I was watching this short video on little-known things about the original Metal Gear Solid, and you hear one of the lines that he changed--and a ton of players, myself included, probably never heard this particular line until now.
The "onion" line was not in the Japanese--and by extension, is not in the Twin Snakes version. One of the top comments on that video talks about additions like this being why he was fired. The story seems to track, as far as I can tell.
Later games stuck much more closely to the script. Maybe a little TOO closely, like MGS3's Volgin mumbling "Kuwabara, kuwabara..." even in English.
If only more creators had this kind of balls.
Though if anyone cares, here's an article on the localization, written by Blaustein himself. Archived, of course.
Localisers have always been an issue (remembering the Sailor Moon 'cousins' and the more funny Pokemon 'Jelly donuts') it's just more recently it's combined with a VERY political ideological push.
It's why they really have no defence to replacement with AI unlike most other industries. They haven't improved standards over the decades and now they actively antagonise their audiences so fuck em.
The cousins thing, bad as it was, was more due to being a product of its time.
Chris Sabat once said in an interview that focus groups (censors) kept Funimation's original DBZ dub from using the word "scumbag."
The reason? They said the word meant a condom filled with semen.
Have you EVER heard that definition before? Because he hadn't, and neither had I.
At least Sailor Moon eventually got a full uncensored re-dub from Viz, including the Stars season we never got before. I've seen a season and a half of it so far, and it's great. And yes, they're lesbians again.
Clearly they didn't hear the s and heard cumbag
I remember one of my teachers pondering this lol, that's what he came up with. I don't think many people who use the word actually define it like that though
4kids localizers were misguided and also had to operate under strict censorship rules, SNES localizers had technical constraints on top of censorship, the modern localizers you know by name are intentionally malicious.
At least 4kids still managed to create some witty writing.
I was watching clips of Team Rocket the other day. How the hell did they get so endearing?
But yes, the game is different now.
4kids stuff was mostly because US TV executives didn't realize American kids would enjoy Japanese cartoons with Japanese stories, plus the kinds of people they would have hired back then would have been much more talented than the people who get localization jobs now.
The 4Kids King Dedede is the official voice of the character, as far as I'm concerned.
To say nothing of Meowth.
Odd fact: That voice was done by a transwoman, the late Adam (Maddie) Blaustein. Died not of suicide, but of lung cancer--Blaustein was a chain-smoker.
And then the successor to that voice, Jimmy Zoppi, himself got throat cancer making him have to retire from voiceover last year...
I remember Sailor Jupiter having the most talent.
Sailor Jupiter is my favorite. Tomboy, ponytail, large tracts of land. In the original dub there's a scene where Mars and her are arguing about whose boobs are bigger. Lol
Blausteinsteinstein
not every single time
Thought everyone knew this. Kojima has hated every localization of MGS games.
I credit the US changes with at least 50% of the games success. Kojima is a very dry writer, the localization punched up the script and added military sounding jargon. They knew better how to sell the game to Americans than the Japanese did.
It's worth remembering Kojima was such a control freak that he literally taught himself how to code so he could have total control of the timings of triggers, audio, etc in Policenauts instead of telling someone what to do and they interpret it. I can easily believe this.
His name is Jeremy Blue Stone? That sounds like a D&D character with bad stats.
Little over 2 decades ago I used to translate anime for fansubs, and I always tried to do as direct a translation as possible, mostly to help people learn the language. Hearing/reading the same spoken/written words would help watchers pick up the language was my belief. Mostly because that's how I started learning.
Of course even then I had push back from the 'qc/editor' who wanted to use colloquialism. Quit with the series these clowns were on and never went back. Those were the days of fansubbers hanging around primarily on IRC.