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Localisation Shitty Localizers general

Localised content

HataVNI

varishangout.com
I don't handle any localizations for languages you can read so you cannot judge whether I ruin things or just do my "job": Namely helping to bring the work to a new audience. I translate games from English to German - or some doujin-Games from Japanese to German - which are not published yet. I understand several of your points, but the way you are going on about it is not going to change anything. If anything it makes people want to spite you even more and expose you to their echobubbles on twitter. It is the same as baiting on imageboards. You can only keep the damage low if you don't interact with them at all.

I personally think that the English localization approaches are sometimes misguided and go overboard, hence I signed up here. German localization approaches differ much from the English ones and they maintain more of the "original's" feel than English does. I have gotten into fights with some of the top-localizers before too over for example saying that you should use Japanese dictionaries over English ones among other discussions, so it is not like I don't understand your frustrations facing a group of insurmountable contrarians. I'm not saying I'm one of you - as I don't agree with your methods - but not all localization critique is entirely without merit. It is important how you express it though, because people tend to use their fight or flight mechanism when something doesn't fit their world view.

I have done QC for a VN company in the past though (not anymore) and I know that people there were definitely passionate about working on these projects (Eroge) and didn't become localizers out of hate for the medium or the fans. They are fans themselves who had passion and saw the opportunity to make that passion their job. Sometimes there are legal issues with particular platforms like Steam which is why things have to be "censored" in order to appease the people in charge since after all you want the project to be published either way. No one will forgive a company that has to outright cancel a game they promised to release because it ran into some roadblocks, after all. It's complicated and unfortunate circumstances are behind why some content-cuts and rewrites have to happen, but they are surely (not always) done to willfully "own the fans". I don't deny there may be rogues though who extract joy from doing it, but there is no visible trend. Some localizers have a different kind of humor that doesn't always connect with the audience - or they're is a generational difference involved.

Maybe there is some worthwhile discussion possible after neglecting all of the hate in this forum.

Also don't take too seriously that I said that this forum is irrelevant. All forums are irrelevant in Discord era :(
 

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salty_apollyon

varishangout.com
Regular
Patron of the Forums
the way you are going on about it is not going to change anything.
yeah sure because asking politely worked so fucking well in the past kek
also what about being """exposed""" to their echo chambers huh? that sounds like a good thing to me, the more they sperg out the more we win
They are fans themselves who had passion and saw the opportunity to make that passion their job.
fucking bs at least now, maybe they were in the past, or maybe they just rode the ride to get a job, either way that doesn't matter. these idiots act always like moral busybodies and they deserve all the shit they get
It's complicated and unfortunate circumstances are behind why some content-cuts and rewrites have to happen
that sounds like the most spineless excuse I've heard in a while, if you knew anything about this site you would freakin know that we oppose any type of censorship, if these retarded wokelizers contacted us about higher ups wanting to change shit because "muh global standards" or some shit like that we would've jumped in their defense NOT ONCE BUT MILTIPLE TIMES but no INSTEAD THEY (including you) try to ALWAYS """dunk on the haters""" for twitter points.
if you want to us to change how about YOU go to those pedantic bastards and tell them to get of their high horse huh?
 
