This is a thread I've been meaning to make for a while now, but it feels like that with the western release of Persona 5 the spotlight has once again been thrown on the quality of translations or "localizations" as a whole. Most people, for a variety of reasons, agree that the translation has some issues… to put it lightly. Most places outside of Holla Forums seem to agree that the main issue with the translation is that it reads too stilted in places, and that it needed a few more months in the oven in order to fit in another editing pass or two. Likewise, I have seen complaints about the translation being rushed on here as well - but for the most part the complaints I've seen seem to center around it being inaccurate to the original Japanese. Stuff like "wassup, Persona" and "You Jelly?" as well as the absolute butchering of Ryuji Sakamoto's name in the English dub are all common complaints, not without merit. That being said, what I want to talk about first is the complaints regarding the translation being TOO literal, and stilted, and why translations like this might be just as bad as translations that lean too far in the other direction (this, of course, being something like Fire Emblem Awakening or Xenoblade Chronicles X). For a moment I ask you to ignore all your preconceptions of what makes a good or bad translation, and as the OP image states, "Consider the Following".
To give some background: I was one of the posters that really pushed for the creation of the Nipponese Learning Threads back during the Summer of 2015. Ever since then I've been spending a damn good portion of my free time learning moonrunes. I wouldn't say I'm fluent, not even close at this point, but I do feel like over the last 2 years (or thereabouts) I've learned enough about the language to realize that something such as a 1:1 translation is impossible going from Japanese to English. Obviously I can't speak for everyone, but I feel like that most individuals that spend enough time learning moonrunes (actively, earnestly learning them) may begin to realize this at some point as well. The reasons for this are varied; everyone already knows that translating something is inherently going to lose some of the original meaning, but when it comes to translating Japanese this is especially difficult. Besides the technical limitations regarding how much Japanese text tends to take up space versus equivalent English text, there's also the massive issue with how Japanese tends to talk about subjects as well. Humble, Passive, Modest… there are MANY ways to say the same thing, and although the differences can be easily explained in the context of Japanese, the dynamics simply don't translate literally to another language. A good example of the tonal shifts that can arise due to the use of these expressions would have to be from Corpse Party's infamous "I'm gonna go butter up my pooper" line. It's a silly line, and seems wildly out of character. But looking at the original Japanese you'll see that the character always speaks using super polite expressions, but when it comes to that line they speak super casually and in an energetic way. The shift that Japanese players would've experienced reading that line is similar to what English players experienced, even if the line isn't a literal translation of the Japanese.
From what I can understand, translating lines based off of the meaning behind the words and not necessarily the words themselves is a common translation technique because, if done correctly (like in Corpse Party's case), the players will get the same feeling from reading the translation as if they were reading the original Japanese. You probably have heard of this technique as "punching up" translation, and companies like NoA, 8-4 and NISA have been known to abuse this idea to mess up the tone of a translation compared to the Japanese. I don't think that this means that the idea of "punching up" a translation is bad, though. Besides Corpse Party there are obviously other examples of the tactic working well to portray scenes in a way more accurate to what one could assume was the original Japanese intent.
Similarly, changing art assets (besides overt censorship, fuck censorship) can make sense as well. An example from Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time comes to mind. One gag in the original Japanese release had a washpan fall on a characters head - a common joke in Japanese culture. However, Mario being a very international series the translators took the liberty of changing the sprite of a washpan to a bucket - something I feel that most would agree is a very minor change that keeps the intent of the joke more or less the same. Much like with "punching up", changes can be either more OR less cut and dry but I'm also inclined to believe that isn't a fault of the translation technique itself but rather a fault of the translation itself or an incompatibility with a joke or reference in the translated language.
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