Alexander O. Smith Returns to Discuss Localization | State of the Arc Podcast

[@suikoarke]

Thank you for opening up these kinds of conversations. We need to have more honest discourse like these to set an example for how people should engage with each other online and offline.

[@TJTheEmperor]

I love that you guys have been able to interview Smith. His translation of Vagrant Story is still, decades later, a high water mark for Japanese video games

[@1SpicyMeataball]

Agreed. Takes the text and enhances it. It's a damn masterpiece.

[@rdrouynriv]

Vagrant Story is the high point for him, (a damn near masterpiece), but I have to admit that I wasn't a fan of his Final Fantasy Tactics translation. There was a charm to some of the lines in the original PS1 translation that was lost in his version. Delita had a simplicity and rudeness to his lines that fit his commoner status better, and he went too far with the fancifulness in some of his lines in the remake.

[@RokkouA1]

@@rdrouynriv He didn't do Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions.

[@rdrouynriv]

@@RokkouA1 Oh really, I didn't know that. Good to know. Edit: It was Joe Reader, not him. Dude took out my favorite line in the game "Don't blame me, blame God."

[@skizm5804]

@@rdrouynriv it was "Tough... Don't blame us. Blame yourself or God."

[@Shiftarus]

I am loving the new ideas and direction. You both are not only analytical and knowledgeable but also understanding and compassionate. Perfect for interviews with experts!

[@PluieMelodique]

Absolutely agree

[@Azazel226]

I enjoyed that Alex seemed to enjoy his time with us. Enjoyment was had.

[@Burak_C]

Hearing about trying to match the audio frame counts and the fitting it to memory made me physically vince. I would have quit the job on the spot if it were me. Props to Alexander for not doing that. Amazing to hear about the dark ages of transition. I have been really enjoying this translation arc in the arc podcast btw love the quality of it. Gotta say you guys are really improving this year on the quality factors.

[@Tochir0]

I had the pleasure of meeting Alex and talking with him on several occasions when I lived in Tokyo from 2011 to 2015. We as appreciators of Japanese media are lucky to have him making these works more widely accessible. He genuinely loves this stuff. IMHO, someone with his intellectual gifts could be making millions selling his soul in tech or finance, but instead he’s grinding it out as a man of letters (who can also expound on Magic the Gathering’s in-game lore.)

[@kadenkyarel]

One example of "censorship" that really bothered me in the past 10 years was in Bravely Second on the 3ds. In Japan one of the classes, Hawkeye IIRC, was designed to look like old school western Native Americans. To resolve the "issue" of "upsetting" today's First Nations people the original models/outfits we're replaced with Cowboy outfits. I, being a First Nations person, would have loved to play a character in a game that reflected some part of my history. It amazes me that no one caught how ridiculous it was to replace a Native American theme with Cowboys.

[@riuphane]

I would love to know more about that. The reasons behind it, who was involved and what the thought process was, how others viewed it and general public reception. It's interesting to me how many times I've seen people/groups/companies try to alter or avoid a subject for fear for the backlash only to be criticized for "white washing" or minimizing the issue underneath. I myself am constantly worried about offending others unintentionally and it feels like many cases are "no win" situations. So many people of different backgrounds and beliefs are too driven by offense to take the time to understand the circumstances and position these things are coming from. Intent should be the first consideration, but it's easy to be overtaken by emotion, especially when there is a historical precedent or pattern of "bad faith".

[@XanderVJ]

That's not the kind of censorship that goes through translators, outside of maybe asking for an opinion. Those are usually from way up the corporate ladder and/or the regional marketing department.

[@DD-fs7pg]

​@@XanderVJ While not directly from localization, both are related for sure. Its part of the overarching team of bringing the game over to the states. This trickles down and up.

[@Vulpas]

@@kadenkyarel They tried so hard to be inoffensive that they actually did something genuinely objectionable, typical woke scenario really.

[@m.j.gallagher6756]

So glad you were able to follow up on the previous interview. It was fascinating!

[@RalphNC09]

Three hours, HOT DAMN! BTW, I know I'm a year late on this but I just purchased Outer Wilds on my PS5. Once I finish the game, I'm going to binge all your episodes on it... which I'm hugely excited for because this game does so much right, it's so subtle. I also picked up the book "The Beginners Guide to Constructing the Universe" that Casen recommended to me about a year ago. You guys were talking about symbolism in one episode, and I asked where I could learn about that. I'm hoping to read it soon! Just wanted to let you know you've influenced people and that some of us are still looking to watch old content.

[@LS1Highwind]

Their Outer Wilds coverage was great. I hadn't played it before so I bought it and played along. I definitely shared a lot of their feelings on it as well, amazing game.

[@twincherries6698]

I've been playing Outer Wilds too, funny

[@doublezeta2025]

I love how open and civil this conversation is. This is how opposing views should be discussed.

[@HaroldOgden]

Appreciated the reference to Hanlon's razor and you all made the point well. This happens in my industry too - there's this assumption that the "opponent" is effective and efficient. Reality is quite different. We refer to this as the "perfect opponent fallacy" - it is a lot easier to be critical of something when it's simple, and the less perfect the opponent is, the more complex the conversation and assertions need to be. Great job on the series and thanks for hosting this conversation.

[@ferrousgolem1]

This was very educational, hearing from Alexander again was a real treat.

[@Rosamune]

Absolutely incredibly well done video series on the topic! Keep it up, this channel is #1 in my mind when it comes to gaming discussions.

[@charleslux3227]

Another great talk with Alexander. Good job, guys. I am learning so much about localization from these.

[@MillenniumEarl014]

@@charleslux3227 What did you learn?

[@Sauvenil]

Hanlon's Razor - I quote it a lot. "Never attribute to malice that which could be attributed to incompetence."

[@locdogg86]

i thought that was interesting. But i do think that the incompetence has led to certain individuals that do act maliciously or selfishly.

[@NowWeAreAllGames]

Bowled over by how informative and thoughtful these videos have been. I’ve learned so much.

