...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.
Source: just trust me on this.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.
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.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.
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.It is a JP product, first and foremost.
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.