Quote Originally Posted by PorxiesRCute View Post
You have maybe half a point here; people did say "he was creepy in Japanese so it's good he was changed". But it's really interesting that you immediately leap to thinking it's because those people were offended.
I suppose it's not impossible for some Japanese audiences to feel uncomfortable with him, but based on how popular he is in the JP fanbase (see the FFXIV stickers for the messaging app LINE, which depicts him as a debauchee), it's safe to assume that he was popular as he was.


Quote Originally Posted by PorxiesRCute View Post
Is it not equally possible that, if he came across as a creep in English, people would simply find his heroic sacrifice less moving, and thus they think it's a better storytelling decision?
I don't think so, honestly. Most of the people who went so far as to call him a creep or a sexpest were an outspoken minority that many other players called out as overdramatic or emotional.
His sexual advances and comments were never intended to be, nor were they received by the majority of the playerbase (who saw the YT vids comparing him) as anything but comedic.
Many people (myself included) found it welcoming, since this made it feel more like a comedy bit from an anime and I thought it was a nice change of pace, considering the drollness of the setting.

None of that detracted from his characterization or his actions, and I would argue that the storytelling component of his rewrite was unfulfilled. It might've worked for some people, but not for me.

Keep in mind, even though I played with JP cutscenes/audio, I could tell that there was a discrepancy because some of his spoken Japanese was not aligning at all with what was appearing in the textbox, and it even went further because I could tell that something was missing.

I personally found his re-write to be uncomfortable. Not because I was put off by his revised dialog, but because it felt like there should have been more to his function as a character at that point in the story and within that droll and dreary setting. Even with the localized English text, it felt like something was missing, and when I inevitably found those aforementioned comparison vids on YT (with the text translated), it suddenly made sense.