[@Darkenesis]

I would not object at all if Alex became a regular guest; there is a great chemistry in play, he's incredibly intelligent and insightful, I love hearing his perspectives and history, and I have loved the podcasts featuring him. They're really special, I hope he returns again and again in the future. And just because he doubted it, I made it to the end of both episodes. :p

[@joshelstro7581]

It’s wild to me how gracious Alexander is with his time. But I get the sense he genuinely enjoys getting to talk shop to hobbyists like this in a public setting. Great stuff. Regarding the matching exact frames of the original Japanese audio file, I’d be fascinated to hear it go deeper. Im an audio engineer with lots of experience in radio where things often had to be read to the exact second (often times live). You do get used to it. But I can only imagine trying to figure it out as translators and not broadcasters/performers n one of the earliest games to do it though. I’m wondering how often they leave you frames of silence on either end of a file, or vice versa if doing the read short and leaving silence is an option? I’d often have to trim up pauses or leave a slight tail of silence to make reads hit exactly 20 seconds or whatever in my experience.

[@AshenVictor]

I'm pretty sure one of the things they had to do was speed the audio files up very slightly sometimes. It's more likely when translating from Japanese to English that you end up with something longer rather than something shorter. On FFX especially I recall hearing that they basically discovered these problems once they got around to doing the localisation because, well, it was the first fully voiced game they'd done and nobody had thought of what might happen when they had to localise the audio.

[@nolly_nd]

As someone who's first language is spanish but grew up with videogames, and learned english from them; never had much of a choice so any translation was the "natural one". I thought the recent uproars on social media were just people complaining for the sake of complaining but now I uderstand their stand, I just wish they could try to ask and listen a bit more before pointing fingers right from the start. You guys have been putting up a great example of how a conversation can be followed through. Learned a lot; will try to apply the same approach whenever possible.

[@cloudmv15]

I can relate to this, am from Mexico myself and my English got better by reading a lot of manga and watching anime with subs in English.

[@OniLink99999]

These videos have been amazing you guys - thanks for having this incredibly interesting conversation!

[@barry_esmail]

Hello, I'm a new viewer that came in during the Zakogdo podcasts because I follow him on twitter. First, I applaud and appreciate everything you're doing. Second, I really appreciate the followup with Mr. Alexander O. Smith. However, there is something I want to say that most people aren't aware of. Alexander talked about how to adapt something to the target audience and language where you have to consider the target culture norms, which yes makes sense, but there is a problem here. The problem here being it's the English language. The most globally used language and right now, the common tongue at this point. Let me break this down, I'm Egyptian so naturally we speak Arabic plus we learn English in school. However, most media, be it books, movies, games, etc... don't get translated/dubbed in Arabic so naturally we use the English products. That doesn't only apply to Arabic people, that probably applies to all languages besides the most common ones, like French, German, Spanish, etc... Even when people translate something using fansubs, they usually translate it to English because it's the global language. So right now, I feel like English as a language is suffering from success where not only you have to focus on the target culture but also the rest of the world. Usually on twitter when there is an argument about subtitles not being accurate, those people around the world, me included, get lumped in the group of White people who want to be Japansese, which isn't the case. It's all about experiencing this foreign piece of media as it was published from the source. And I'm aware that stuff can get changed/cut during production, so that's not what I'm referring to. All in all, I just want to see localization at least acknowledge and somehow address that point. It's not a perfect solution, but I know some people, me included, who would actually pay extra money for another faithful subtitle option sold as a DLC.

[@stanm4410]

I agree that a non-localized/Japanese accurate subtitle track sold separately (or included) as a DLC is the simplest way for the JP companies to satisfy the growing number of people who want that kind of translation. The cost to do voice-over for that subtitle track is probably too much and it sounds like most people who feel this way prefer to use the JP audio with English subs anyway.

[@barry_esmail]

@@stanm4410 That's exactly my point of view as well. No need for recording the English dub for that version, we just need the subtitles.

[@AroldoReiss]

Brazillian here, I feel the same as you. Also I found the whole "Don't like it? Do better" angle was kinda weird and unecessary. Does that mean I cannot comment on the Drive System mechanics in Street Fighter 6 since I don't know how to code? This is a customer complaint, it's not a colleague criticizing another's work.

[@Mclucasrv]

I agree Im from Brazil and when they do that flowery stuff it makes so hard to enjoy it.

[@bigbenefits]

@barry_esmail unfortunately this is supply and demand. While in other countries and Brazil especially ganes are very popular, they don't have the buying power to justify on a budget level that level of translation I imagine

[@xvct2661]

Yes ultimate respect for you guys definition of good faith and how actual productive discourse is conducted

[@Savin877]

Is there ANY chance we can actually get some people of "opposing sides" on your Podcast? I would love to actually present myself. I have done translations on visual novels, manga, and even "adult" work in that genre. And would happily put a name and face out there that Alexander says doesn't happen from the other side. I would love to continue having this conversation.

[@rdrouynriv]

That sounds like a great idea.

[@FartPriest69]

I believe zakogdo was their attempt at inviting someone on the 'opposed side'. Would love to actually hear/see someone and their opinions regarding this discussion but zakogdo was still a great guest regardless

[@locdogg86]

I like how you put that. I think when they said when ever something feels orchestrated it's probably in competence. I think the incompetence has led to individuals that are indeed orchestrating selfishly or maliciously.

[@kvltovpersonality6290]

I second this

[@VaguePS25]

Don't normally comment but just wanted to let you know this dialogue was very interesting and pointed out a lot of things I would've never considered. I loved hearing Alex's examples of breaking down translation given specific contexts. Keep up the great content guys.

[@Byakkoya11037]

Finally finished this, super glad I did. I'm amazed at how educational this was. I was even on the "Eiyuden's localization is iffy" bandwagon before seeing this. I wish this platform valued this kind of content more.

[@AshenVictor]

The example of turning a concept drawing into a model goes even further, because there's almost certainly at least four people involved in making that model, the modeller, the texture artist, the rigger, and the animator, any of which might be more than one person, and each of them are going to have to make choices about how to interpret what the concept art shows to try and turn it into an in-game model where the limits of the possible are different at each stage and there are going to be different economic constraints on top (like "are we using the same rig for lots of different characters, if so this one can't be left handed because the rig doesn't do that").

