Remember japanese companies pushing for "global audience" ascribe to ESG cause social politics and fear of outcry . These companies are in bed with the overseas headquarters (mainly California)
Always tell them their wrong, remember to email these companies, tell them to stop doing it, and stop buying their content until they get the message to stop selling out to ESG and localizers. Make it absolutely clear to them that localizers do not speak for overseas fans .
As Shizu said https://twitter.com/BepDelta/status/1754668176145629361 Things that were common in most Japanese games not long ago like jokes or fanservice are pretty much disappearing because of this shit, even in remakes of old games. of course woke scum bags are trying to pretend "that's not happening"
The end goal is to make everything bland and boring and woke, like American triple-A games.
Marvelous lost about 300 million yen in their gaming division recently and they are also one of those companies that listened to the localizers, and they stopped making fanservice games like Senran Kagura and also there was never supposed to be gay marriage or non binary shit in Story of Seasons, until the localizers pushed for it and the localizers brag about it . So don't think that boycotting doesn't work.
This is the reason why I have felt irritated. I intentionally avoided buying these games because I know I won't like the result but god the sheer gloating they display because they don't get reprimanded floored me. I knew they were vindictive but there's no low they will reach. I hope we take their names and remind them for the rest of their lives and they will never have decent career.
I recently spent some time looking at Steam's Early Access offerings and Next Fest stuff. Surprisingly, most of what caught my eye were from Chinese developers. When I think "Chinese developed game," I think shitty mobile crap and low-quality ripoffs, but it looks like indie Chinese developers are starting to step up and make serious games now. At least there's a good chance you don't have to deal with trannies or other woke shit in Chinese games, but sheesh, I'm disappointed that it's come to this.
Yeah China and South Korea are going to be the next big targets for "diversity" because they are picking up where Japan has been succeeding in the past. The difference being that China is a totalitarian state and in South Korea there is now a massive push against feminism. I would say the quality of both are still behind Japan's but that doesn't mean their artists and developers aren't trying to improve.
I have hope that AI will put this leftist propaganda front out of business. We'll just need the original product and some kind of software overlay to translate it properly, good or bad.
honestly the sad thing is i feel like localizers have done irreparable damage, in the sense that they've probably influenced the beliefs of the devs to some degree as well. Just look at how the ff7 director says he's embarrassed about his previous work.
Of course AI will get rid of the worst of the problems but some of the problems still linger like a cancer. And as long as the companies keep trying to reach out to western audiences instead of just focusing on what the Japanese audience wants, the quality will always be worsened
I do think in some cases there is adhering to the spirit to the meaning rather than a direct translation. Pokemon for example would not have caught on (no pun intended) as much as it has in America if all the original names were kept or directly translated rather than using wordplay that English speakers would understand.
But these people don't even care about the spirit. They just want to low key insert their fanfiction into official material. AI can do a lot of legwork now, but it's still not as good as if a real human did it, but that seems to be a sacrifice that has to be made if the only humans that are doing it are shitty people disrespecting the source material.
Typically a localizer's job would be to know the target market of the product and how to remove those strange elements from the source culture that nobody would understand with something equivalent but close enough in their culture. Swap a joke for a similar joke, use a different joke only if nothing else fits. Change a song to match the tone of the original, if not the exact lyrics, etc. The goal is to maximize sales in the target market. That's your only job. Localizers today are bragging about adding messaging to virtue signal, and intentionally replacing things that were perfectly understandable with things that only make sense to a tiny subset of Americans - narrowing the market to their San Francisco queer culture and leaving everyone else confused or disappointed. They have no sense of duty or honor.
One of the best examples I always feel is HFIL from DBZ.
Japan treats Christianity pretty lightly, almost like a cool exotic joke. Which keeps with them calling the afterlife Hell in that universe and it being full of bureaucracy and joke characters.
But calling it Hell in the West is a lot stronger sounding with more baggage. Turning it into the Home For Infinite Losers not only keeps that light hearted jokey nature, it also creates an infinitely more memorable name.
Is it censorship? Sure. But it keeps the spirit perfectly intact while also actually increasing the joke over the blander Japanese name.
