Dragon Quest's Creator Criticises 'Mistranslation' Of DQ3 Remake Costume Comments

Misrepresentation and Elon Musk, what a combo.

Proof that improper translations of a different language can seriously impact the response to it. Not to mention selectively clipping a piece of the dialogue out of context.

Sooo, are they actually upset over the censorship, or was that all part of the mistranslation too? I apologize for not understanding.

You mean the contingent who are anti-"censorship" were jumping to conclusions and overdramatizing things?
Shocking.

I'm pretty sure once the word "religion" and "america" got put into the mix, "puritan" was one of the first things put on the table as to what they may be talking about.

"Sex education" is still a poor translation though. If I'll knock localizers for misrepresenting character expression that english audiences could already understand, I gotta do the same here.

Still, the changes in the art, no matter who tries argue that you shouldn't care "because video games are about functions not human expression" (ew), should not have happen and the argument still exists that they defiled Toriyama's art.

All that said, I look forward to the breakdown into the radio talk episode to see how true the clip manipulation is or isn't.
For all we know, it could be Square Enix putting pressure on the devs, considering there was no further elaboration.

I bought a Ouija board and contacted Toriyama sama and he said that anyone who who claims this minor alteration to his work is censorship and uses this as a springboard to deny an oppressed group rights is “a massive d-bag”.

Don’t kill the messenger.

@LavenderShroud I'm a bit lost as well. The only thing he explained was sex education, but didn't go further into explaining what they were actually trying to say.

While it could be the MTL at work (Nintendo Life get some Japanese writers into your workforce, you write about a traditionalist japanese company ffs) but I'm not seeing the finer details here.

Were the comments mistranslated, or were they "localized?"

...why not just make it an option? Mario RPG remake could switch between the original and remake soundtrack with a simple menu option. The Halo:CE remaster could switch between original and remaster visuals on the fly with a button press. Why not simply have an option to switch between original and... not original artwork in this game?

Maybe you could say that option leaves everyone unhappy but reading all the furor around this really makes you realize everyone is unhappy regardless. People will either get mad that the original art is sexist or unrealistic or whatever tf they want to call it (I don't care; please don't explain it) or they'll get mad that alterations to the source material have been mad (which I feel ignores the fact that the entire remaster is an alteration of the source material).

My personal opinion is that there should be a toggle or no change to the original artwork but I'm also not going to go charging to every forum on earth, frothing at the keyboard, to scream about 'censorship.' If you're in that boat, just be honest that you enjoy seeing scantily clad characters in video games and move on with your life. There's a million places you can find r34 art of literally this exact character to satisfy those urges. I don't see any issue with that.

@LadyCharlie Or perhaps the people who usually defend bad translations as localizations are the ones jumping to conclusions.

The people who are anti-censorship are anti-censorship.

This is still proving more and more that "censoring" or changing these games causes more controversy than if they just left them alone. I'm not the kinda guy to run around saying games are "woke" and such, I think that racial undertones should be removed from rereleases. But a suggestive outfit is fine.

Personally I'd rather they leave everything original but I'm still picking it up Day 1 on Steam regardless.

This is really confusing, the point they’re trying to make hinges on “puritan” somehow changing people’s reactions to this which seems highly unlikely, perhaps it’s the language barrier at play again and don’t understand what that word means exactly.

I hate how being against censorship of any kind and tampering with the creator's vision puts me in league with Elon Musk and the like.

Stop telling creators to censor and change things in the name of 'representation'. I'm a guy but I play Splatoon as the girl since it's the main character. Same in Metroid games as Samus is obviously a girl. If a game has a non-binary mc I will play as them. I don't care about representation as long as the game is good. Minorities are perfectly capable of doing the same without games being changed by an outside force to fit their needs.

speaking for myself, this story gets less clear and less interesting every time.

seriously, if we wanted the blow by blow about whats happening on Xitter we would be on that website instead.

@-wc- Considering Twitter is all over the place and this site is somewhat curated, I'd rather be here. Less chaos.

Count me among the people who actually found this kind of confusing. It almost reads to me like they misunderstood the controversy? I don’t think people are offended because they insulted American education or something (or are they?). I guess I don’t see how changing the words to “puritan” changes anything about the ultimate meaning.

Anyway oh well. This whole “controversy” is silly.

Thanks to wanting to hide old artwork that showed a barely dressed woman, they in fact had the artwork splashed across the internet.

We don’t need her in the game now. That barely dressed woman is in your eyes. She’s in your mind.

They’d have to retranslate the entire quote, because simply changing “sex education” to “puritan” only confuses me more.

Mistranslation or not, the core of the message remains valid. Feeling the need to change to appease silly ideals should be frustrating.

@Samalik it's sad really. Unfortunately he doesn't actually care about censorship and freedom of speech. He just wants Twitter to turn into his own echo chamber. Anything else gets left behind.

@Samalik ?????

@IceClimbersMain ??????

@bippity_bop I think because they want a specific ESRB rating for the game and even with the toggle it would raise it higher than they want.

Stupid for sure, as kids see more going to the beach, but it’s just reality of it all.

That’s a rather major translation screw up, misconstruing those 2 words and then running with it. 性教育 (seikyōiku, “sex ed”) and 清教徒 (seikyōtō, “puritanism”) sound similar, but they’re certainly not homonyms.

I would feel terrible if this controversy was all because of some subtitles that I hurriedly wrote.

That retweet btw only talked about western devs forcing their sterilizing practices on other countries which wasn’t addressed.

Anyway.........

Still day 1.....

@Bonggon5 No, it wouldn't kill anyone but it would cost money.

That's... an epic fail if I've ever read one. I'm buying the game regardless of "misunderstandings".