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limpandazure

varishangout.com
Patron of the Forums
1. languages you can read so you cannot judge whether I ruin things or just do my "job"
This may have been a correct statement five years ago, but increasingly foreign language translation is getting easier to do. Machine translation, while janky, is still sometimes more accurate to the raw text at hand than a "localizer" produces. Many localizers know much less than they put on and are just pretty good with polishing deepl output into something that appears more organic. I disagree with the idea that there is some ocean or rift between "professional localizers" and the general enthusiast. How else would so many people be catching on to the liberties these people take with content?
2. Namely helping to bring the work to a new audience.
When you target a new audience, you sacrifice the old. While I understand this at a raw capitalistic level, we see events where translations are adjusted towards this effect at the loss of context. So it's more of a general disagreement and a feel like it disrespects the subject art. Even if it's a little sister and her hemorrhoids, it's still art.
3. the way you are going on about it is not going to change anything.
I think previous attempts have been made to more softly and politely address perceived failures, but they are not taken seriously due to the localizer's belief in point 1. So if they are just going to ignore complaints and act offended or superior, then they can get clowned on.
4. didn't become localizers out of hate for the medium or the fans. They are fans themselves who had passion and saw the opportunity to make that passion their job.
Of course they didn't. Herein lies the problem with making a job out of something you love, though. The thing you love to do, when done professionally, is much more subject to judgement and critique, where if you are not emotionally mature enough to field it, the thing you love turns into something you resent.
5. there are legal issues with particular platforms like Steam which is why things have to be "censored" in order to appease the people in charge since after all you want the project to be published either way.
There is nothing more embarrassing than a developer or publisher who allows the modification of their product which they know exactly what it is and who it targets. They are lying to their customers and selling a chopped up mess because they are too ignorant to navigate the path towards self-publishing or to a publisher that would have no problem with the product. Steam is easy and reaches the widest possible audience, and again they sacrifice their intended audience for one they have no guarantee will materialize. I understand these events are not generally the fault of the localizer, but a more frustrating point of ignorant foreign developers who choose the easy path.
6. Some localizers have a different kind of humor that doesn't always connect with the audience - or they're is a generational difference involved.
I don't believe it's their job to write jokes. If it were, they'd be getting paid much more and working for someone else. Translate the shit as is and add notes if necessary. People consuming foreign cultural media should expect to encounter foreign cultural colloquialisms and vernacular. Personal biased opinion of course.

I don't know you outside of the content posted here, and while I disagree with you on much, I respect your decision to post something in good faith.
 

Grönsak

varishangout.com
I don't handle any localizations for languages you can read so you cannot judge whether I ruin things or just do my "job": Namely helping to bring the work to a new audience. I translate games from English to German - or some doujin-Games from Japanese to German - which are not published yet. I understand several of your points, but the way you are going on about it is not going to change anything. If anything it makes people want to spite you even more and expose you to their echobubbles on twitter. It is the same as baiting on imageboards. You can only keep the damage low if you don't interact with them at all.

I personally think that the English localization approaches are sometimes misguided and go overboard, hence I signed up here. German localization approaches differ much from the English ones and they maintain more of the "original's" feel than English does. I have gotten into fights with some of the top-localizers before too over for example saying that you should use Japanese dictionaries over English ones among other discussions, so it is not like I don't understand your frustrations facing a group of insurmountable contrarians. I'm not saying I'm one of you - as I don't agree with your methods - but not all localization critique is entirely without merit. It is important how you express it though, because people tend to use their fight or flight mechanism when something doesn't fit their world view.

I have done QC for a VN company in the past though (not anymore) and I know that people there were definitely passionate about working on these projects (Eroge) and didn't become localizers out of hate for the medium or the fans. They are fans themselves who had passion and saw the opportunity to make that passion their job. Sometimes there are legal issues with particular platforms like Steam which is why things have to be "censored" in order to appease the people in charge since after all you want the project to be published either way. No one will forgive a company that has to outright cancel a game they promised to release because it ran into some roadblocks, after all. It's complicated and unfortunate circumstances are behind why some content-cuts and rewrites have to happen, but they are surely (not always) done to willfully "own the fans". I don't deny there may be rogues though who extract joy from doing it, but there is no visible trend. Some localizers have a different kind of humor that doesn't always connect with the audience - or they're is a generational difference involved.

Maybe there is some worthwhile discussion possible after neglecting all of the hate in this forum.

Also don't take too seriously that I said that this forum is irrelevant. All forums are irrelevant in Discord era :(
I don't think anyone wants to hate on translators. But when they do such a appalling job of it they don't leave us much choice. And not only are they sometimes just putting the wrong word in they completely change a whole set of dialogue to appease to political correctness by introducing trans stuff or not make someone sound as "sexist" as they are. We don't want that shit we want a 1 to 1 transition where the only form of "tweaking" is allowed to make a sentence make sense. And when fans can make it better than official translators there is something wrong.

Then you talk about censorship due to steam I'd say its a bullshit excuse to let them steer content to allow it on there platform that means you don't care about your product or your fans all you care about is how easy it is for someone to put it in their basket and buy it. There are other options out there besides steam.

And Discord is a gay piece of shit that should die sooner rater then later. And nothing like a Forum.
 

Tamamo

varishangout.com
Regular
I don't handle any localizations for languages you can read so you cannot judge whether I ruin things or just do my "job": Namely helping to bring the work to a new audience. I translate games from English to German - or some doujin-Games from Japanese to German - which are not published yet. I understand several of your points, but the way you are going on about it is not going to change anything. If anything it makes people want to spite you even more and expose you to their echobubbles on twitter. It is the same as baiting on imageboards. You can only keep the damage low if you don't interact with them at all.