Remember japanese companies pushing for "global audience" ascribe to ESG cause social politics and fear of outcry . These companies are in bed with the overseas headquarters (mainly California)
Always tell them their wrong, remember to email these companies, tell them to stop doing it, and stop buying their content until they get the message to stop selling out to ESG and localizers. Make it absolutely clear to them that localizers do not speak for overseas fans .
As Shizu said https://twitter.com/BepDelta/status/1754668176145629361 Things that were common in most Japanese games not long ago like jokes or fanservice are pretty much disappearing because of this shit, even in remakes of old games. of course woke scum bags are trying to pretend "that's not happening" The end goal is to make everything bland and boring and woke, like American triple-A games.
Marvelous lost about 300 million yen in their gaming division recently and they are also one of those companies that listened to the localizers, and they stopped making fanservice games like Senran Kagura and also there was never supposed to be gay marriage or non binary shit in Story of Seasons, until the localizers pushed for it and the localizers brag about it . So don't think that boycotting doesn't work.
This is the reason why I have felt irritated. I intentionally avoided buying these games because I know I won't like the result but god the sheer gloating they display because they don't get reprimanded floored me. I knew they were vindictive but there's no low they will reach. I hope we take their names and remind them for the rest of their lives and they will never have decent career.
Japan had a good run.. from 80s to 2016s. GG. Now its up to the koreans and possibly chinese to make games.
I recently spent some time looking at Steam's Early Access offerings and Next Fest stuff. Surprisingly, most of what caught my eye were from Chinese developers. When I think "Chinese developed game," I think shitty mobile crap and low-quality ripoffs, but it looks like indie Chinese developers are starting to step up and make serious games now. At least there's a good chance you don't have to deal with trannies or other woke shit in Chinese games, but sheesh, I'm disappointed that it's come to this.
Yeah China and South Korea are going to be the next big targets for "diversity" because they are picking up where Japan has been succeeding in the past. The difference being that China is a totalitarian state and in South Korea there is now a massive push against feminism. I would say the quality of both are still behind Japan's but that doesn't mean their artists and developers aren't trying to improve.
I have hope that AI will put this leftist propaganda front out of business. We'll just need the original product and some kind of software overlay to translate it properly, good or bad.
honestly the sad thing is i feel like localizers have done irreparable damage, in the sense that they've probably influenced the beliefs of the devs to some degree as well. Just look at how the ff7 director says he's embarrassed about his previous work. Of course AI will get rid of the worst of the problems but some of the problems still linger like a cancer. And as long as the companies keep trying to reach out to western audiences instead of just focusing on what the Japanese audience wants, the quality will always be worsened
The whole localization frustrates me.
I do think in some cases there is adhering to the spirit to the meaning rather than a direct translation. Pokemon for example would not have caught on (no pun intended) as much as it has in America if all the original names were kept or directly translated rather than using wordplay that English speakers would understand.
But these people don't even care about the spirit. They just want to low key insert their fanfiction into official material. AI can do a lot of legwork now, but it's still not as good as if a real human did it, but that seems to be a sacrifice that has to be made if the only humans that are doing it are shitty people disrespecting the source material.
Typically a localizer's job would be to know the target market of the product and how to remove those strange elements from the source culture that nobody would understand with something equivalent but close enough in their culture. Swap a joke for a similar joke, use a different joke only if nothing else fits. Change a song to match the tone of the original, if not the exact lyrics, etc. The goal is to maximize sales in the target market. That's your only job. Localizers today are bragging about adding messaging to virtue signal, and intentionally replacing things that were perfectly understandable with things that only make sense to a tiny subset of Americans - narrowing the market to their San Francisco queer culture and leaving everyone else confused or disappointed. They have no sense of duty or honor.
One of the best examples I always feel is HFIL from DBZ.
Japan treats Christianity pretty lightly, almost like a cool exotic joke. Which keeps with them calling the afterlife Hell in that universe and it being full of bureaucracy and joke characters.
But calling it Hell in the West is a lot stronger sounding with more baggage. Turning it into the Home For Infinite Losers not only keeps that light hearted jokey nature, it also creates an infinitely more memorable name.
Is it censorship? Sure. But it keeps the spirit perfectly intact while also actually increasing the joke over the blander Japanese name.