I read everything above and I still don’t understand who is pissed off about what.

lol
I thought it'd be something bigger.
Mistranslations should be corrected but I don't think anyone was hung up over the "sex education" part.
And if the mistranslation into English was the issue then why didn't they type all this in English? Are they telling Japanese people not to spread videos with a slight mistranslation on Twitter when it was English speakers doing so?
Well, this doesn't really change much, but it'd be nice if the whole video was just translated so nothing can be taken out of context. I'm kinda worried this'll just discourage other creators from talking about this kinda thing.

@Tobiaku yeah, no.

The anti-censorship people are crazy. They literally will point to a minority of not particularly good translation work and use it to paint the broadest brush possible over pretty much all of the practice of translation and localization, and show they have zero concept for why localization matters.

I have seen unlocalized dialogue. Direct translation is always noticeably stiff and off-putting to read because it feels unnatural in another language. Especially with JPN to English because it feels overly formal. There's no personality to it, and thats not the way an English speaker would actually speak under all circumstances.

If I'm reading this right, they're not thrilled with the changes but they're more annoyed their comments were mistranslated? I can understand that. They seem to be heavily pedantic here though, but as someone who doesnt understand the language I can't say much on it.

@axelhander

Changes shouldn’t be made to appease people who aren’t going to buy the game in the first place.

SE slided them a DM, a very serious one. Damage control to avoid similar fate as Ubisoft. Control the problem to avoid calls from their investors over stock prices dropping.

This is a lot for something that probably only merits a trivia bullet point. This sort of thing is never going away and is probably just some concession to a ratings agency somewhere. It also must be said we are talking about art that will feature little if at all in-game. Once you get the sprite version what's the difference gonna be? 4 or 5 pixels?

You know there is some distance between "that's a bit silly" and "gaming as we know it is over" but I guess you can't make money off of mild annoyance.

I'm a little skeptical here. My current thinking is that the translation was more or less correct, but SE is trying to do damage control by saying it was taken out of context because they're so worried about offending the Western market. I'd love if Source Gaming or someone could provide a more accurate translation, but that's what my thought process is right now. I mean, it makes all the sense in the world:

Square-Enix tells Japanese developer to make all these arbitrary changes to appease the Western market > Japanese developer complies but isn't happy about it > developer talks badly about the West and somewhat indirectly insults his employer > employer gets upset and gives employee a stern talking-to > employer makes a PR move to save face > everyone is confused

Basically, until we get a proper translation, I'm accusing SE of lying to save face. After all, Yuji Horii is a loose cannon, and this wouldn't be the first time SE has had to sound a literal horn to get him to dial it back after speaking out of line. (He announced the DQ1 and 2 remakes like two years ago when he wasn't supposed to.)

Lol. There was a misunderstanding, please allow us to correct that with a massively vague wall of text which ultimately doesn't change the criticisms but gives the impression there was some retraction. That is some world class pr spinning to appease the very people who the original comments were pointed at, who based on the comments here have bought it hook line and sinker.

Fact remains, game was fine and didn't need these changes. The bigger point is any amount of corporate pressure overriding the artistic vision is bad, not just when it's changes you don't like. Funny how many people become corporate shills when it's a change they do like.

@Not_Soos perhaps the entire problem is simply the implication that he used the word “sex” in an interview?

FYI the overall message context is still largely the same after reading the “fixed” version.

Makes you wonder why he bothered with the “I was misquoted” if it was largely over nitpicks as if THAT was why people were losing their minds lol.

It’s not like he was praising everything instead lol. It’s still old Japanese men doing their rant on the West. So yeah this wasn’t a “Musk was being evil and chuds being chuds” scenario some people here are envisioning about.

This is 100% damage control from SE (including with original video taken down) because they likely didn’t expect the DQ creator being “too frank” with his views and potentially scaring away their Western market lol.

Thank God that's been cleared up.

@Bonggon5 Indeed, what better way to compound the confusion by machine translating a statement that faults another translation!

@Arawn93 You are absolutely correct.

@Teksetter I know this is all just academic, and I am sounding awfully pedantic here, but given the context here, confusing "seikyōto" for "seikyōiku" may be a relatively understandable mistake, esp. if someone was doing the translation on the fly.

And to defend the statement a little, I think the mistake is still worth pointing out, even if--and I agree--putting Puritanism back does not really change the semantics of the sentence.

@LadyCharlie I want some of what you're smoking, if that's your takeaway from what you read.

I wonder why they're going so hard for an E10 rating when the original was T. The T-rated mobile port of DQ III on Switch was just on sale last week.

Someone might have already pointed this out, but, not to be rude, but it says Dragon Quest II HD-2D Remake, when it's actually Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake.

@MegaVel91 You mean a game imported from another country and has all of the original mannerisms intact is a bad thing? Really?!

I've said this before, but if the original untranslated text isn't appealing to you, it wasn't written for you. Having rampant localization in the work is just going to obscure the nuances in the long run. There might be a necessity for it in situations when it is genuinely hard to translate, like wordplay or elaboration on a foreign real world item, but for the most part it is possible to make a satisfactory untampered translation.

And speaking of, yes, people in english world do talk formally. "American" isn't the center of the english world

@Samalik Gonna from the bottom up of your post.

Not nearly as formally as a direct translation from Japanese is, and certainly not all the time, as an "untampered" translation would do. Nobody is that formal all the time in every situation, and even though I am American, I'm pretty sure the British don't either.

And your assertion of "if the original untranslated text isn't appealing to you, it wasn't written for you" is pure nonsense. Understanding the original untranslated text requires knowing the language to begin with, and by then, whether or not it's appealing is a moot point.

And you're once again showing like so many others, you have no idea what localization is for. What you're stating about "rampant" localization is the exact opposite of what localization does. It isn't just about making the original understandable to a foreign audience but attempting to bring the nuances forward too, not obscure them.

And no, your assumption of what I said is clearly a bogus and projected reading. Do yourself a favor and don't shove words into my mouth.

