Corpse Party Blood Drive English Ver. Translation Issues

OK, so I posted the above response quickly as I was getting ready for work this morning, but I was thinking about it a little more during my walk to work, so I figured I'd post again with a few additional details.

Regarding the white --> green thing, I think I might have an explanation, though I can't be 100% sure unless I watch the exact scene in question. I do know, though, that at multiple times during localization, we encountered text that just plain didn't match up with the visuals -- including, IIRC, times where the text described something as one color even though it appeared on screen as another. This may have been one of those times where even though the text clearly says "white," the image on screen depicted green. And whenever that happened, we would have to pick a side -- and the visuals would always win out over the text, simply because it's a much easier decision to justify.

As a disclaimer, I don't know for certain that that's the case in this particular instance -- it could just be a collective brain fart on our end instead -- but I strongly suspect it might be.

These moments of disparity were generally pretty minor, but every now and again, something big would crop up too. The baby teeth are a great example.

Spoiler

In the Japanese, the baby teeth are always referred to collectively as one item, so when they're crushed to dust in front of Sachi, it's very strongly implied that BOTH teeth were destroyed. Yet only a single chapter later, the teeth are still fully intact and are slotted into the Pillar. This seemed like a pretty major oversight to me, and it was tough determining how to handle it in localization. Ultimately, we decided to specify that only one tooth was crushed to dust, and the other pocketed -- which may differ from the Japanese, but helps overcome this potentially serious plot hole.

As for Sayaka's nickname for Inumaru, I think we did realize she more or less used "stupid dog" as an insult for Inumaru every single time she referenced him, but I don't think either of us ever realized it was being used as a nickname as opposed to an insult. By our interpretation, the takeaway was simply that Inumaru was constantly being berated, not the exact wording of HOW he was being berated. "Stupid dog" definitely sounds much less impactful in English than in Japanese, too, and the loss of the pun in Inumaru's name makes it less impactful still, so that's why we varied it up so much in the English.

And finally, regarding the misinterpretation about Sayaka's intentions toward Inumaru... well, that was just pure misinterpretation of the Japanese on our part. It didn't seem logical for the game to be implying, to any degree, that Inumaru should pursue Aiko, as the two characters are just completely mismatched. It would be like trying to pair Morishige with Ayumi -- it just doesn't make much sense that either the game or even Sayaka would consider such a pairing. Based on your explanation, I can kind of see it, but with no knowledge of this from Cemetery or any other sources, it simply never dawned on us that this might be the case.

So that was definitely an error on our part as opposed to a localization decision gone wrong... but I hope you can at least understand how that error came to be.

-Tom

 

There was only one translator (Jason) and one editor (me). So I don't think that was the cause. I think it was more an attempt to correct inconsistencies in the original Japanese in which a few instances were missed by both of us.

We'll just have to be more careful to catch them ALL next time.

That was me, actually. And I stand by that decision. I... kind of disagree that the specific insult "stupid dog" was necessary to preserve every single time, and I think the repetition would've been a disservice to the script in English -- it would've come across as lazy writing, I feel. I maintain that the most important aspect here was simply that he was being insulted and compared to a dog, not the wording of the insult being used.

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

Japanese cannot be directly translated to English without losing some of its subtle nuance or intonation, so this would never work. My mantra during localization is, "Translate the meaning, not the words." I'll read a passage to completion, then think about how best to convey the same meaning (including tone and nuance) in natural English and write my "translation" accordingly. The end goal is to create a script that you'd honestly believe was ALWAYS in English from the very start -- if it sounds "translated," then I've failed in my job.

This is, I believe, the best approach to localization, and is an approach I am not likely to abandon anytime soon.

I also feel it's served me well to date, though obviously it does open the door for possible localization disputes like this one. But that's a small price to pay, IMHO, for localizations that go above and beyond the usual "It can't be helped" variety.

I still don't really see how the name itself is in any way significant. What's significant is that it's dog-related and that it's derogatory -- as long as whatever he's being called fulfills those two requirements, I think the same basic idea is communicated just fine.

I can't speak for Jason, but I certainly had played through EX Chapter 4 when I was editing that scene, and I disagree. I felt that this was a moment of weakness for Sayaka -- a moment of clarity in which she finally realized just how loyal Inumaru was, and actually found herself kind of charmed by it.

So again... different interpretations. Yours is likely more correct, since you clearly know the lore better than I do, but I really don't think my interpretation is all that ridiculous or anything.

Now THIS is the real reason I wanted to respond here -- I was *very* careful with the original Corpse Party PSP's script in particular, and was personally responsible for both its translation AND editing, so every single line there was more or less solely my own handiwork (accounting for changes during QA) and I consider it to be some of my best work at XSEED to date (as do most reviewers, I might add). I'm really, really curious what errors you found in that game (not to mention Book of Shadows, which was about 80% me as well), as I kind of feel like the gauntlet has been thrown now and will defend my choices in that title TO THE DEATH, good sir. I can virtually guarantee you that any "errors" you found in that game's script are not errors at all, but localization choices that I will firmly stand behind -- but I definitely challenge you to defy those expectations!

Give me your best shot.

-Tom

 

Again, I think a lot of this is just differing styles of localization and different interpretations of character motivations, so there's not much more I can say that I haven't already. To address this, though:

Simply put... both Jason and I missed this little detail. There were similar issues with dates being wrong in the Japanese in BloodCovered PSP (specifically in regards to Yoshie's journal) that I did catch and correct in the English (under advisement from the writers at 5pb), but somehow or another, despite its obviousness, this is one that we both just plain didn't catch. I think we were focused on other aspects of the localization and just didn't think too hard about the date given there... and only learned it was an impossible date in terms of lore after the game had already been published.

So that was just straight-up an oversight on our part, and I'm sorry we missed it.

-Tom