[@eternalbraid]

Amazing talk! I feel like these lessons on judgement and people judging on their own pov instead of trying to understand what someone was trying to say could be applied to even a shared language.

[@steveb3320]

To all three of you, thank you. It’s so refreshing to see this deep level of dialogue and on this topic in particular. 45 min in as of this comment but loved the last discussion and am enjoying this one even more so far! 👍

[@khallil]

This may hold a record for the fastest 3 hours I've ever experienced. Long live Resonant Arc

[@rmsgrey]

Many years ago, I came across an interview with the English translator of the Asterix books, who, talking about how translating comedy often involved a balancing act - a given joke doesn't translate, so you invent a joke elsewhere on the same page to replace it. As an example, there's a panel in Asterix in Britain, where, in the background, a fruit seller is addressing an unhappy customer: "Are you saying my melons are rotten?" "Rather, old fruit". Apparently when the original creators were shown that change, they were only upset that they hadn't thought of it themselves (apparently that joke translated well enough into French).

[@MathieuPronovost]

2:00:38 I am a Japanese-to-English translator and have passed the JLPT N2. It took me around 10,000 hours of study to reach that level.

[@Nekomania]

How many hundreds if not thousands of hours do you think it'll take for N1 if you even intend to go that far.

[@MathieuPronovost]

@@Nekomania Maybe another 3,000 hours. It's hard to say for sure.

[@Nekomania]

@MathieuPronovost well best of luck when you do try it!! I have enjoy learning japanese but i mostly use it as a way to talk with friends i've made in gachas or cosplay events. So i'm not sure if i'll take the test since i'm just happy to learn the language and communicate with others.

[@Faolain_]

Could you briefly describe your studying process and/or methods?

[@MathieuPronovost]

@@Faolain_ The bulk of my studies involves using flashcards on the Anki app with custom settings. Most of my flashcards are for single kanji, individual words, and complete sentences.

[@quintec45]

Alexander, great return to the podcast! I agree with most of what was said. We indeed have a majority of common ground. Always happy to talk with people in the community. However, some points of clarification for everyone about the other side: The "equivalent" argument is being taken too literally. We want to hear the story and characters devs did tell or would feel comfortable telling to what they consider to be their primary audience when the media is written. We want to experience as close as possible to what it was like for the original audience while also having a non-dry localization. We understand the limits, we want a balanced approach that leans toward accuracy. On "co-creation" and "censorship," we don't want people making too many decisions about what might be "confusing" morally. With the police officer example, if we have a "Western" moral reaction to the behavior, that's fine, we want that. The kotatsu example, a lot more people in the target audience understand this entire scenario than you give them credit for. The core niche audience will know and it should be the job of a mass media reader to bridge that gap. Communities should assist that bridge. When this isn't done it just makes foreign media diet-American media instead. The cultural differences is what makes the media of something like a detective story appealing to the community that likes Japanese media. We also just simply disagree on the concept of what is mass market or simple "entertainment." To some what is "only entertainment" is impactful art to many others. The broader censorship conversation is continuing to be referenced so I'll say this; The lengths devs have to go to literally self-censor on Playstation, which is now based in the US, vs Nintendo or PC should be example enough of a lopsided treatment of foreign devs as an "other." When this happens to games being imported from the West in foreign countries, this is also bad. There is another, darker side to "passion" in the translation/localization field. Upfront I should say that translator and localizers should be payed a lot more and receive royalties. Personally coming from the field of professional journalism, the field is so underpaid that the people remaining are extremely passionate OR they enter the field for other, less than noble purposes. These people are much more rare than the passionate folk, but they do exist and can do a lot of harm. When some bad actors find a job that provides power over a community and one of the only barriers to entry is bad pay then they see an opportunity to exert their will. See also the prominence of "bad egg" stories among teachers or police. The lack of pay also leads to rushed jobs and quality control like Ys 8, which luckily was fixed. The lexicon of English sources from numerous other languages. An approach to the way we look at localizations would likely just bring Japanese and other languages, words and ideas into a broader English language so we can covey more ideas, more accurately. For example Itadakimasu should be simply translated as Itadakimasu. The general audience should just learn that. In the same way a lot of modern Japanese nouns/verbs is just Englishisms or the way Sayonara is just a word that is sometimes used in English. The goal should be to bring a greater understanding of the cultural reality of places to everyone. Many modern localizations attempts to create immersion by removing cultural barriers or replacing them with localized ones. What we want instead is to make what is perceived as "cultural barriers" immersive through experience in the same way people get used to genre conventions. Generally speaking we also think that this will also be financially viable as we think an artfully done cultural product will do better among a growing niche market than trying to tailor it for a nebulous mass market that itself is more often than not going to stick with Fortnite, Madden and Call of Duty even if you make a localized product look and sound the same as them.

[@Karifean]

Oh god I can actually give context to the Rub-a-dub-dub translation, if you still have not gotten it. It's from a eroge visual novel named G-senjou no Maou (The Devil on G-string) and the reason people are being vague about it is because the line in question comes up during a sex scene; the main heroine, who's kind of a fun girl, says "itadakimasu" before sucking the main character off. It is a funny line in Japanese in context, and it is very funny in the English too, so I don't think it's a bad translation. But uh, I guess a callback to that particular meme in a perfectly regular context is also kind of hilarious to think about. I never thought about that when reading Eiyuden's line myself even as someone who has read G-senjou no Maou.

[@SkyCladBrent]

Oh man I remember that line lmao. I'm pretty sure it was in the original fan translation too (but it's been forever since I read it so I don't remember 100%). I've also seen the rub-a-dub-dub translation in other places but I can't remember specific examples. I wanna say I heard it from a child in some anime? Or it probably popped up in an old NISA localization, I'm not sure.