EDIT: Adding more to this: translation and localization are not the same thing. Directly translating the text doesn't translate all the meaning and nuance behind it. That's why localization is important. The direct translated words do not always or accurately carry the tone of what is being said.

Do you seriously believe rigidly using formal-sounding speech when a character is getting riled up, is going to convey the tone to the audience? And that's going on the assumption not every line is going to be voiced, as is often the case in a lot of games. The meaning of the words used matters, and the text comes from that meaning, not the other way around. Those of you who want as direct as possible translations are putting the cart before the horse, constantly with that.

@MegaVel91 I was probably trying to make a point while being witty but failed due to my sleep drunkenness now. Didn't mean for you to take it so harshly.

"Nobody is that formal all the time in every situation"
I know those who were religious and oldschool may talk more carefully and formal. I grew up in texas after all and even visited the countryside. So no, that's not really true even for english folk as everyone comes from a different culture or community. Even then, we're talking about a very theatrical media expression, so writers are naturally going to make their characters sound as formal or informal as the creative world allows or even have unique tics. Japanese is not an exception, nor is english. So in essence, I will reiterate, "if the original text isn't appealing to you, it wasn't written with you in mind"

Besides that, if someone looks at enough media from a certain culture, they are naturally gonna pick up on the nuances of the cultural works to begin with,. It doesn't take a japanese lesson to see people adapt themselves as if they traveled to another country and slowly see the similarities and differences, or to take the behaviors in stride and come to understand things the longer they stay. After all, international audiences already do the exact same thing with american media as is.

I'm already aware of the unique situations when localization is absolutely needed, but it's a last resort tool. There are many times when localization really wasn't needed and was still taken as if it was a must. Most recent example in my experience was a mobile game I play having a character who's tic is saying her own name when referring to herself to make her seem more childish and naive. The localization got rid of that and neutered the cuteness of the character as a result. And that's just a tamer example. That in itself could be argued that "nobody talks like that" but that was the charm point.

Well now I’m even more confused 😂

@allergyboyfun
Yes, JE interpreting on the fly has been quite overwhelming every time I’ve been asked to do it, so I certainly can sympathize with the translator. As ridiculous as it seems to me that the translator could believe Hori-san was opining on American grade-school health classes, he/she may have misheard that one word and inferred a little based on it, which sadly resulted in a sentence far more incendiary than the speaker intended. That’s plausible.

Without having the original Japanese transcript or a recording of Hori-san’s statement (maybe he was rushing or mumbled a bit!) to compare with the English translation that made the rounds, I really can’t judge. Lord knows in Japanese, a lot can hinge on just one word in a sentence.
I guess I should reserve judgement on this one.

But a Japanese artist voicing complaints about American ”puritanism” wouldn’t surprise me in the least - you don’t have to live very long in Japan to know there’s some wide cultural differences between our 2 countries.

@FlyingDunsparce
Hear hear! Bravo bravo!

In the end, censoring the original author intent is bad, all of this censoring by the west is making me want region locked console and games again, let uncensored asia region 3 games (with english language) locked to asia country and the censored type A type B weirdness contained for the west only 😕

@bippity_bop outfits affect ratings so maybe not

@LadyCharlie I think you may have mis-read something in the story. They are still upset that their work was censored (in relation to the clothing of the character). They are now expressing their dismay that part of the story was mistranslated in a way that makes it seem like they are angry at Western people. They are not upset with Western culture or people. They are upset that they have to alter their work due to business with these parts of the world and ultimately it alters their work at home in Japan. They want to convey that that wasn't the whole scope of the video, and the way it was edited made it seem like it was as it was sensationalized by gaming media and social media, even though it was small portions of the video chopped up and sewn together. They want to convey that they don't have disrespect for Western culture, but they don't like being controlled by it either. Basically they aren't happy that the translation came off so harsh, when their actual wording wasn't harsh and attacking as it seemed by the bozos who tried to use it for political agendas. They still don't like the fact that they have to change the game to appease people though.

@SuperBro64 ?? one word was mistranslated. Their message was still the same.

@allergyboyfun exactly. Nothing really changes about their message. "America is really strict about sex ed" and "America is Puritan" are basically 2 sides of the same coin. If anything, calling the USA puritanical is more of an insult lol.

so now that we know what the proper word is, does it change the over all sentiment that the developers are annoyed they have to jump through hoops to have their games published in the west?

@Emacster They posted their genuine concerns and opinions, got "harassed" by a certain activist crowd, caved in, and tried to retract their actions as much as they could.

Copy and paste this on YouTube - "Square Enix SCRUBS Anti-Woke TGS Video After Cancel Mob Backlash!!"

...i'm just gonna buy the game and play it and ignore all the noise now 😂

Seemingly a perfect storm of ‘people reading what they want into things they don’t fully understand’, which is the exact feedback-loop that social media and news cycles are set up to propagate.

To be honest, it’s hard to imagine much else while ‘relevance’ (i.e: ‘speed’) and ‘engagement’ (i.e. ‘controversy’) are the two primary financial drivers behind the communication of information.

_{Incidentally, is there a copy of the original, uncut version floating around anywhere? I know the official source has been deleted, but without the original to refer to I’m not sure there’s much use in saying anything beyond the above hand-wavy generalisation.}

@Lightsiyd Are you joking? I can't tell if you are serious here.

@LikelySatan Just post that title phrase on YouTube and you'll know if I'm joking or not.

The lesson that should perhaps be learnt here is that things often get lost in translation and vast cultural differences exist. Just try to be respectful, knowing that these things can occur and that other cultures exisit that have different ideas. Also, machine translations between some langauges are not reliable and news websites are often using such stories as bait for rage engagement.

This "new information" seemingly adds and changes nothing. What am I missing? What is the CORRECT translation if not what originally circulated?? Changing "sex education" to "Puritan" doesn't even make sense.

