read Japanese comics, or listen to Japanese music to be exposed to Western concepts or media. I'd probably go back to playing World of Warcraft or pick up LOTRO or something if I wanted to experience something that was tailored specifically towards that audience.

There's a lot to learn from experiencing foreign media in a state that is faithfully translated.
It introduces foreign readers to new concepts and cultures, and invites a level of broader understanding and media literacy that actually allows consumers to bond and grow from these shared experiences, even if many within that foreign culture won't experience it the same as someone native to that content, or even a foreigner with more experience with it, would.

It's why I always recommend people watch subbed anime, because at least you're invited to learn something, not just be entertained by subpar voice acting and awkwardly-timed animations and modified pacing. This isn't a thread about subtitled/dubbed anime, but concept applies here just the same.

Want the Japanese version? Learn Japanese. And you should probably live in Japan for a few decades to start to understand their culture, because culture will play a big part in understanding exactly what the Japanese version is conveying.

This is an extremely bad take, even for someone like you whose response to criticisms of the English adaptation of the game's content is a two-word rhetorical response.
Not everyone has the time, resources, or the energy to take up learning one of the most difficult and complex languages out there.

I'll admit it would be far more ideal to just enjoy this content in its native language so I don't have to deal with arguing over people who genuinely think/act like you do would be a bonus. I'd have that much less to complain about.

[Lunaxia]

Look, I get being annoyed when they change the occasional piece of text in a story, but one thing you have to understand is that for English audiences, the Japanese text cut and dried more often than not would be very, very boring. Most of the nuance is found in their speaking style, and that is very difficult to convey to someone who doesn't have a deep familiarity with the language, and even then, it won't quite hit the way it would for a native speaker. Many of their favoured archetypes and preferred kinds of humour just flat out don't translate well to English, and can come across as juvenile, cliché or old-fashioned when enforced - see the majority of JRPGs - and others, like Haurchefant's original portrayal, just strike a bum note because we do not perceive certain behaviours in the same way. As Koji said, to deliver the same emotional experience to a foreign audience that the Japanese would have is just not possible without considerable change, because our cultural mindsets and values are innately different, even if we share things in common on the surface. Anime fans may be more accustomed to the Japanese style of storytelling and see no issue with this, but with all due respect, there is a reason most anime is not generally held in high-esteem in the West, and you'll find the few that are, are the ones make considerably more use of tropes popular in Western media than their contemporaries.

And honestly, for all that some people continue to complain about this, what they don't seem to realise is that some of the hallmark experiences of the game, such as the DRK quests or Emet-Selch's character (he's much more biting and sarcastic in the English version) have been significantly modified from the Japanese to better strike a chord with foreign players and are what they are because of that intervention. Without it, and without the obvious influences from the likes of GoT, the game would be in a very, very different place to what it is now, especially HW and ShB - two of the most popular expansions to date.

You're not missing anything in the Japanese version, I promise you.

[Telkira]

Look, I get being annoyed when they change the occasional piece of text in a story, but one thing you have to understand is that for English audiences, the Japanese text cut and dried more often than not would be very, very boring. Most of the nuance is found in their speaking style, and that is very difficult to convey to someone who doesn't have a deep familiarity with the language, and even then, it won't quite hit the way it would for a native speaker.

That's not for any one specific person to decide, and is also flat-out wrong. Plenty of subbed anime (and even dubbed content) is able to retain the nuance and charm of speaking in Japanese, but you're also overlooking the fact that the medium being used is a video game, so naturally, the Japanese textual content is going to work with the assets and thematic elements of the setting, style, engine, etc. to immerse the player.

Many of their favoured archetypes and preferred kinds of humour just flat out don't translate well to English, and can come across as juvenile, cliché or old-fashioned when enforced - see the majority of JRPGs - and others, like Haurchefant's original portrayal, just strike a bum note because we do not perceive certain behaviours in the same way. As Koji said, to deliver the same emotional experience to a foreign audience that the Japanese would have is just not possible without significant change, because our cultural mindsets and values are innately different, even if we share things in common on the surface.

Anime fans may be more accustomed to the Japanese style of storytelling and see no issue with this, but with all due respect, there is a reason most anime is not generally held in high-esteem in the West

With all due (dis)respect, those types of people who would have been offended or bothered by Haurchefant's portrayal in Japanese would be better off either just skipping it or just not bothering playing the game, or consuming any Japanese media for that matter.

What you're basically supporting is the cultural gentrification, correction, and displacement of Japanese media, the condensation and revision of 'problematic' elements because allowing the content to stand on its own merits in a foreign market would be seen as undesirable.
That becomes a sort of racism, wherein the content has to be 'corrected' because it would be seen as 'wrong', when objectively, there is nothing wrong with it, and the foreign market would be better off just having their insecurities ignored for the sake of retaining artistic and literary integrity, otherwise people wouldn't be so keen to identify and call out these egregious deviations and discrepancies which do have a negative effect on their ability to enjoy the game's content and story, especially when the changes are unnecessary or are less desirable than what was initially written.

[Lunaxia]

That's not for any one specific person to decide...

That's for the dev team to decide, actually, since it is their game to market, and given that FF has for a large part of its history been intended to reach global audiences, it's a fairly natural decision to make. If, as you said in another post, you do not wish to see "Western concepts" in a Japanese game, you have a plethora of other Japanese media never intended to leave its shores that will deliver the experience you crave.

and is also flat-out wrong. Plenty of subbed anime (and even dubbed content) is able to retain the nuance and charm of speaking in Japanese.

And you know that how, exactly, when you don't even speak the language?