I personally think that the English localization approaches are sometimes misguided and go overboard, hence I signed up here. German localization approaches differ much from the English ones and they maintain more of the "original's" feel than English does. I have gotten into fights with some of the top-localizers before too over for example saying that you should use Japanese dictionaries over English ones among other discussions, so it is not like I don't understand your frustrations facing a group of insurmountable contrarians. I'm not saying I'm one of you - as I don't agree with your methods - but not all localization critique is entirely without merit. It is important how you express it though, because people tend to use their fight or flight mechanism when something doesn't fit their world view.

I have done QC for a VN company in the past though (not anymore) and I know that people there were definitely passionate about working on these projects (Eroge) and didn't become localizers out of hate for the medium or the fans. They are fans themselves who had passion and saw the opportunity to make that passion their job.

The thing is. People have tried being polite about it, only to be met with condescending responses. How dare we lowly consumers question the *cough* quality of their work.
Its the same diva attitude that you'd see in the 00's fansubbing scene. Which isn't that surprising since allot of them moved on to do """"""professional"""""" work now and took their massive ego's and poor work ethnic with them.

And of course there are the troonslators that only went into this line of work to practice their activism bullshit and just call everyone a -ist and/or -phobe who criticize their work.

In other words, they brought the vitriol upon themselves and they get zero sympathy from me.

All i ask for is the same professionalism in weeb media translation that is standard in book and movie translation.
Would Germans accept if you were to put among us memes or gamergate references in the German translation of lets say, the Game of Thrones books? No? Than why is it acceptable in English weeb media?

Sometimes there are legal issues with particular platforms like Steam which is why things have to be "censored" in order to appease the people in charge since after all you want the project to be published either way. No one will forgive a company that has to outright cancel a game they promised to release because it ran into some roadblocks, after all. It's complicated and unfortunate circumstances are behind why some content-cuts and rewrites have to happen, but they are surely (not always) done to willfully "own the fans". I don't deny there may be rogues though who extract joy from doing it, but there is no visible trend. Some localizers have a different kind of humor that doesn't always connect with the audience - or they're is a generational difference involved.

Maybe there is some worthwhile discussion possible after neglecting all of the hate in this forum.

Also don't take too seriously that I said that this forum is irrelevant. All forums are irrelevant in Discord era :(

The thing is, there are ways around these issues in most cases.
For example, JAST offers patches on their sites.
They could sell the game on different storefronts.
They can tell Sony to suck a dick with their idiotic policies and stick with Nintendo.

And no i don't trust publishers that blame "external factors". Take a recent example with Ghostlight. It was discovered that they had the opportunity to restore the cut content in the Mugen Souls PC port. They had the source code and everything and yet they WILLFULLY re-censored the game. This is unforgivable no matter how you spin it.

As for not releasing the game at all. They might as well not release it for all i care because i don't buy censored products as i have a zero tolerance for censorship.
Why the hell should i pay for an incomplete product? And who does the publisher think he is to decide for me what i can and cannot see?

Besides the not releasing at all thing already happened once with PQube and Omega Labyrinth Z. Though the part i don't forgive them for, is not porting the PC or at least "leaking" the complete translation their sitting on. Instead they keep cock teasing us with it.
 
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NretsewThePerv

varishangout.com
Regular
I don't handle any localizations for languages you can read so you cannot judge whether I ruin things or just do my "job": Namely helping to bring the work to a new audience. I translate games from English to German - or some doujin-Games from Japanese to German - which are not published yet. I understand several of your points, but the way you are going on about it is not going to change anything. If anything it makes people want to spite you even more and expose you to their echobubbles on twitter. It is the same as baiting on imageboards. You can only keep the damage low if you don't interact with them at all.

I personally think that the English localization approaches are sometimes misguided and go overboard, hence I signed up here. German localization approaches differ much from the English ones and they maintain more of the "original's" feel than English does. I have gotten into fights with some of the top-localizers before too over for example saying that you should use Japanese dictionaries over English ones among other discussions, so it is not like I don't understand your frustrations facing a group of insurmountable contrarians. I'm not saying I'm one of you - as I don't agree with your methods - but not all localization critique is entirely without merit. It is important how you express it though, because people tend to use their fight or flight mechanism when something doesn't fit their world view.

