Woolseyism - Television Tropes & Idioms

Well said, Kefka. Well said.

"This is White Snow, a town filled with snow.
Enjoy the world of snow."
(Note: This is what happens when you do a direct translation.)
—Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure

When translating something from one language to another, there are two major schools of thought about how to do it. The first is called formal equivalence. This is an attempt to translate word-for-word from the first language into the next. Some exceptions might be made for words that cover concepts in one language that they do not in another, word order, or grammar, but the overall attempt is to translate verbatim. The other school is a thought-for-thought translation, wherein the translator attempts to communicate the same ideas in the second language as are expressed in the first, but might not worry about which words were or were not used. This process is academically referred to as dynamic equivalence. While this has always occured a little bit over the millenia that the written word has existed, the practice gained some prominence in translation circles after the process of dynamic equivalence was codified by Eugene Nida

. As videogames need to operate on a somewhat different level than, say, a book translation, the translators and editors in charge are often given a somewhat larger amount of freedom than editors in other fields and dynamic equivalence is somewhat more prevalent among the best in the industry. While common throughout the world, this is most evident in Japanese to English RPG translations (these being probably the examples most tropers are best familiar with) and has been symbolized most of all in the minds of those who follow the industry in the figure of Ted Woolsey.

Woolsey was the primary translator for most of Square's SNES-era RPGs, including Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. Woolsey is a polarizing figure in the video game community, even today — depending on who you ask, Woolsey was either an iron-fisted dictator who was convinced that American gamers were morons or a hard-pressed grunt who was the primary reason the scripts for these games weren't completely remolded, but either way his impact was keenly felt, as he frequently modified the scripts he was handed in order to render them more accessible for American release. Fans coined the term "Woolseyisms" to refer to places where Woolsey had obviously been tinkering with the original Japanese.

Sounds like Adaptation Decay, right? Well, not quite...

Here's the thing. Woolsey's changes? They worked. Some of the lines were so well integrated into the collective consciousness of the game that they have been embraced by the fandom instead of reviled. While a good number of the script changes were probably unnecessary, many fans have come to the agreement that they don't hurt the final product; sometimes they even make it better. The script has diverted from the original — maybe wildly — and yet, it works anyway, just like a good localized translation should. That's a Woolseyism: The Pragmatic Adaptation's answer to a Macekre.

This sometimes leads to the strange effect that rereleases with more literal or accurate translations (whether they are purely literal or merely closer to the original while still being localized) can actually start wars between fans of the Woolseyisms, the diehard purists, and the poor saps who only know one way to read the story and have no idea what's going on. Attempts to appease the first two groups have led more recent rereleases to reuse some of the more favorite lines. After all, who can think of Final Fantasy IV without wanting to scream "You Spoony Bard!" at the top of their lungs?

Woolseyisms and well-made dubs overall are most likely to be found within translated seinen anime, where even with the Animation Age Ghetto, translators know better than to attempt to turn an adult program into a low-quality kids' show. Shonen anime, with their younger demographics, usually don't fare as well. Woolseyisms are also so common in Latin American dubs, that many people actually prefer watching the Hispanic dub rather than the Japanese original.

Atlus.com lays bare the processes of Woolseyizing with their Production Diaries

. (Keep in mind, some are about Woolseyizing, but others are about localization in general — marketing, website design, etc.) Atlus is currently considered the company that most does Woolseyisms to good effect, since their RPGs, being MUCH more Japanese-flavored than other companies' series, require lots of re-interpretation and adaptation of idioms and concepts. In the process, characters are given attitudes and verbal patterns that make them distinctive and sometimes even more fleshed out personalities.

Compare Good Bad Translation. Contrast They Changed It Now It Sucks. Please note that this trope is about script changes in translation that do not change the actual story flow and only exist to ensure meaning is conveyed between cultures; the process of throwing a script out entirely and rewriting it nearly from scratch is a whole other trope and can of worms.

Please note that this has nothing to do with Richard Woolsey from Stargate SG-1, or with his Stargate Atlantis appearances.