@Lightsiyd Lol, yeaaaaaah no. I don't want to skew my algorithm toward the types that might gravitate toward that kind of content, thanks. I deal with enough impotent rage online as is. You're speaking here like you are giving instructions to incel guerillas from some bunker.

@LikelySatan I was not trying to be disrespectful, so try not to take it that way. You seem very fond of misinterpreting my comments for some reason, but maybe it's just me.

You can flag content you regret watching and ask YouTube not to recommend similar stuff easily, so you don't have to worry about your algorithms.

Again, I'm not speaking "like you are giving instructions to incel guerillas from some bunker." Spare me the insufferable attitude, especially after refusing to clarify your own doubts when provided a way to.

@Lightsiyd spare you? No problem.

Well that's a misleading headline. I'm also very confused by some of the comments acting like this addendum changes much about their previous comments?? It really doesn't, what we read before is indeed what they said and meant.

I’m bummed out about the alterations, but I freely admit that a part of it is due to wanting something more akin to the more revealing original. Sure, I do also believe in staying true to the original intended designs, and that the west, the US especially, is very prudish when it comes to sexuality, but I’m also not going to downplay that I do like the scantly-clad original. It doesn’t help that the shirt and pants they added are basically flesh-toned. If they needed to add, maybe they shoulda used chainmail and not just pretend with the flesh-colored shirt?

It would be nice if things in games like this changed depending on the player’s age, but that might be more trouble than it’s worth for a bit of pixel titillation.

even if the word is Puritan and not Sex Education, that doesn't take away the rest of what was said in the interview. it's still Crystal clear that the censorship happened, they don't like it, and the fault is the west.

This reeks of some sort of cover-up, you don't scrub an entire interview because a single word was mistranslated.

To all people out there, never ever use Google Translate or any AI generated translation or app. Almost all of them are never truly accurate and some could likely get you into all kinds of trouble especially in my native language too. I had heard a lot of foreign people translating my people's native language using Google Translate and either got beaten up or in a scuffle with another person. If you truly don't know the language have someone else who knew it very well help you understand it or learn the language yourself until you fully understand what to say or not to say.

@MegaVel91 I'd like to add to that as someone who didn't grow up in an english speaking country and got exposed to lot of localized american products.
The job of a localizer is (or at least should be) to convey the author's intentions in a new language in the best possible way. there IS some creative liberties that have to be taken (like when a character is portrayed to have some regional accent, or in cases of song lyrics, jokes, or slang), but ultimately, it's not the job of the localizers to "rewrite" the work, completely changing a phrase to be about something completely different, or changing a character's personality.

The only reason the localization discourse became so toxic and why some people take it too far with the accurate translation thing is because WAAAAAY too many American localizers have been doing the later rather than the former, and that's undeniable.

Heck, my first language is Portuguese, and when I started learning english, I'd watch movies or shows with subtitles, Now I'm trying to learn japanese and it's really freaking distracting when I chose to play a game in the japanese language with english text (a VERY recent example is Fire Emblem Engage), and I can clearly tell that what I'm hearing and what I'm reading aren't remotely the same thing. (One example that always comes to my mind is a support talk where Rosemary is originally worried about gaining weight from eating too many cakes, yet the localization says she's embarrassed about making a silly face while eating. I don't know how anyone can defend that type of crap with a straight face.)

Censorship of any kind is barbaric and completely useless.

IMO Enix were always out of touch with western conventions that's why DQ never had a great track record here. But they really screwed the pooch this time.

The case their arguments resonated with Elon Musk should say it all. He and his brain dead lickspittles are not the market for Dragon Quest.

The idea they're begrudgingly barely changed the official art for a character is a point of contention is dumb. The idea the changes would be enough to satisfy the people who'd criticise it is dumb (it won't), blaming the change on the west is dumb (they choose to change it).

Square Enix really needs to change because it feels like they're sabotaging all their big series.

@Owozifa I wouldn't be surprised if the sprite in-game is doesn't show any design change, hence why the clothes are close to the Warriors skin colour because at the pixel art scale they're using it'd be indistinguishable.

So this storm is likely over how one character will appear in official art and the boxart.

Why am I not surprised? Twitter’s always been a hellhole. More so since Musk took over. And you can’t take 99% of YouTube commentators seriously, either.

That being said, I’m sick of hearing about this nonsense and looking forward to playing the hell out of this in November!

@1day @GamingFan4Lyf that's fair. I hadn't had rating in mind at the time. But, yeah, the game has to be rated for the 'most' content, not the 'least,' for the rating to have meaning.

So I admit I now have less sense of what the comments were supposed to mean, but the general idea of this doesn't really impact whether or not I'm going to play this game. It was the only HD-2D remake I was even remotely interested in, and it still is.

To me, I don't really care about this either way as neither of the designs look all that great (not a fan of the colour scheme and the visual elements don't really flow together in my opinion), but the newer one has a better sword/shield I guess?

Deliberately edited cuts on YouTube? No way!!
I am about to stop YT, because lately all it's been is American Left versus Right videos anyways and they suck.

Nobody listens to each other, it's all sensationalist and it contributes only more negativity.

What annoys me are the people who act like censorship is some new thing that just started recently. Back in the day games like this rarely came to the west at all because they were too risque. At least we get the games now.

@Daniel36 same thing in Europe. I guess tons of people have had enough of it all.
And that pretty much translates into gaming. The industry has been quadrupling down on DEI in recent years and people noticed the games didnt get better because of it. And now we got the situation where pretty much everything will be attributed to DEI and stuff.
Personally I didnt care as much as I rarely if ever play western games, and wouldnt have bought AC or dragon age anyway, but when it started affecting JP it got me worried.

I don’t even understand what this controversy is about. The changes they made were implying other games in the series years ago and nobody batted an eye, and the artwork isn’t even featured in the game since it’s all sprites. So what are people complaining about exactly?