I have done QC for a VN company in the past though (not anymore) and I know that people there were definitely passionate about working on these projects (Eroge) and didn't become localizers out of hate for the medium or the fans. They are fans themselves who had passion and saw the opportunity to make that passion their job. Sometimes there are legal issues with particular platforms like Steam which is why things have to be "censored" in order to appease the people in charge since after all you want the project to be published either way. No one will forgive a company that has to outright cancel a game they promised to release because it ran into some roadblocks, after all. It's complicated and unfortunate circumstances are behind why some content-cuts and rewrites have to happen, but they are surely (not always) done to willfully "own the fans". I don't deny there may be rogues though who extract joy from doing it, but there is no visible trend. Some localizers have a different kind of humor that doesn't always connect with the audience - or they're is a generational difference involved.

Maybe there is some worthwhile discussion possible after neglecting all of the hate in this forum.

Also don't take too seriously that I said that this forum is irrelevant. All forums are irrelevant in Discord era :(

first, I will give you props for having the fucken balls to even come in here unlike your cartel brethren, who are more than happy to sit in their Twitter hugboxs raver then make the attempt to solve the trust issues people have right now

there is a lot to unpack in your post, and I think a lot of the over members will be able to dissect and take apart better so I'm going to try and focus more on a few topics I think are important

the first in foremost is the fact you say you "disagree with (our) methods", yet I don't think you even know or have asked what "our methods" even are

now I only speak for myself, but my "methods" are that I make sure to avoid any products that are butchered by cartel members, I just don't buy shit they have worked on or at least try not to if I can help it. and I make sure to let people know who these people are so they can do the same if they want

I don't go out of my way to harass anyone. nor do I actively make attempts to contact or go after any of the people in this thread. if I see a hot take cross my feed I might Qt it, but I don't actively follow any of these people. I let my money and word do the talking. and that's what I view this thread as being. a list of people who clearly, don't care about what they work on and would raver use it to their own ends and examples/proof of their wrongdoing that can easily be shared so overs and avoid and boycott these people how they see fit

so I would very much like it if you could define what you mean by "methods", as I think you have some preconceived ideas about the kinds of people we are based on cartel bullshit

next id like to address the fact that it was the localizers who fired the first round here, not us.

we are not the one's whose job it's meant to be to translate something for another language. we are the customers and fans who are the ones paying the companies that employ these people to do a job. and when we feel these people are not in fact doing their job that we are somewhat paying for, they lash out at us and call us all crazy people for daring to want the original meaning of the artwork to be kept intact. they have mocked us, gaslit us, and done every over underhanded trick in the book to dismiss and downplay our issues with how they operate. so yea. a lot of us have had enough of being nice at this point. being nice did not get anywhere. so all that's left is to speak with our wallets and catalogue the cartel members who hate us just as much as we hate what they do to the things we love

this is not something that's just cropped up as of recent. this has been going on for years and it's just been getting worse and worse, we are jaded and tried. and on here where we don't have to worry about bullshit TOS and we can speak our minds yea we are gonna be a bit mean

but i think we have the right when the people we are talking about deliberately inject bullshit into the things we love and fucken joke about it like it's funny


but yea that's about all I got there are more points I could prob pick into but they are the 2 id like to clover. I hope you will stick around and engage with what people have to say here even if it's going to be harsh

also, your tweet about this place being irrelevant really did not come off the way you think it did
 
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HataVNI

varishangout.com
Oof, there is too much to reply here at once. I guess I'll just say my opinion to these things one by one or I'm busy writing essays until the morning. You should best not believe that I'm part of the diehard loca cartel-thingy - some companies hate me ( ), some tolerate me, some hired me in the past so I'm somewhat left between two chairs. I just believe it is possible to learn from both sides of the localization discourse if you disregard the insults and exaggerations both sides use to discredit the others. From what I have seen in the replies you've just given is that beneath the superficial ranting nature of the discourse here, there is some genuine concern for the media involved.

