Quote Originally Posted by SannaR View Post
First Koji and Kate aren't two random middle-men. They work directly with Oda-san and with the other localization teams. All of them bouncing ideas off each other and asking the other teams if things still make sense for the idea or concept that they want to get across if they use a different wordage. Second they both have explained in detail how more than once how this process is done and that there are times when these things are initiated from the English side and then have to be worked out to make sense in Japanese.
First, when I said 'middle-man' I was speaking generally about the adaptation of Japanese games as a whole. When things are re-written or revised by localizers in ways that contradict or 'invent' things that were not said by the original writers, it creates content disparities between parties that should not exist.

Second, I've seen their explanations of the process, and none of it detracts from, or is incompatible with giving us what is, in essence, a translation of the Japanese translation.
In one of the more recent fanfests, both Koji and Kate explain the process and most of it comes straight from the Japanese writers and has to be adapted by the Localization team, with their own individual processes, with a final series of checks done by all parties before it goes before implementation. I've posted about it earlier in the thread, please go watch/read it.

The Localizers, especially Koji and Kate, are (or were, in Koji Fox's case) not as involved with the conceptualization and writing process as you may believe. If anything, they seem to care more about voice direction than anything else.
True, they help spitball ideas and come up with a few things here and there, but the brunt of the game's narrative, characterization, world-building, and other contents are done primarily by Oda-san and his team. There's a quantitative disparity which a lot of people who find no issue with the localization or want to defend it from criticism seem to overlook or discard when these issues are brought up.

Quote Originally Posted by SannaR View Post
Haurchefant is still "lewd" in the English version. He is just more subtle about it than the other languages...He is still "lewd" and suggestive in the English version he just is more subtle about wanting to drag the WoL off to his bed chambers for some anatomy studies for solely "art" purposes or whatever excuse he'd come up with than be blunt as hell about it all. He still does a fine job of showing his friendship and caring about the WoL in the English version.
A little 'too' subtle, for my tastes, and those of others who felt that this watered-down and softened revision of his characterization did no justice to him overall. But all of that still goes deep into my point about how something was missing, particularly from his dialog. It felt like his character was intended to be ignored or overlooked by the localizers.

And no, he doesn't, because a lot of what he said (in my opinion, at least) in the English version felt like he had something that was missing. Without the overt but comedic sexual expressions, it felt like he was more GENUINELY interested in sex with my character than a comedic trope that could have been interpreted properly. They ruined him in English.