[@FinneousPJ1]

Wow that makes the criticism position kinda ridiculous

[@Karifean]

@@SkyCladBrent Uh yeah I should have clarified, this was from a fan translation. The eventual official localization just copied it as far as I know. Exactly how that memey line from a fan translation would have ended up an emblem of overly liberal "official" localizations I have no clue, either this is just a random coincidence and it wasn't referring to the G-senjou line at all, or the meme took on a wild life of its own, or - perhaps the most charitable interpretation - it's not actually brought up as a meme of overly liberal official localizations at all and that was just a misinterpretation somehow.

[@Gorgod69]

It was in Senran Kagura, that's probably the better known example.

[@Karifean]

@@Gorgod69 That makes a lot more sense, thanks for adding that. I was thinking this makes little sense to go back to G-senjou specifically. Perhaps it went from one game to another as a meme among translators of Japanese games, or perhaps it really was just a coincidence. But definitely makes more sense for the sentiment to have grown from it appearing in Senran Kagura instead, G-senjou is incredibly more obscure and from what I recall the funny line wasn't really taken badly by people back when I was more in the community.

[@adrianvictorv]

I read Said's Orientalism in college, too. The idea is that interpretations of foreign cultures were published without much scrutiny or fact checking by academics in the west, which led to further publications quoting inaccurate information, leading to widespread acceptance of incorrect generalizations. Edward Said focuses primarily on how this affected Asia.

[@KajitaniEizan]

So much great conversation. Issues with localization programming support, in both directions (J>E and E>J), is also a big thing and fascinating to hear how what ought to be clashes with the realities of corporations. Always incredible to hear even lead translators on Twitter/X talking about how they have to go through and manually format (linebreak) everything in spreadsheets instead of letting word wrap handle it, or manually switch curly apostrophe characters with straight apostrophes, or whatever. (And just imagine how any other languages also have to do that drudgery, all because no one thought it ought to be programmed into the workflow or game.)

[@KajitaniEizan]

I got some time to watch more of the episode, thought I'd leave more comments for anyone who might be interested. Re: the idea that people should actually go further with their commentary, put themselves out there a bit, and explain what the localization should have done and/or provided their own "localized" translation... people actually do do more or less that. I think for a simple comparison thread, most people are not interested nor willing to take as many liberties with the original author's work as an official localization might. Taking into account the flavor the localization writing brings, and trying to correct its worst flaws with minimally viable changes, is an easy way I might suggest to approach this (as I have done). A full-on fan translation project also has more leeway to localize to their liking, as the aim there is to actually localize the work, not demonstrate the changes made in localization. Alex's comments that you should ideally be near-native in Japanese writing capability is interesting because that is obviously a great threshold to have, especially for far more complicated works like actual literary novels. However, I suspect that for more popular media works, like JRPGs and anime, a large proportion of the actual official translators don't meet that bar. (It would be baffling for them to manage to make such severe straight-up translation/localization errors if they did.) So naturally, it can't be that novices are able to do the actual translation work, but other novices don't have the standing to criticize them.

[@KajitaniEizan]

Re: foreign languages and the impossibility of direct translation, I actually disagree. Having grown up bilingual, there's a constant need to straddle the two and constant practice translating between them. You absolutely can directly translate most things (very deep literary works aside). It may be inadvisable, because you will recognize when certain things don't come across clearly enough due to being an impenetrable idiom or other such cultural issue. Alex covered that in great detail. But some things actually come across quite clearly, and it's based on the translator's judgment when something needs to be localized away, vs. when they are unnecessarily doing so. Consider the English idiom, "kill two birds with one stone". This is a fairly universally-understood concept, I think, and at most, one might need to localize it to match the local variant of the same concept. Now imagine a translator who thinks, "This phrase is quintessentially English and simply can't be represented in [target language]. I will need to replace it with a different idiom, like [a single trip to the market saves time], because the target audience simply can't grasp what [kill two birds with one stone], [catch two rabbits with one trap], etc. could possibly mean." Now imagine a [target language] speaker comparing against the original English work and wondering, "WTF, two birds with one stone makes perfect sense, why didn't they just translate that?" In my personal opinion, the translator should try to minimize their changes to the work, making each change deliberately and with clear intent and reasoning, in order to preserve the original work in the transition across languages. Or put another way, be cognizant of, and avoid unnecessary creation of, *distance* between the original work and the translation. As all this applies to the golem example, it's perfectly normal in English to ask like "So what's the deal with this thing?", as an invitation to explain or give thoughts on it. It's actually not at all normal to randomly quip "You sure it's a he?" It's weird and ridiculous. Purposely having her do so adds characterization to her that wasn't there, stands out, and disrupts the flow of the scene, since they didn't change the following line to match. ("What's up with this?" --> "[explanation about golems]" vs. "You sure it's a he?" --> "[explanation about golems]"). This comes around to the translator's judgment and narrow viewpoint. I think Alex is wildly off base that the translator/writer wasn't making a throwaway quip, but rather trying to have her imply that the golem might just be a plain robot rather than a souled sentient being or whatever, for multiple reasons. One, because Nowa implying the latter with "him" was also an artifact inserted in the localization; he could have just as easily said "Got it!", the literal "We did it!", or a slightly localized "We did it, guys!". Two, because his comment was in passing; he wasn't strongly asserting it was a "he". So her comment responding as if he is, is a non sequitur, if it's supposedly any more than a throwaway quip. Three, because such a major concept shouldn't just be vaguely implied like that and then not elaborated upon. And four, because it's followed by an explanation of golems ("That was a rune golem. They've been sighted before at other Barrows.") that has nothing to do with whether they have souls or not, or any other related concept. What is the reasoning for why this concept needs to be inserted into the game here? It's actually a lot more likely that it is, in fact, a joke about gender assumptions, exactly as criticized. Perhaps joking about how machines and vehicles are often named with female names, at best, or some kind of modern culture gender quip, at worst. If Brian wants to come comment that no, you're off base, I really did mean to imply this soul thing, then that's fine, but I'm telling you that's how it read to a lot of people (the majority of people?), just as it looks on the surface.

[@KoldoBearUkulele]

This localisation series is so good. It so enlightening to listen the real case examples that demonstrate just how difficult translation/localisation really is.