What is also important to consider is that every localizer is unique and their style is shaped by their own upbringing, political ideologies surrounding their bubbles and biases. It is hard to discard those if they have already become a subconscious part of the way how you express yourself on a daily basis. (i.e when you see nothing wrong with them due to confirmation bias) When it is natural to you to consider a scoff remark about "preparing foreign food" as cultural appropriation (look at TWEWY discourse for example) then you will render it as such because it has become your natural way of thinking. Sometimes I wish though people would be thinking twice about how such renderings/readings have been received in the past and just think twice if they really want to let it ship as such. It is just an economic decision to not insist on such rendering. But in a way it feels like the reverse argument that you bring up applies here: you don't wish to get censored and vice versa the localizer doesn't want to censor himself doing his job in a way they deem appropriate with their worldview just to not aggrevate the ire of the players.

Both sides have very conflicting opinions of what is right and what is wrong and there is obviously a power imbalance at play too since the localizer has the power to render things as he sees fit while the customers can at best complain and at worst boycott the purchase of the product. There is not much for them at stake in comparison, so they consider aggrevating the community as not too big of a deal.

This is a very complicated thing to phrase and just unrepresentative personal opinion as a customer. Also I hate using the neutral "they" so it might read badly, whatever.
 

Tamamo

varishangout.com
Regular
When it is natural to you to consider a scoff remark about "preparing foreign food" as cultural appropriation (look at TWEWY discourse for example) then you will render it as such because it has become your natural way of thinking. Sometimes I wish though people would be thinking twice about how such renderings/readings have been received in the past and just think twice if they really want to let it ship as such. It is just an economic decision to not insist on such rendering. But in a way it feels like the reverse argument that you bring up applies here: you don't wish to get censored and vice versa the localizer doesn't want to censor himself doing his job in a way they deem appropriate with their worldview just to not aggrevate the ire of the players.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't an editors job to be impartial and fix issues like the translator's bias in the final text? I would hardly call that censorship.
 

HataVNI

varishangout.com
I'm always interested in dialogue and I don't think I made the effort to come here to bash on you.
 

limpandazure

varishangout.com
Patron of the Forums
I'm always interested in dialogue and I don't think I made the effort to come here to bash on you.
Your response to, admittedly, several posts addresses nothing on an individual basis and waves away concerns attributing perceived failures as unpreventable biases existing in individual localizers. And yes, that's exactly what we've been saying. The biases shouldn't be there. All you seem to do is acknowledge it and 仕様がない it away.
 

Grönsak

varishangout.com
Oof, there is too much to reply here at once. I guess I'll just say my opinion to these things one by one or I'm busy writing essays until the morning. You should best not believe that I'm part of the diehard loca cartel-thingy - some companies hate me ( ), some tolerate me, some hired me in the past so I'm somewhat left between two chairs. I just believe it is possible to learn from both sides of the localization discourse if you disregard the insults and exaggerations both sides use to discredit the others. From what I have seen in the replies you've just given is that beneath the superficial ranting nature of the discourse here, there is some genuine concern for the media involved.

What is also important to consider is that every localizer is unique and their style is shaped by their own upbringing, political ideologies surrounding their bubbles and biases. It is hard to discard those if they have already become a subconscious part of the way how you express yourself on a daily basis. (i.e when you see nothing wrong with them due to confirmation bias) When it is natural to you to consider a scoff remark about "preparing foreign food" as cultural appropriation (look at TWEWY discourse for example) then you will render it as such because it has become your natural way of thinking. Sometimes I wish though people would be thinking twice about how such renderings/readings have been received in the past and just think twice if they really want to let it ship as such. It is just an economic decision to not insist on such rendering. But in a way it feels like the reverse argument that you bring up applies here: you don't wish to get censored and vice versa the localizer doesn't want to censor himself doing his job in a way they deem appropriate with their worldview just to not aggrevate the ire of the players.

Both sides have very conflicting opinions of what is right and what is wrong and there is obviously a power imbalance at play too since the localizer has the power to render things as he sees fit while the customers can at best complain and at worst boycott the purchase of the product. There is not much for them at stake in comparison, so they consider aggrevating the community as not too big of a deal.

This is a very complicated thing to phrase and just unrepresentative personal opinion as a customer. Also I hate using the neutral "they" so it might read badly, whatever.
there upbringing is unique what sort of bs is that? Do you think a plumbers unique upbringing justifies him connecting the faucet to the sewage of course not so why should we tolerate that sort of thing? Translation is a on the surface a fairly easy job when you know both languages. You take one sentence in one language and write it down in another. Whatever the one doing the translation feels is irrelevant that's not their job to feel or think something its to translate what the author wants to convey.