He is right, it shouldn't be so

@Samalik I feel the need to weigh in a little bit. Not to critique or downplay you, mind you, just to offer a counterthought.

The original text of Japanese made RPGs is, by definition, not made with any of us in mind. That is exactly the reason translation shifted to localization to begin with.

You see, it is by comparison pretty easy to translate German, Dutch, French, etc. to English without needing to change much to also convey the meaning behind the sentences.

Comparably, translating Japanese to English, and then rearrange the words to form grammatically correct English sentences is not going to form a coherent story at all. The intended meaning behind it is going to be, quite literally, lost in translation.

That saying exists for a reason.

Japanese is extremely far removed from English in not only alphabet, but also idioms, figurative speech, the list goes on.

That's not even taking into account the etiquette differences in speaking to others, and other cultural differences.

So yeah, I do expect localizations to change that. Most JRPGs exist in a faux European medieval fantasy setting, I kind of expect them to react as faux Europeans. And I don't mind if the Japanese version has them reacting in Japanese manners, I applaud it. That gives Japanese players a way to connect to the characters. But I need to connect to them as well, and that requires at least SOME changes. At the very least.

But honestly, I don't think localizations go far enough. But it's honestly an entirely different discussion.

Just my two cents. Okay, fair enough, this was two dollars worth of text volume.

@Poco_Lypso Just to clarify, I am European too, but get swamped by American "politics", if we can even call it that, on YT all the time.

It's annoying.

I do think we sort of disagree on the whole DEI pushing, though. I applaud efforts to be more inclusive, but at the right times and in the right places. My opinion is too nuanced though to just plop in here. So I will leave it at that. At least for now... Happy to offer my thoughts if people are interested.

@ottoecamn I really feel the need to "weigh in" on one of your points here. Yes, that is a bit of a pun I am making as an overweight dude.

This is not to discredit you, but to simply offer a counterargument to think about.

I am going to quote you so you know what I am referring to:
"I can clearly tell that what I'm hearing and what I'm reading aren't remotely the same thing. (One example that always comes to my mind is a support talk where Rosemary is originally worried about gaining weight from eating too many cakes, yet the localization says she's embarrassed about making a silly face while eating. I don't know how anyone can defend that type of crap with a straight face.)"

Here is one example where I feel the localizers actually did right, whether or not intentional.

Disclaimer first, I do not have nearly enough knowledge of Japanese culture to say my observations are objectively correct or not, but I do observe these things, so I am guessing they are.

Remarks about weight are (rightly) considered to be offensive in most Western countries these days. You might think that obese people are that way because of poor life choices, so take some accountability, right? And in some cases you might be correct.

But obesity in Western civilizations absolutely cannot be singularily attributed to poor individual life choices. A very big part of obesity is simply part of our civilization, and has been passed down, maybe even genetically, from generations before us.

End of part 1.

Here comes part 2. I am really sorry Mods, but I feel this is too important to shorten.

We do not have infinite choice in what we eat, especially not if you have very little disposable income. And a lot of illnesses that make people obese are fully outside of choice. I can name at least one example of an illness that creates obesity even with the healthiest of diets and regular exercise. You cannot fault that person for being obese. It's literally genetic. And when that person gets confronted with such a remark in a game, it's only going to make them feel miserable.

Whenever I see pictures of the general Japanese public, I do not see a lot of obesity. I am guessing their culture, their entire way of living, including diet and governmental choices and everything else that affects daily living, affects their bodies in a way that they are not quickly to become obese. At least not as quickly as some Western places. So in that sense, yes, when you eat a lot of cakes, you will gain some weight. I can see how that feels less offensive to the general public.

It can still make some people feel uncomfortable, mind you, but it's in a different league. I am also guessing that not a lot of Japanese people body shame the people around them in the same crass manner that we see in many Western countries.

I am not saying I am completely in the right here, mind you, simply offering some counterargument. But I really do feel that in this case, the localizers did right. It is insensitive to make people feel insecure and selfconscious over their own bodies. It is insensitive when it is entirely not their fault they are obese, but also even when it is.

Changing it has very little to do with changing art. It's not like we are reading classical literature here. It's unnecessary, in its original form, for Western audiences.

I do not hear many people cry over movie adaptations changing some things. "Well, this doesn't work in a movie that's only 90 minutes, so I get why they changed it."

Well, this here doesn't work in Western society (anymore), so I get why they changed it.
End

@Daniel36 I mean YT will feed you with content based on your preferences, so....

“Listen to me, Lancelot. You can’t go to battle dressed like that. A chainmail mankini and a bow tie won’t protect you. Also, you’ll look a fool in court and embarrass us all. It’s unbecoming of a knight!”

“What about if I wear these tan briefs underneath, Gawain? You know, it gives the same look but I won’t flash the King every time I bend over to pick up my morningstar.”

“Wow! It really does make all the difference!”

@Poco_Lypso Well, not really.

Example; I watched a few podcasts on YT. So that might tell YT I like podcasts. Unfortunately, a lot of podcasts are very hard leaning political podcasts, so it is constantly pushing that crap on me too. And that goes for both left and right leaning podcasts, I hate them (almost) equally.

And when I watch shorts, I make sure to tell YT not to recommend channels that offer me certain things, yet it KEEPS pushing that very specific content (from different channels) on me. Like, I get the same comedian I despise in my feed all the time, because he happens to work with another comedian that I watched a few things of. I can block that content all I want, it keeps coming back.

So no, that is not entirely correct.

If you replace "sex education" with "puritan" in that sentence, it makes absolutely no sense

@Daniel36 Actually income isnt a problem at all. In fact, once u start eating healthier food and stop buying stuff thats obectively bad or questionable u will save alot of money, its crazy, lol.

@Poco_Lypso Not sure where you live, but my country, for all its good things, isn't very cheap when it comes to healthy food.