[@enjolraslechimiste]

This was wonderful. Do as many on this subject as you like. I have learned so much, and appreciate the intellectual nature of your work.

[@PeteAllen-b3n]

gotta say I absolutely love the translation stuff. I studied Japanese in high school and college, studied abroad, taught in a Japanese high school, and studied linguistics in grad school so maybe it's just my quirkiness but I find it absolutely fascinating. Language/communication is so much more than words or even grammar - there are a lot of sociolinguistic cues, body language, importance in what is not said, aizuchi, etc. I know you guys occasionally do movie analyses and given the recent topics around translation and the difficulties therein, what do you think about covering "Lost in Translation"? Perhaps not the best fit for a storytelling podcast though. Or maybe it is given that the choice to NOT provide subtitles was definitely made with the audience in mind. It would also be interesting to get the differing experiences as viewers who have differing levels of proficiency in Japanese. Regardless, keep up the great work!

[@falah8555]

I just met Mr. O smith with mr. Matsuno in our home country Kuwait and i was star-struck really bad. They were very kind to me and my shaking knee and i want to thank them so much for the privilege.. they say don't meet your heroes and I say they don't know what they're talking about ❤

[@AceBadguy]

I love the discussion here.

[@yyoksetioxd]

thank you for the effort you put into the content homies.

[@BartolisHideoutGaming]

Great episode guys, I really enjoy these discussions and deep dives into stuff that we have no idea. I learnt a lot and I can only thank you for your hard work and passion into this and other matters. Much appreciated 🙏

[@adrianvictorv]

I'm very happy to have learned about aizuchi in this podcast. I lived in Japan for 2 years and holy moly did it ever piss me off. I assumed that everyone I was talking to was as dumb as a doorknob. I wish I had known back then about the mochi definition, it makes so much more sense. I also remember thinking anime and JRPG protagonists were the stupidest people every portrayed in media because any time a concept was explained in detail to them, they would respond with "I don't understand." I'm now realizing that it wasn't a lack of understanding, it was a lack of acquiescence. It's less so "I don't understand" and more so "I'm not happy with the situation you've just presented" or "I'm not on the same page as you, I have fundamentally different beliefs about how this situation should be." Knowing that completely changes my perspective. The 1:1 translation of "Wakaranai" to "I don't know" I think is an egregious error that's often overlooked.

[@HaitaniMasayuki]

Growing up in Germany in the 80s/90s me and my friends mostly consumed dubbed media. I considered working in voice over directing/script translating for a long time back then and learned a whole lot of interesting stuff how even translations (especially dubs) can form culture and language as well! In US English it's also pretty common to use the other person's name a lot, which is rather rare in German, but many dubs added it anyway, which slowly creeped its way into the German language. Or even little filler words and stuff like "uh-huh" found its way into German through dubs. Even some words were made fashionable because voice directors had to make up new ways of phrasing so the language keeps being lip-synched. It's wild stuff once you realize how much influence this had over the decades. As far as I know, Hungary also got a huge dubbing culture. Some other countries in Europe, like the Netherlands, straight up air a lot of stuff in English with Dutch subs (that's probably why they speak waaaay better English than most of the Germans lol)

[@xikesgaming]

Thank you again for these series! You are going way over the top in explaining the value and process of localization, more so than anyone has ever done before. This is very educational and very valuable. I just hope the loudest critics actually take the time to watch it and understand it, instead of going: "tldr! doesn't match my ideology, don't care about reasons, want my way now".

[@DavidZCheng]

This was even better than the first video. Great insights from Alexander

[@midnitepalace]

Really looking forward for the ff12 deepdive with alexander! Love the channel, love the conversations!

[@shinangil]

"Matt alt's Japan" channel also worked on many localization games such as dragon quest and other.

[@AltMattAlt]

Thanks for watching! Alex is an old friend, and it’s great seeing him getting interviewed here.

[@swizzdawgg]

i love how alexander throws questions back, like how would you do this?

[@KaitoverMoon]

Anything Alexander O. Smith translates is pure gold. I absolutely loved Crimson Shroud and FF12. Being faithful to the source and building a world through proper linguistic inflection is a skill missing from so many translators today.

[@acelee62]

phew that was a long one! wanted to offer some of my own experiences and answers to some of the questions you asked Alex, whom I also know in person as a fellow localizer. When he mentioned the restrictions about the sound bytes, it reminded me about a presentation he once gave at a translation conference aptly titled "Dancing in a Straightjacket". There is one point I wanted to address from the first interview and he briefly touches on it here, but it's about Japanese game writing. I don't think it's any "lesser" than say Western writing, but rather that Japanese is a high context language, and I believe the Japanese audience consumes games with a high context mindset--the language doesn't matter as much because they can imagine the characters' voices for themselves based on all other context, environment, and gameplay. Is there a certain level of Japanese you need to be a translator? My answer is similar to what Alex said, but in my words: when you can catch typos in the source language. Were there times where the creator thanked you for your work? Not directly, but multiple times they have changed the source language, the Japanese, to match my translation. That said, the race to the bottom is very, very real, and Alex is absolutely right about why most of us stay in the industry: it's a labor of love. Speaking of presentations, there is publicly available one by Katrina L that covers localization and would be really good to go over because it touches on every one of your points but in a very structured powerpoint made by someone who has a masters in translation theory.

[@eternalbraid]

Love everything about this episode, i could talk about language and nuance all day

[@Bliss_Less]

Listened to all 3 hours of this and loved it! (Yes, Alex, I was still listening!) Would love to see Alex join for a Story Arc deep dive to just hear his perspective some time, he's an amazing guest! Might I recommend the Phoenix Wright games or the movie (my personal favorite game to movie translation) as some comedy to balance out the drama.

[@keen96]

I'm close to finishing a game and that point of collaboration around the hour mark rings so damn true. It is nigh impossible to convey my ideas perfectly, I've had to rely on other people's inputs and biases the whole time and sure sometimes as a compromise but like Casen said at one point those "misunderstandings" can sometimes lead to things being way better than I ever expected them to be. The collaborative process rules, and you have no idea how timely this discussion is for me in making me realize that translation is also part of the creation of the game, a version of it at the very least, one you have no choice but trust in others to if you're not making the translation yourself.