You know what happens to people that shit on their customers they get fucked and left in the dust. The sad thing is that the Japanese companies don't seem to realize what a hazard this is the sooner they do the better.
 

HataVNI

varishangout.com
Correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't an editors job to be impartial and fix issues like the translator's bias in the final text? I would hardly call that censorship.
How would that even be possible? The editor usually doesn't speak Japanese or just rudimentarily understands it. An editors job is to make the text as readable and well-flowing as possible with the goal of rendering the text in a way that it doesn't look like it was translated but written in grammatically correct, appropriate English prose.

In a localization context the editor and the translator work together trying to imitate special dialogues and accents to emulate them in specific ways that mirror the differences in the original. This is difficult however because applying certain accents while in Japanese they might just use different sentence endings or specific words just spoken in that particular dialect; in English, however, some dialects might not even be considered readable for the average English speaker. This is for example the case with the Dragon Quest games where every village has a particular dialect which makes it stand apart from other villages. (In German they did the same btw and it is as jarring and difficult for someone who just grew up with High German). In Eiyuu Senki GOLD for example it is a game about global conquest and imperialism where you end up conquering different areas all over the world to let the self-govern as part of Zipang. The English version makes every character speak in a particular dialect fitting that area and adds funny quirks and gaffes to give them soul. The editor makes sure that all these variations are properly spelt and fitting the particular character voice used.

TLDR; Translator translates the text and the editor imbues it with life (and sometimes memes when appropriate).

there upbringing is unique what sort of bs is that? Do you think a plumbers unique upbringing justifies him connecting the faucet to the sewage of course not so why should we tolerate that sort of thing? Translation is a on the surface a fairly easy job when you know both languages. You take one sentence in one language and write it down in another. Whatever the one doing the translation feels is irrelevant that's not their job to feel or think something its to translate what the author wants to convey.

You know what happens to people that shit on their customers they get fucked and left in the dust. The sad thing is that the Japanese companies don't seem to realize what a hazard this is the sooner they do the better.
If you grow up in a left-leaning bubble you will apply a left-leaning lens to things. I don't know what to tell you. If you say you look at things completely without bias, then you are either lying or Jesus.
 

NretsewThePerv

varishangout.com
Regular
What is also important to consider is that every localizer is unique and their style is shaped by their own upbringing, political ideologies surrounding their bubbles and biases. It is hard to discard those if they have already become a subconscious part of the way how you express yourself on a daily basis. (i.e when you see nothing wrong with them due to confirmation bias) When it is natural to you to consider a scoff remark about "preparing foreign food" as cultural appropriation (look at TWEWY discourse for example) then you will render it as such because it has become your natural way of thinking.

this is absolutely no excuse and I'm gonna say this in nice big bold

The original artists intent and meaning should be what matters before ALL else

I don't CARE what some localizers political ideology, upbringing or god knows what else is, what I care about is if the original meaning and intent behind the message the artist was trying to convey has been fucked with or not

I understand that you need to edit some things and tweak how things are said to have it flow better and there is no 1 to 1 translate lol but that's part of this issue and the gaslighting the cartel does

no one wants every single word to match every single word what people want is for the artists original intent and meaning to be transferred 1 to 1 so that we are experiencing what the artist intended. that's it.

it should not be the translator or looocoluzors job to add their personal flair into someone else's work, translators and localizers are not artists, if they were then they would be creating their own works raver than parasiteing off someone else's work. that is not what people are paying them for. or what we want from them

when I play a game I want to play the game the devs wanted me to play and experience. when I read a book I want to read what the author wanted me to read. when watching anime I want to watch the anime the writers and animators wanted me to. not what some random dude in the US thinks I should be experiencing

if the creator's work did not directly say "cultural appropriation", was not directly talking about it in the text, and was in no way meant to be a reference to it as a concept. then it has no place in the work. and as I said I dont care if the translator/localizer "thinks" it fits. if the og text did not call for it then it butchers the meaning behind it and what was meant to be said. and injects western cultural values into a Japanese work

I hope this might help you understand a bit better what the problem is

I'm always interested in dialogue and I don't think I made the effort to come here to bash on you.