With all due (dis)respect

Oho, very mature of you.

those types of people who would have been offended or bothered by Haurchefant's portrayal in Japanese would be better off either just skipping it or just not bothering playing the game, or consuming any Japanese media for that matter.

But the devs don't actually want that, so we didn't get Sexual Harassment Lite and instead received a version much more in keeping with what the players they actually want to consume the game would be more comfortable with.

That becomes a sort of racism, wherein the content has to be 'corrected' because it would be seen as 'wrong'

Not wrong, it just wouldn't sell, and that's their ultimate objective, at the end of the day. It benefits them to cater to different cultural sensibilities, so that's why they have decided to employ a team of people and pay them a wage to do so.

If you don't like it, feel free to go pull up a list of Papyrus-font subbed anime with foot-long translation notes every other sentences and enjoy the stilted, hammy dialogue and awkward phrasing so you can bask in your perceived sense of textual "purity."

[Telkira]

That's for the dev team to decide, actually, since it is their game to market, and given that FF has for a large part of its history been intended to reach global audiences, it's a fairly natural decision to make.

No, it's not for the devs to decide whether or not people would be entertained by something or would find it boring. That would be for the for the audience themselves to decide. By omitting or implementing changes/deviations from the source material, they are effectively robbing the end user of their ability to determine that for themselves.
I personally think the changes made by the LOC team are unnecessary and take too many liberties, many of which actually don't fit with what's happening in the setting or situation. It's insulting, quite frankly, both as a fan of the content and as a consumer of JP media.

The game can still exist comfortably as a global export product and still remain true to its source material. It will still sell and have the same mass-market appeal it always had, with the added bonus of being a 1:1 faithful vision.

But the devs don't actually want that, so we didn't get Sexual Harassment Lite and instead received a version much more in keeping with what the players they actually want to consume the game would be more comfortable with.

If they didn't want it, then they wouldn't have included it in the JP script and the LOC team didn't have to go over their heads to implement these changes.
And 'Sexual harassment lite'?? Oh come on, it's literally just a comedy routine in a video game. If you seriously would have been bothered by that to such an overdramatic degree then you literally shouldn't be playing video games. It's one thing to find it tasteless or not funny, it's another to label it like it's some sort of violation. It's not. It's a character in a video game. People would have accepted Haurchefant and gotten over it.

People would have found it entertaining/funny and those who are uncomfortable by it would have their opinions. It's accommodating their insecurities at the expense of a valid (and arguably more entertaining and comical character) while creating a massive discrepancy which the devs apologized for doing. If Japanese audiences can be entertained by him, so can Western ones. It is a JP product, first and foremost.

[Telkira]

And you know that how, exactly, when you don't even speak the language?

I've read translation/localizer notes, and have watched enough content to familiarize myself with the intentions of the writers. It's a basic part of growing media literacy, which is why I always recommend subtitled content over dubbed content, because you learn more as you watch and it invites understanding.

Not wrong, it just wouldn't sell, and that's their ultimate objective, at the end of the day.

It would sell just like it always has. The fact that the French and German localizations are more in-line with the JP source material than the EN scripts and those are enjoyed just fine.

If you don't like it, feel free to go pull up a list of Papyrus-font subbed anime with foot-long translation notes every other sentences and enjoy the stilted, hammy dialogue and awkward phrasing so you can bask in your perceived sense of textual "purity."

You have no idea how much I enjoy that. If the game kept all the references to JP pop culture, it would be an opportunity for foreign players to learn a little bit about JP culture in addition to playing a video game. Players would ask "what did they mean by this?" and they would be told by others, either via word-of-mouth or from going a search online.

[Lunaxia]

No, it's not for the devs to decide whether or not people would be entertained by something or would find it boring. That would be for the for the audience themselves to decide. By omitting or implementing changes/deviations from the source material, they are effectively robbing the end user of their ability to determine that for themselves.

...yeah, I'm still going to go with the gaming company with twenty plus years of experience making games and exporting them abroad possessing better judgement when it comes to that decision over one guy on the internet. If they are willing to set up and fund entire teams whose job it is to convey the story in a way that is most effective and suited for their target audience, I assure you it's not simply to hurt your feelings.

And for the record, the FR/ GER texts align with both the English and Japanese and do their own thing on different occasions, they don't strictly follow one translation to copy.

The game can still exist comfortably as a global export product and still remain true to its source material. It will still sell and have the same mass-market appeal it always had, with the added bonus of being a 1:1 faithful vision.

Source: just trust me on this.

If they didn't want it, then they wouldn't have included it in the JP script and the LOC team didn't have to go over their heads to implement these changes.
And 'Sexual harassment lite'?? Oh come on, it's literally just a comedy routine in a video game.

They would have put it in because "creepy but harmless obsessive pervert making the main character(s) uncomfortable" is unfortunately a common feature in certain forms of Japanese media, but it continues to age like milk when it comes to Western audiences because of the increasing intolerance of that sort of behaviour on our side. And looking back, it was a very clever decision for them to make given how much stronger those stances have become in recent years off the back of various movements, and it would have made the game look grossly archaic when FF has always tried to venture on the side of being more modern and connected to its international audience and having a wide appeal.

It is a JP product, first and foremost.

It's a JP product they want foreigners to consume, and I'm not sure why you're having such a hard time understanding that. You and other similarly fanatical worshippers of the sacred Japanese text that the translation actually adheres to more often than it doesn't are not their target demographic, as painful as that might be to hear.

And lol if you think translation notes are genuinely a viable substitute for knowing what the Japanese text actually says. I recommend pursuing learning the language if you value what they have to say that highly, you might actually come to realise why this is a pointless discussion in the first place.