[@Sean-lr7lj]

Can't believe you guys got THE captain basch von ronsenberg of dalmasca on the podcast! Insane! (Patrons you know what I'm talking about)

[@justincolgan1833]

The wait is over! I cant wait to listen to this when i have the time to actually listen and focus on the discussion.

[@JSCG12]

Is the Alan Wake podcast coming soon?

[@ResonantArc]

Wednesday

[@Faolain_]

I'm a massive fan of FFXII and its translation. The Bestiary alone adds so much to the game. I wonder how many words I learned from that game.

[@benedict6962]

2:45:00 I don't agree with zakogdo, but rub a dub dub really doesn't sound like it fits in any time period. Eiyuuden seems fantasy but fairly grounded to me. Rub a dub dub seems better fit for cartoony, fairytale settings, like Atlus titles. Rhapsody, even disgaea. But that's my impression for it. Other shakespearean rhymes feel either more specific with phenomena, or just generally feel more threatening. In contrast you have FFT or Tactics Ogre incantations, which lean far more on the cool side and draw references to the setting's mythology.

[@runitsgc]

"Rub a dub dub" makes me think of the Simpsons, it's something Bart said in an earlier season of the show. A line like that would take me out of the game completely. It's a Working Designs level of a translation and doesn't fit in the game.

[@AshenVictor]

It also depends what the game wants you think of the character and scene. Like the "direct" translation with the repetition of "come on", in English that makes it seem like the character is *unsure it's going to work* because that's what we'd say in English if something isn't happening and we really want it to (and in text we can't really tell where the stresses are, and English is a language where lexical stress is important). And if the character is supposed to be a bit irreverent or childish or both, then a childish rhyme works to show you who they are and how they're feeling in the moment (especially when the character is rubbing something).

[@Addition2]

This is from someone that has a dislike for English Localizations of games and animes today, and has since then used Chinese localizations. And I love the conversation you guys have here. Now, this reminds me of a video from Bilibili (basically China KZbin) where there is a conversation like what you guys are doing here, between Chinese localizers who has experience in the field, to address the constant complaints from gamers in the mainland and most of them choose or recommend to use the Traditional Chinese localizations (mostly for or from Taiwan gamers). What they discuss is interesting, they address the several mistakes the Simplified Chinese (For mainland Chinese users) has done, whether intentional or not. They also talk about their own experience playing Japanese games, before Chinese localizations have even started, and there are some issues like translating foreign words into Chinese (Japanese use Katakana for foreign words that are not easy to translate into Chinese, but more easier in English). Like for example the word "Steal Heart" in Xenoblade 2, which can be mistaken for "Steel Heart". Or the word "Pause" can be misread into "Pose". They also address things like they don't have as much freedom of how they can localize, unlike in the west. I mean English dubs are already a thing for Japanese games, not so much for Chinese. And then, they also advised gamers to not go and complain to a team or leaders of those teams that are doing the localizing, cause more often than not, they might have already left the group. There is a conversation to be have here, and I think it is important to have something like an understanding between all groups, and not spout insults towards each other. China's side, they are striving to be better so that one day they can have as much freedom like in the west, and maybe even have Chinese dubs for Japanese games.

[@acelee62]

there are a fair amount of katakana words that are homonyms like Cross/Cloth, 's' vs 'th' sounds like Saw/Thor and more

[@jonathangonzalez1271]

Its amazing how our hosts display a more involved and nuanced conflict resolution than some RPGs out there

[@theebronks]

i think it's really interesting that people who are, to some extent, proficient in the native language are taking such umbrage with the quality of translations when surely they can just experience the original; it's as if they feel the need to defend people other than themselves regardless of if those people feel the need to be defended. Eiyuden seems pretty well received and i haven't heard many complaints about the writing not coming from the purist bubble. I think generally when a localization is actually bad people not as familiar with the language pick up on that themselves without needing someone to tell them why its bad. the more familiar you are with the language of the original the less you are in the target demographic of any quality of translation, it's literally being done for those who don't understand. while it would be ideal for them to get an equivalent experience some guy on the internet is rarely the best arbitrator of how that should be done.

[@rpdt96]

I wanna peel back the classic “People die when they are killed” translation and knowing if perhaps this is a phrase that “makes more sense” in Japanese; this insightful conversation on the translation and localization world has indeed expanded my mind. I hope to learn more languages now!

[@ProxyDoug]

That sentence makes some sense in context. What happened was that Shirou was struck a deadly blow by Gilgamesh a few hours earlier and effectively died, but then saved for having Avalon, Excalibur's scabbard in his body (instead of being in Saber's possession) which granted him some level of immortality. It could probably have been worded better, but the sentiment of the sentence was that it's natural for people to die when struck by something like that, but he didn't.

[@ftg_vader8690]

will you guys ever do an analysis on the themes of anything from the Souls series or Bloodborne?

[@Zoombeanie132]

If they ever do, it would be best if they had some lore experts on like Quelaag, Smoughtown or Ratatoskr. A lot of the themes go pretty deep and are easily missable for non fanatics. I'm sure the 3 I mentioned would agree to collab, as opposed to someone like Vaati who is way too big. At least for one video for sure.

[@BazTheBlue]

@@Zoombeanie132 I'm a huge fan of these games and I don't think they're so deep or beyond scrutiny for Resonant Arc that they need lore youtubers to 'help'. I'd actually much prefer a unique perspective

[@Zoombeanie132]

That's fair enough, but I feel like there's a lot more they could discuss if they had​someone on for maybe just one vid. If they just do it alone, I feel like we'll just hear things we've already heard. Quelaag for example goes deep with the archaeological and sociological analysis. Someone unfamiliar with the how Miyazaki tells his stories and the how their reocurring themes are presented in each game will most likely miss out. Either way I'm down for a series.

[@AshenVictor]

@@Zoombeanie132 I dunno, there's a lot of fandom orthodoxy in the Souls lore community that I don't think is helpful and is sometimes misleading because it informs assumptions about why certain characters do what they do.

