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"Son of a submariner!"
Kefka, Final Fantasy VI

"Our goal, then, was to sand the most arbitrarily Japanese edges off of Thors (since Erebonia is pretty decidedly not Japanese) – the senpais and the kohais; the constant ganbattes – and coax forth the universality of the experience of school. There’s still bowing at the end of homeroom, and there might be a mysterious transfer student somewhere in there, but to make it feel natural was our goal, and one that I think we’ve executed quite well. But, again, you’ll be able to decide for yourselves soon enough. I might come off as critical here, but I think thoughtful criticism is instrumental in helping to improve things. If we, as editors, took the script we were given, just made sure all the periods and commas were in the right places, and sent it off, I’m not sure you’d like the game you wound up with. The very act of editing itself is a statement of, “Yes, we can improve this. We can make it so that people will enjoy it more than they would in the state it’s in right now." "

"So, no, these are not 100% accurate translations. And let's face it, if you want 100% accuracy, you'd just learn Japanese yourself. My aim is to maintain the same kind of informative and humourous nature of the original work, but to still make it jibe well in the English language."
Ragey, on his Otimusya translation project

"...I used this opportunity to flesh out characters every chance I had. Too often, in translation, the meaning is kept but all feeling is lost. It must be added back in by the translator. [...]
One example would be when Campbell said, 'I’m not a colonel anymore,' in Japanese. I changed it to 'I’m not a colonel anymore, just a retired old warhorse.'
Why did I add that last bit when it wasn’t in the original? All I can say is that it felt right. It added flavor. We have a kind of shorthand to flesh out character archetypes in our culture, which are drawn from our shared memory of movies, TV, literature, and other forms of pop culture. That line matched what I could sense Kojima was doing in the creation of the character. It was right for the archetype, and American players would understand a bit more about who Campbell was, and how he acted. I was looking to enhance what Kojima was trying to do for the audience that would be playing his game in English, and adding these small flourishes was a good way to do so."
Jeremy Blaustein, describing his translation of Metal Gear Solid

''But his acclaim wasn’t bound to just one single nation
His stories exported through the gift of translation
The books phrasing and language in which they were written
Works perfectly fine in the US or Britain
But to reach out to the world and all of its culture
Hello’s not enough, you need "¡hola!" and "Bonjour"
And not just the words but the rhyme patterns too
Like "Poisson Un Poisson Deux Poisson Rouge Poisson Bleu"
With designs in the hundreds all with distinct features
Translators worked hard to rename all these creatures
Translating them all with their essence intact
While preserving the fun had a major impact
On the habits of reading of kids at young ages
There's so many lessons in the words on these pages"
—-Kaptain Kristian's video essay on Dr. Seuss

“We completely fell for it,” becomes “Guy laid out the bait, and we just had to have a nibble.” For a longer example, “General Valmore… I never thought you would lead a rebellion… However, I refuse to let you do as you like! I will strike you down here!” is apparently a direct translation of Unicorn Overlord’s Japanese script. The localisation is as follows: “Our ‘great’ general, reduced to little more than a base traitor, hm? You’ll find my head not so easily parted from my shoulders, Valmore. I wonder if you can say the same.”
While these certainly are different words, they convey the same general meaning. And, if I’m being honest, I’d much prefer to read a game written like the latter. But people are calling this translation “abhorrent” and spouting unfounded claims that, “this reeks of localisers who think themselves better writers than the original Japanese authors.” Both are quotes from the X thread linked above, and show the poster has no understanding of how localisation, or translation full stop, works.
Ben Sledge, The gamer. "None Of You Understand What Localisation Is"


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