I'll be the first to admit I don't always make the right choice when it comes to food, but the wrong choice is oftentimes twice as cheap as a healthy option. Its crazy lol.

I don't make a terrible living, but there are plenty families with far less to spend than me.

Am I crazy or can someone explain to me how this changes anything? Yuji Horii and Torishima are still frustrated at unnecessary alterations and censorship to appease the west's selectively puritan sensibilities. That's literally what we all assumed he meant when we heard 'sex education' anyways, if anything the argument is now MORE clear about that sentiment with the correct verbiage.

I'm failing to see the big misinformation here that caused this interview to be scrubbed from the internet. People are saying this story is purely damage control by Square Enix, and at this point I can't say I disagree.

@Greenmanalishi Some people are pissed off that there are boobs in games. Other people are pissed off that there are not boobs in games. Both sides look very ridiculous.

@Daniel36 Precisely this. Thinking being able to eat healthy all the time, especially in some places, is an arrogant mindset. The less healthy stuff is cheaper to put to market and easier for the consumer to buy.

The only reason you could possibly "Save lots of money" is by the fact you're able to buy less food when going for pure healthy options.

But, basically, other than a misinterpretation of the word that was supposed to be puritan, the sentiment is the same. At least that's all I got from the statement. They certainly didn't say anything to contradict what I got from the previous slightly incorrect translation anyway. And I still agree with the overall sentiment as portrayed and interpreted in that video.

@Daniel36 I live in Poland, not the richest country in the world.
When I go buy bread at a supermarket I have the choice between countless 'white' breads and whole grain bread. The prices are roughly the same. So which one should I pick? Its often the most basic food which is most healthy vs. all kinds of processed foods which are a) expensive and b) presumably not very healthy.
There is also tons of stuff with refined sugars. Compare the price of a bottle of coke vs a bottle of still water. u have to pay several times the price for a bottle of coke, pretty obvious which one is the healthy option.
Or cereals, most cereals are again, expensive and not healthy, a cheaper and healthier option is to go oatmeal.
These are just basic examples.

@cmlobue Thank you.🙏🏻

@MegaVel91 Well, misinformed mindset maybe.

@cmlobue I would have to agree with you.

@Poco_Lypso Believe it or not, here in Holland it is very often the exact other way around.

At one point, the price of an off-brand energy drink (think Red Bull) was LESS THAN HALF the price of a bottle of water. I am not even exaggerating. A bottle of water was like 1 Euro a bottle, where the can of energy drink was something in the ball park of 50 cents or something. Of course, that is a bottle of take-away water, and you have cheaper options, but it was insane to me to see those two side by side.

Just a quick search;
Brocolli is currently 1.25 a kilo. You will still need something to go along with that. Potatoes,1.85 a kilo. And if you only need half a kilo? Same price.

A box of 3 pizzas is 3.89 - and I know for a fact that box was 2,99 a couple of months ago.

That's just a quick search. It's INSANE how much more expensive healthy options are in our country. And don't get me wrong, the Netherlands is a good place to live, for me at least, I am not complaining, but there are people that really do not have the luxury to afford healthy food.

One can argue that they then also do not have the luxury to buy a game like Fire Emblem to get offended by a weight joke, but that doesn't make such a comment any less unnecessary.

Real translation: Victims of indoctrination panic when they see a human body because generation after generation has been taught to feel guilty about their bodily functions.

The problem is that we let these people win all the time.

@Daniel36
Yeah... I respectfully completely disagree with everything you just said. And I find that mentality extremely negative.

In the example I gave, for that character, who is an attractive woman constantly talking about her own beauty and proud of her figure, being concerned about weight gain is perfectly natural and in character, the idea that a certain character isn't allow to talk about a certain topic because someone somewhere might be offended is asinine. It's literally changing art and stifling creativity (ironically, this is something Shuntaro Furukawa himself spoke out against when Sony's new censorship policy was being implemented and he wanted to make clear Nintendo would not impose on what third partied can and can't publish).

People who have an issue with being overweight aren't gonna magically feel better about themselves because they removed a line about a character being concerned about her own weight from a game. And this goes for any other taboo topic.
Thus I'll reiterate, it's not the Job of the localizer to alter the original script. It doesn't matter if the culture being translated for has different sensibilities, because the foreign product was made with the values and sensibilities of its country of origin, and that should be respected.

@Kingy it doesn't.
The context and the message is still exactly the same, but a lot of websites are trying to use this statement (which, let's face it, was probably forced from above, cuz it doesn't make sense to scrub an entire interview over a single mistranslated word) to completely invalidate the point about censorship.

@ottoecamn So you respectfully disagree but find my comment extremely negative? Sorry, not trying to be co descending, but that sounds a bit contradictory. I am not trying to be negative... what do you mean?

I will concede that I took that line out of the context I don't know existed, that of her character being who she is.

And her talking about herself is in many cultures absolutely fine and won't be seen as offensive towards others, Japanese culture to me seems to be that way. However, and that was the point I was trying to make, perhaps poorly, is that comments about oneself is in plenty Western cultures also often considered a direct jab at others. Which is why I believe this was not a bad change.

But I am not saying removing a line is going to make people magically feel better. I am saying changing that line makes sure they won't feel worse.

I do really wonder how my comment is being construed as negative, because I am not trying to sound as such.

@Daniel36 "Most JRPGs exist in a faux European medieval fantasy setting, I kind of expect them to react as faux Europeans."

You might have something there if we're talking about a game as exhaustively European-feel as, say, Dark Souls, but a lot of the Japanese RPGs that come out with faux European settings are written more like a bunch of otaku around a table of dungeons and dragons. So despite trying out the European setting, it's naturally going to stick out as being written by foreigners who never lived in the setting. And that in itself can be seen as the charm to us in the west.