[@Zoombeanie132]

You're right, and I don't like that stuff either. What I'm talking about is mostly the environmental storytelling and the world building found in those games. I don't want someone to come on and give them the "correct" explanations, I just want someone to provide the broader context of the worlds in which the games take place​. I don't feel like its an unreasonable ask. They have collabed with other creators before like Max Derrat for Silent Hill 2.@AshenVictor

[@VivversX]

Truly an amazing episode

[@jesseleite]

Really been enjoying these convos on localization! I just went to my local retro game store yesterday and picked up FFXII Collector's Edition for my PS2 in honour of Alex O. Smith after listening to this 🔥 Never really got into the FF, aside from Tactics. Recently been getting the bug though. Playing through VII right now, and after listening to this, I'm excited to revisit Ivalice as well.

[@Mastersaifer]

I completely missed my opportunity to mention this the last few times, but I laugh my ASS off every time I imagine you guys doing the Aizuchi thing... Like when Mike is spilling his guts about depression or the darkness of the human heart, and his own experiences with it, and Kasen, staring compassionately and emotionally, just goes "Mike..." Then Kasen compliments Mike a bunch and thanks him for having the heart/confidence and ability to convey his feelings to the him and the audience, to which Mike just responds, "Kasen..." while also staring emotionally into Kasen's eyes. Sounds like some weird fanfic ship (someone has probably done it, ngl), but I find it so damn HILARIOUS and I really needed the laughs. Thank you!

[@leif54]

Happy days! First Wednesdays, now Mondays. What a treat.

[@Coyoda]

I actually once spoke about my Aizuchi tendencies, and I think it might be because anime was the first thing I watched ever at around the age of 3 or 4 and this was due to my uncle getting subbed anime from various anime stores in canada and etc, introducing my family to it. I was young so i was learning to read subtitles at a young age but learning japanese here and there at the same time. there were some english dubs here and there like Ranma 1/2 but otherwise, I believe that early exposure might have affected me XD. I literally Aizuchi all the time.

[@nevmanning4263]

Alex’s translations on the Ace Attorney games are magnificent. I quote lines from them all the time.

[@BlarGames]

More?? Don't mind if I do! Could listen to these chats for hours..well, even further amounts of hours that is..

[@rickvanvelzen]

Very nice, thank you!

[@rdrouynriv]

The talk about Xenogears translation gave me flashbacks. It is an example of how things can go wrong when going for an overtly literal translation.

[@Dreadn0de0]

Love these episode and the work you guys are doing here. Can't wait to have Alex back for FFXII!

[@rd-um4sp]

I think I'm gonna start calling the consultant office I work as a boutique. Oh, the woes of working on the technical side instead of the creative side. jokes aside, it is so common when we're developing something and we have to make decisions because the client is unavailable. Big corp cannot answer you in time because of bureaucracy but we still need to meet the deadline. And it is always in favor of the client because they called us for knowing our job. And sometimes there is a disagreement later on some of those decisions and we have to patch it later but it was because the corporate inefficiencies.

[@Karanagi]

Phoenix Wright's dialogue has been great from the start of the series. I love those games!

[@OzzinaArcane]

Alexander says the localizers don't have the authority to just change what they want. He worked for Square Enix and most of the current complaints people have aren't being levied against Square Enix. One of the Fire Emblem games completely deleted a romance because they thought it was problematic and while I see it happening more with anime and manga but there are localizers who brag on twitter about fucking with shit.

[@chrisgee8441]

Genuinely curious, as fire emblem is a large IP. I’d say larger than Ace Attorney, which I think stands to Alex’s point (as he did this too). Was that romance removed by localization, or was it removed by the English corporation side (like squares office in America)? Not sure if you’re saying the bragging came from a localizer for fire emblem, or if it’s the dragon maid localizer example? I’d imagine this would be a business decision (if the localizer of fire emblem didn’t say anything), which is a different battle to be had (to say, not about a “faithful” translation).

[@el_oh_ell]

In response to the make jrpgs great again segment I agree that nostalgia obviously has its part in when games and other media were great but if I had to give a threshold year I’d say 2012. After the bank bailouts the cultural extremes in America were close to being united. The tea party movement and occupy Wall Street were protesting essentially the same thing. The “we are the 99%” slogan was a bit too true and effective so in response the 1% pumped every aspect of media with divisive rhetoric. You can see hockey stick graphs of the use of culture war slogans that all shoot up right around that time. All the rhetoric we are sick of, some of the terms involving race or gender usage in the news went up thousands of percent in that year alone. We’ve been inundated in culture war nonsense since then, and because of that almost every form of media has become different ways to be lectured. I’m half way through so far, great video. Thank you to all you guys for making the time to have another 3 hour discussion.

[@eternalgracenote]

Alex! If you see this, please do more of these!

[@lockecold]

We also need this sort of honest assessment of localization from the anime localization pros, where Alex might be out of his scope (happy to be corrected) -- might be out of scope for this show but still needed.

[@XenosbioZ]

Makes me wonder who specifically are Zarkovto’s favorites translators! Or whoever done 100% best translation that he would agree with

[@RobbyHuang]

2:55:17 "Mike..." Hahaha, lmao at that one

[@mattcat83]

It's honestly difficult to listen to how Smith's concern to protect the feelings of his professional contacts inhibits his disclosure about his experience in the industry.

[@orcbrand]

"Translation is impossible" is exactly the conclusion I've come to from my own efforts in translation (Russian films subtitled in English are HORRIFIC in a lot of my experience, so I've actually rewritten a bunch for my own use). It truly is a "lossy" medium.

[@shadowlink20]

Thanks for the video. My only hope on these games is to read what the original author wants to express through the story. Whether I get it or not, it gives me more knowledge about how other people uses the language. 🙂

[@sonov6305]

Loved the Discussion, can’t wait for the FF12 deep dive!