dont worry about it take ya time. IRL shit should come first. just keep in mind people in here is gonna be a bit jumpy and untrusting of someone in your profession. I'm doing my part to be as nonhostile as I can be but if you have read by over posts you might be able to tell how strong my feelings are about this subject and how much I hate these goddam parasite cartel, bastards
 

HataVNI

varishangout.com
there upbringing is unique what sort of bs is that? Do you think a plumbers unique upbringing justifies him connecting the faucet to the sewage of course not so why should we tolerate that sort of thing? Translation is a on the surface a fairly easy job when you know both languages. You take one sentence in one language and write it down in another. Whatever the one doing the translation feels is irrelevant that's not their job to feel or think something its to translate what the author wants to convey.

You know what happens to people that shit on their customers they get fucked and left in the dust. The sad thing is that the Japanese companies don't seem to realize what a hazard this is the sooner they do the better.
I'm not telling you to tolerate it, but you should understand where people are coming from when they are doing what they do.
 

HataVNI

varishangout.com
this is absolutely no excuse and I'm gonna say this in nice big bold

The original artists intent and meaning should be what matters before ALL else

I don't CARE what some localizers political ideology, upbringing or god knows what else is, what I care about is if the original meaning and intent behind the message the artist was trying to convey has been fucked with or not

I understand that you need to edit some things and tweak how things are said to have it flow better and there is no 1 to 1 translate lol but that's part of this issue and the gaslighting the cartel does

no one wants every single word to match every single word what people want is for the artists original intent and meaning to be transferred 1 to 1 so that we are experiencing what the artist intended. that's it.

it should not be the translator or looocoluzors job to add their personal flair into someone else's work, translators and localizers are not artists, if they were then they would be creating their own works raver than parasiteing off someone else's work. that is not what people are paying them for. or what we want from them

when I play a game I want to play the game the devs wanted me to play and experience. when I read a book I want to read what the author wanted me to read. when watching anime I want to watch the anime the writers and animators wanted me to. not what some random dude in the US thinks I should be experiencing

if the creator's work did not directly say "cultural appropriation", was not directly talking about it in the text, and was in no way meant to be a reference to it as a concept. then it has no place in the work. and as I said I dont care if the translator/localizer "thinks" it fits. if the og text did not call for it then it butchers the meaning behind it and what was meant to be said. and injects western cultural values into a Japanese work

I hope this might help you understand a bit better what the problem is



dont worry about it take ya time. IRL shit should come first. just keep in mind people in here is gonna be a bit jumpy and untrusting of someone in your profession. I'm doing my part to be as nonhostile as I can be but if you have read by over posts you might be able to tell how strong my feelings are about this subject and how much I hate these goddam parasite cartel, bastards
The underlying problem is that the people do not see anything wrong with what you are considering wrong. Thus, things will not change because they don't believe that change is required. That is not good and very stubborn of people, but unless there is a paradigm shift in thinking this will not change. The only way to cause a rethinking is when people who are not inherently biased by theoretical translation theories or personal identity politics end up in positions where they are in charge of translating on their own for these companies. I've seen some style guides and shit and they don't say that you should be inserting politics and memes where it isn't necessary. People probably just do it because it is their way of expressing humour.

I have seen screenshots of people saying that the fun about localization is treading the line of what you can get away with and I believe this is fair to be scolded. That is clearly powertripping not conducive to transmitting original intent.
 

NretsewThePerv

varishangout.com
Regular
I'm not telling you to tolerate it, but you should understand where people are coming from when they are doing what they do.
this dont really solve the problem tho does it?

indeed
"Know thy enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are sure to be defeated in every battle."

but I think most of us here already know the enemy. we have been dealing with them for many years. some of us have had personal interactions and encounters with them. we have had to deal with this kinda shit for almost decades at this point. we know the kind of people they are and its besides the point

at best you are saying shit we already know. at worse you are just saying it as an excuse for their actions. in both. you are not providing us with something I think we all want. a solution to the issue at hand.

we want these people to stop injecting their personal views into someone else's artwork
 

HataVNI

varishangout.com
Then you're just unprofessional. If you can't set aside your feelings or morals to do your work properly you should leave the field.
The question is who would stop them? Outside of the translator and potential TLC (which only in the rarest of cases exists in official localization projects) no one in the team knows enough Japanese. I agree with you that an openly rogue translator can cause more harm than good when there is no one in control of them.
 
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