That's kind of an example of what I mean with "not written with you in mind". Because if you can connect or have fun with something like that as is, it was written with you in mind.

The message is still the same thou. But it looks like Square Enix is starting to pressure them into cover up what they said.

@Samalik Fair enough. I like your explanation. And I guess I sort of misunderstood what you meant, or at least we are on a slightly different field of the subject.

Yeah, I am no otaku. I like many parts of the animé aesthetic, but certainly not all. In that sense, DQ is indeed not intended for me. A game like FF XII is heaps closer to my taste. Suikoden too, though I dislike certain "cute" monsters. Yeah, DQ is not "written" for me in thar sense. I was more aiming at certain cultural refrences, but mannerisms as well, that are simply too foreign for Western audiences to understand. In that sense, localization is a must.

But we are steering far away from the bikini armor. Sorry mods.

@fenlix seems some activists got offended. is this 1984 twilight zone? lmao. its pretty stupid when u think about it, an opinion is only good when it fits the narrative? otherwise its time to cancel people? people should wake up

@Poco_Lypso I guess you are right. There is no modern audience in that sense. But if we are talking about meaningless labels, add woke to that list, please. That label has lost its meaning all the same.

no one like censorships in their games but i dont see a problem with this one but anyone wants to complain about censorship look at wat facebook is doing over there censoring like crazy especially wen it comes to anime artwork which is dumb as hell.

Yuri Horii has made no such statement. Neither has Torishima. The radio station in charge of the show made the statement. Not to mention only a single word in the almost three minute segment was mistranslated. This slight error did not alter the context of what was being said.

It's funny if they're worried that they came off as hating the west, when so many gamers in the west also hate the west. We've all been arguing about which westerners they're complaining about, who we also hate.

@Poco_Lypso "labels such as bigot, sexist or racist have outstayed their welcome and dont mean anything anymore." says the person throwing around the current buzzword 'woke'. That word needs to go in the bin too, especially since the people throwing the biggest fits about it never seem to have a clear definition of it.

@amongtheworms
Underrated comment.

But speaking of design changes, Dragon Quest is known to have ridiculous clothes for playable characters and NPCs. Being a jester is literally a job in many DQ games, or dressing up as a Slime Stack or a cat suit etc.
Also there's a warrior NPC in the DQ7 3DS remake who looks almost exactly like the original female warrior but with a tiny bit of cloth added to the sides as a kind of side skirt, lol. Even that would've been better than what we got.
No censorship is best, but I think we can all agree that if you're going to alter a ridiculous design, you could at least still keep it the good kind of ridiculous.

@Poco_Lypso please define woke

@ottoecamn Square Enix just keeps on digging that hole.

@Poco_Lypso predictable deflection

Very odd turnabout, seems like someone or some people advised the creator to tamp down the alleged controversy. I'm unconvinced he is really all good with changes made to the game.

@Poco_Lypso You're one to talk about meaningless labels when you're planting woke into every other sentence.

Dragon Quest has always struggled to appeal the west, so even if you think there's a "modern audience " that doesn't exist. They're also not really appealing to the audience that does exist either.

If its consistently trailing games like Final Fantasy and Fire Emblem outside Japan despite DQ being the older RPG, then they're obviously doing something wrong.

@Poco_Lypso @nessisonett No he isn’t; you can’t have it both ways. You also assume that adding more inclusion to a game is a less popular stance. You are being hypocritical

@Poco_Lypso You’re also being disingenuous in your definition

@Dr_Lugae Why do u think its a meaningless label (or term)?

JRPGs have always been pretty niche. Unicorn Overlord has recently surpassed 1 million sales worldwide and that probably counts as a success. DQ11 sold 6,5M with 2M in the US alone. Thats better than star wars outlaws.

What a weird mess. From what I can tell, the story so far...

• The creators complained about the ridiculousness of America.
• Someone quickly subtitled the relevant part in English, mistranslating at least one word.
• Elon Musk saw it and said "This is insane".
• Worried they were being called insane, the creators tried to erase the evidence, and appease Japanese audiences by claiming it was all a mistranslation.
• But English audiences are used to mistranslations, and the message was clear anyway.

@Samalik @SalvorHardin @Eel @jaughndis

Since I couldn't find a proper translation anywhere to try and show how 'puritan' would even make sense, here's one I did up myself.

• Chris: Oh, on a slightly different topic, there's also the "Look A" and "Look B" thing...
• Horii: Oh, right. There is, isn't there.
  Well, if you change jobs to a Wizard, you turn into an old man, right? Some kids don't like that stuff.
  So now it's different, and you get to choose.
• Chris: There was also a lot of talk about the costumes, concerning whether they would be the same as before or not.
• Horii: Right. Well, there were various regulatory measures. Like "You can't show too much skin".
• Chris: Oh... Well... That's a point I don't intend to dig too deeply about...
  But it's fine though. It's fiction, but becoming a fictional hero and going out on adventures, that's totally fine...
  Am I wrong about that?
• Horii: What is that about anyway? I don't get it myself.
• Chris: It's a game. It's fiction, but your virtual experience inside that fiction is what's real, so surely, as long as it's fun, then it's fine.
  That's what I can't help but think.
• Horii: Well, if you show too much skin, it'll raise the age rating. It won't be 'for all ages' anymore.
• offscreen: Well, each country has different rules, so if you want to sell it in lots of places, you can't help but worry about the strictest place.
• Chris: Back in the day, nobody thought about things like that...