[@IWFDI]

I love the Vagrant Story translation so much, but I can understand that some people who aren't so fortunate who learn to read the subtext of the language are annoyed to the point of frustration because they don't understand what they said. Those people who don't want a flowery type of speech should have the right to choose on the fly to switch to an more literal translation. IMO before the developer is in the phase where they announce the game, ask the fans how they like it. One the other or both versions. For the rhyme stuff, I played The Dark Eye, it's an pen and paper RPG and in the early days all magic spells where silly rhymes.

[@restlessoblivion]

I didn't realize that "rub a dub dub, thanks for the grub" was a translation meme but I will say that it makes complete sense to me in the context of a pre-meal invocation/blessing of sorts because in the USA in religious families there is often a prayer to God before mealtime. In my family growing up, these were directly addressed to God or Jesus and were fairly serious/formal. However, my wife's family from the South is a bit more informal, and their prayer is literally "Rub a dub dub, thanks for the grub, yay God!" I'm not sure how common that invocation is in the South, but knowing all that I would say the translation meme source/original was probably translated by someone with that type of cultural context/background.

[@lockecold]

Excellent discussion, as a programmer I greatly enjoyed hearing the technical and social team hurdles (even if I knew a bunch of them before) but I'd try not to design an animation system that was so tied to audio file duration like that... sheesh. That said, I had one question if Alex happens to see the comment (as was mentioned) about this idea of "co-creating" but related to the Phoenix Wright localization: If the second Gyakuten Saiban game was co-created with your localization team, do you think the development team would've kept the Maggie/Maggey puzzle the way it was in the original Japanese, knowing that it would be a potential hassle to localize because of the direct language difference? If it would've been removed to make it easy for localization, I feel we would've lost something pretty creative in the localization -- this is my primary worry with this "co-creating" idea which makes sense up to a point. I wouldn't want the localization co-creator to stifle the uniquely Japanese stuff. Also, Mio's line in Eiyuden annoyed the shit out of me not because of stupid gender nonsense, but because I felt she was trying to make a joke (which I felt changed her character unnecessarily) and wasn't trying to confirm whether the monster they had just defeated was sentient or not (not even sure why it would matter, it was trying to kill the party and needed to be defended against.) Maybe it would've landed more like it was asserted if I had played with English voice-overs.

[@keithwaggoner2375]

It would amazing to if Alexander would do an episode talking about the translation of FFX. It would be the perfect endcap to the FFX podcast.

[@nao3588]

Long episode but i made it through while working. I didnt like your last episode with Alex to the point that i didnt finish it. I felt like nothing new was being added to the conversation and felt spoken down to at times as i am on the side that would like more accurate or faithful translations. This episode was better, i felt less talked down to but I still am not quite at the point where i enjoyed it. I feel Alex was very willing to try and explain why some things are as they are(or at least were in his day) and then Mike and Casen just accepted it most of the time. Most but not all. I appreciated when that didnt happen and there was something approaching push back. I could go into some specifics but im still at work and lack the time to do so. I would love to see a proper back and forth between people who are of opposing sides on this issue on your show, rather than response videos where much conversion gets lost.

[@ArynBacklogDragon]

There is one thing I wanna point out about the matter of "Is the West overbearring" and why the answer to that is YES. (at least in one aspect). There's this really great video by Ethic Weeb called "The Sony Check Effect" that explores the history of Sony mandated censorship to sexual content in Japanese games, even if they don't leave Japan or receive an M-rating and how it affected the Japanese gaming industry as a whole: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pZnJYqyGdquimtk What caused me in particular to wanna get to know more about it was how this western influence affect Senran Kagura, which was one of my favorite gaming franchises.

[@Paul-to1nb]

Dying to hear more about FFX's localization stories. X-2 and XII as well, of course.

[@yel6921]

in the case of eiyuden, if its just once or twice, it probably doesnt mean anything, but if it happens multiple times, for sure there's a pattern and a reason.

[@Byakkoya11037]

3:01:18 - 3:06:00 And THIS, my friends, is why drama started on Twitter should never be taken seriously. I'm so glad I decided to watch these. So informative, so patient, so much of the muck is being cleared from the water. If more people took the time to listen to stuff like this rather than their garden variety rage-bait channels then talks about Localization could actually be productive, rather than devolving into toxic shouting matches where neither side wants to learn.

[@barry_esmail]

I see your point but since you brought up that example and they said, "give us how you would translate that," I would change that line to "Don't you mean we got it?" Or "Are you sure it's not an it?"

[@Gigamokin]

isn't it funny then that leaving it as is, "what is this thing?" Wouldn't have led to any confusion? even as a small example, localization was misinterpreted while a direct translation would't have been. Instead this seems to be a microcosm of the whole problem.

[@fenrir3097]

There are much better options than the actual localized dialogue that was used regardless. That would've avoided the confusion.

[@Byakkoya11037]

@@fenrir3097 Agreed, I would have gone for a different translation myself as well, specifically to avoid this exact scenario.

[@TheGamingDruid]

Who else watched the whole thing??

[@JEANS__]

On the people who quickly disregarded last time Alexander was on. I saw a few mention they didn't watch because they disagreed with how he translated Ace Attorney as a reason for that. But if they actually watched it they would understand it's extremely likely that was a marketing descion... But of course the didn't want that lol. So in bad faith..

[@bigbenefits]

Please help me understand the translation of "shilly shally, dilly dally" for zuru zuru zuru zuru and other phrases...I've seen this translation at least 2 or 3 times Why not a mocking blah blah blah or Yada Yada, something like that only because I've never before heard in the US, shilly shally dilly dally

[@theebronks]

I think in most instances when translators use such specific phrasing it comes from not recognizing how regional and culturally limited some colloquial phrases can be. I've heard "shilly shally, dilly dally" or more frequently just "dilly dally" on tv shows and movies but in NYC have never heard an actual person say it. i can believe it being common in whatever environment the translator is from thus seeming perfectly natural to them

[@matten_zero]

1:33:00 arent audiences smart wnough to understand that though? Its 2024 people are very interested in Japanese culture and have some basic understanding

[@mellybeannn14]

Again so interesting to hear from Alex!! Can’t wait to have him back for more conversations, especially the FFXII analysis! Love the long content like this, can’t always finish it in one go but I like coming back to watch more!