Unicorn Overlord demo turns into a localizer's creative writing class.
(media.scored.co)
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They've always been making these sorts of annoying changes, and it's why some people became determined to study the language to play the originals even before politics became unbearable.
I'll argue the second phrase's "literal" translation is pretty bad though, even though the creative translation went too far.
I speak Japanese. To be fair on at least this translation, there are many nuances to Japanese being conveyed here that aren’t entirely in the translation on the left for the first one. Most of them have no literal translation because even the tenses and word choice and tone you use in Japanese, or don’t use in some contexts, conveys a great deal about the relationships between characters and emotional states. The second one is far more forceful in what they added, but it’s at least conveying something. For all I know the next line of dialog could have had the info they added, which is also common.
Stupid translations are common, but a lot of times it’s not as far off as you’d think, and they are trying. Sometimes it’s actually better, like the Dragon Ball Z Dub vs original. The Dub is what’s popular and generally what made the franchise what it is and what it became.
There are a few things that played into that though, which have nothing to do with translation. Probably the biggest factor is the absolutely phenomenal soundtrack that Bruce Faulconer composed for it, vastly surpassing the original Japanese score. Then, the voice acting for the dub was uncommonly superb, especially in an era where English voice acting was typically terrible. The last major issue I can think of is that it was popular before the Internet was, so most people like myself only had access to the dubbed version, either by watching it on TV or buying the VHS.
The DBZ dub actually improved one pivotal scene so much that I was disappointed when DBZ Kai revealed the real lines.
Mr. Satan takes it upon himself to fight Kid Buu directly, and in the original dub, this was an act of massive bravery, one that really made me respect the character more.
Then DBZ Kai revealed that, in truth, he thought it was all a dream, and his life wasn't really in danger. Thus greatly diminishing the moment.
Yeah, it's more accurate, and what the author intended...but that's less awesome.
HOWEVER. That is a rare, rare exception. Most changes suck, especially now.
Depends on the series I guess. With Naruto, they were working with a bad situation but I can’t watch the Dub. With My Hero, the Dub’s as good or better since they’re all pretending to be super heroes and for someone like All Might he makes more sense that way. A million different series so hard to judge them all.
Worst I can recall in history is the 4Kids One Piece. Set the franchise back decades.
And then there's Samurai Pizza Cats, which was reportedly never even given a script to translate (and this is referenced in the new opening and ending themes), so a whole new script was written from scratch to match the visuals...and somehow, some way, it wound up so entertaining that it's still loved to this day.
You could do that with 999 other series and it would fail every time.
Lightning in a bottle. Could never happen again--certainly not now.
I have no problem with period-appropriate archaic dialect. Trying to make it more poetically extravagant than Shakespeare is a bridge too far.
Some of the examples work in my opinion, and some of them don't. I don't think I saw the bird man example in the pics, but that was godawful.
This does remind me of how challenging it can be to hold yourself back when you're doing some kind of editing for someone else and their writing.
It can be incredibly easy to slip into a mode where you incidentally start self-inserting your own writing, style, or ideas into it without fully realizing it. Just requires a little bit of self awareness, discipline, and vigilance to avoid it though.
Something that most leftist localizers apparently are incapable of.
Generally if something seems woke or leftist in a translation from Japan, it’s not accurate. Including any attempts to put clothing on children or cover up big breasts. Japan doesn’t give a fuck.
Source - https://twitter.com/zakogdo/status/1761625443810385991
Lots of comparison shots here.
Have the archive of the Thread reader
https://archive.ph/NkWBD
I get really sick of people thinking Shakespeare represent English from the medieval period. He was renaissance, we count it as early modern in fact, and even then it was flowery. The prints were for reading and thus more poetic than his actual performances.
It would be awesome to see an old English epic RPG.
Much appreciated.
They obviously tried to huff farts above their language skills, because it's not very good at being pretentious despite trying hard.
As someone who has trained as a translator and interpreter, this is a bit hard to tell, because the surrounding context can change it entirely.
"General valmore". Is the way this is said just oozing with contempt in the original, or using the honourable title in some ironic way?. The same way you might say president biden, or 'madam' to a to someone insisting it's 'ma'am'. Then 'great' general with quote marks could well be pretty close
"do as you like". Has threatening already been established in this scene, is he here to behead the other and is that established elsewhere? Then this 'my head is not so easily parted' thing is more acceptable. Remember also that Japanese is a less direct language, while English is more direct, 'American' even more so. Spelling it out more clearly is fair as part of a translation into American English from Japanese.
I've worked with a very blunt/direct language or two and going into English which is more middle of the road by comparison you have to do the opposite. Because otherwise it comes across as rude when no offense is meant. And going from English into those languages you have to cut out some of the circumspect bullshit and just get to the point, or else they look shifty and evasive.
Looking at the art, I can absolutely believe the original was trying for some ye olde flowery nonsense also. Were they?
TLDR: Making it more 'blunt' and spelling things out more clearly is appropriate, particularly with Japanese being quite indirect. And we'd need the surrounding context to more accurately judge if these are fair. A single line doesn't tell you much, and its hard to judge. They're not inserting their own politics at least. I'm not saying you are wrong and that they haven't veered too much into creative writing, I don't know enough Japanese to tell. I am saying I need the surrounding lines to better judge.
Sad times. I'm not expecting exact, but that's not even the same thing in context.
One of them has a dry wit, and the other is very blunt about their specific removal of appendage.
They basically turned "My ancestors are smiling at me Imperial, can you say the same?" into "COME ON, I HAVEN'T GOT ALL MORNING"
Completely different tone than the dry wit that was implied.