• Torishima: But there's this thing named 'compliance'...
  It's well... A kind of... How should I put it... Absolute god, should I call it?
  Like an evil acting in the name of good.
  Nothing will ever cause no discomfort in everyone.
  Sure, you can learn about the trends here and over in every other country.
  But I mean, nice and nasty, good and evil — everyone has their own perspectives on them.
  When creating things, at the core of it... There's some things that you must never do, but as long as you're not doing those, you can do anything, right?
  But it's not like that.
  There's... Um... In the West — Coming over from the UK and US, coming over from the West...
  In America, there's this puritanical thinking that comes from their religious ideas, right?
  Their idea of 'compliance' is really narrow-minded.
  Even when they release manga volumes over there, they have to split them up by ages.
  They can't release Shonen Jump manga volumes unless they say "13 up", for 13 years and above, on them.
  All the stock would have to be reprinted.
  And they get lawsuits over it, so they need insurance too.
  Dealing with such a stupid country is a huge pain.
  And Japan's being negatively influenced by all that, too.
• Horii: Even with the main character, you choose between male or female, but you can't say "Choose between a man or woman".
  It's "Type 1 or Type 2".
  Male and female... Who even is complaining about that? I don't get it.

@Antraxx777

if u google it u get this:

the quality of being alert to and concerned about social injustice and discrimination.

sounds very good on paper and I totally see myself as such a person.

But in reality its about accepting all kinds of non-sense that you may actually not agree with at all but will accept anyway because the woke camp will use all available tools such as bullying, harassment campaigns, cancelling people etc. thats how it is. it also depends on the time and place I guess. in some countries u will be labelled as a racist if ur against illegal migration in others u will be merely a regular patriot. Either way it all reminds me of newspeech from the 1984 book.

@Antraxx777 I dunno why I’ve been dragged into this person’s clear breakdown. Pretty funny to see them decrying woke with a Morgana pfp though considering the Phantom Thieves are literal SJWs.

@Daniel36 I wasn't trying to sound condescending. I do find your interpretation negative, but I didn't mean that as a disrespect towards you

That's what I meant is that I don't think the mindset of "someone somewhere by be offended by this dialogue and/or content therefore we must change it" is a healthy one for creative works. It'd basically create an environment where the creators have to constantly walk on egg shells, and when you try to create something that appeals to everyone, you end up appealing to no one. And in the context of localization, it's disrespectful to the original author because it's not the localizer's story to change, and the fact that they so readily and shamelessly go around changing lines they don't personally agree with is precisely why many people lost their respect for the profession.

@bluesun Thank you very much for this Sensei!

@ZeldaFan83 Agreed.

EDIT - Which isn't to say there cannot be changes, nor new options. But you have the right of it.

@nessisonett there is nothing wrong with fighting for social justice.

@ottoecamn Right! Well, good to know we can respect one another regardless of opinion.

I understand where you are coming from though. I just don't see it as harmful to change certain things. Especially not if it makes the product better. Granted, in this cake example, the changed text wasn't better, but I also see it as a harmless change.

There are, however, instances where localization definitely elevated the game. FF XII comes to mind. I obviously don't know the JP version, but the English version had a very Shakespearian vibe in its script. I am guessing the original JP script was in the same tone as, say, a FF VII. So they changed the writing to be Shakespearian-esque (for lack of a better word). The voice acting also had a very matching accent, very British sounding. It made the game world so much better.

Maybe that is also why I have no gripe about localizers taking liberties. I LOATHE the American bratty teenage vibe a lot of RPGs carry, with matching VA.

Eiyuden Chronicles comes to mind. The girl character in the start was insufferably contemporary American. VA was turned off the minute I was able to, but even in the writing, it oozed anachronistic mannerisms.

Hopefully my explanations give you some insight into why I don't mind changes as much.

@Samalik

(Nintendo Life get some Japanese writers into your workforce, you write about a traditionalist japanese company ffs)

This. Nintendo Life is huge, makes no sense to act like a blog and use a machine to translate japanese text.

Nintendo Everything is smaller but they always do direct translation.

@Daniel36 All good mate! I appreciate we can disagree without animosity!

I'll say this (and I think we might've found some common ground here actually), I do agree that localizers SHOULD have a limited amount of creative liberty, there are such things as jokes, local expressions, metaphors, and song lyrics that simply don't translate, and I'm certainly not against reworking a lines to sound natural as long as they're not altering the original content or information being conveyed.

I gave Fire Emblem Engage as a bad example because it goes out of its way to completely change what characters are saying (and from what I hear Eiyuden Chronicles isn't much better), but one example that came under certain scrutiny recently that I actually defend is Unicorn Overlord. The game is a medieval fantasy, and thus, the localizers opted to make the dialogue more flowery and sophisticated, like you'd see in most western fantasies, but (as far as I know) they didn't do that thing where they altered personalities, or completely changed the lines into something completely different from the original, They just delivered it in a way that they believed would feel natural to the setting. That's something I'm completely fine with.

Another Example is actually from the game and character my Profile pic is from, in the Senran Kagura Series, Shiki is a Gyaru who learned speak English so she sprinkles some English lines here and there. Gyarus are a type of fashion sub-culture popular among young girls in Japan, so her manner of speech was adapted into an American Valley Girl (which is the closest equivalent to a Japanese Gyaru, even though it's not exactly the same), and her English lines were changed to French, since it wouldn't make sense to keep her foreign language lines in English when that's the language the game was being translated into.

Ultimately, The main thing I require is that the original intent be preserved. There is a time and place for artistic liberty but don't have a guy hold up an Onigiri and tell me it's a Jelly-filled Donut.

@ottoecamn Well, we weren't so far on opposite ends as we thought.

I will say though, I think in the canon of Western localizations, it is widely accepted that Onigiri, shape and all, is a Jelly-filled Donut. Seems to be in every game that has them.

Yeah, Unicorn Overlord had some good localization. Not great, but good. I still think they could've gone further. If memory serves me well, the best one I have seen so far is the PSP remaster of Final Fantasy Tactics, and FF XII was also really good. The Tactics Ogre remaster was also great, I think. Can't remember, it's been a little while since I played any of them.

Unicorn Overlord doesn't quite come as close, but it was a valiant effort.