Persona series

Yes

Trick for the boss: It likes using spells to target your party's weaknesses, then uses its Once More to cast Megidola, which hurts a lot. HOWEVER, whenever it uses a Wall spell, it'll use spells of the same element for the next few turns.

i.e. If it uses Red Wall, it'll use Agi spells for the next few turns.

edited 26th Oct '17 9:35:36 AM by asterism

Song of the Sirens

Yes, it's one of the harder P4 bosses. It's got pretty high party damage and lasts a long time, so I recommend trying to get a Persona with invigorate and mediarama.

Another option is to go and fuse Black Frost if you can. Agidyne + Mind Charge helped a lot.

I'm very much on the camp of preferring "localizations" (something that sounds natural in the language it's presented in) to "translations" (something that sticks slavishly to literal meaning of the original text), but I think that honorifics are something of an exception for a work like Persona. They're explicitly Japanese characters, speaking Japanese, in modern-day Japan. Using Japanese honorifics in that case doesn't feel like weeaboo-pandering to me, it feels like acknowledging the setting of the story.

I also think it's harder to translate some honorifics than you're giving credit for. Sempai and kohai are sort of infamous for not having a good English equivalent, and those are all over the place in a story set in a Japanese high school. Honestly, a lot of the time I end up converted translated honorifics back into honorifics in my head anyway.

For example, there's a scene in P5 where you and a classmate run into a teacher outside of school, and the classmate wants to ask a favor. One of the dialogue options for giving him advice is "call her Master", which gives social link points for both the classmate and the teacher (presumably because the classmate is grateful for the advice, and the teacher is flattered). This is sort of nonsensical in English, but it makes sense as an honorific thing — I assume he's suggesting the classmate use either -sama or -sensei for the teacher.

Lines like that just work better with honorifics. So why not use them?

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

So, any news about Joker and Minato/Makoto's proof about how fabulous they are on the dance floor?

Wake me up at your own risk.

Christ, I keep agreeing with you lately.

Yeah, normally I don't care for keeping honorifics, but works set in Japan tend to get more of a pass from me and since senpai really is an honorific that doesn't have an English equivalent, works in Japanese high schools get even more leniency. I didn't even realize this until the last time this conversation came up here. I never really notice in the Persona, so clearly I don't mind.

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.

I really don't like honorifics being kept untranslated even in Japanese works set in Japan spoke by Japanese people about Japan Japan Japan, but I'll admit that I don't know of a good way to get the senpai kohai thing across without them. It often affects relationships pretty heavily too, so you can't just ignore the issue very well either.

edited 26th Oct '17 12:55:33 PM by Arha

we could just have all the characters say "greetings [insert generic japanese name here], who is my upperclassman and i respect as such" all the time. that would get the message and implications across very clearly

"There's not a girl alive who wouldn't be happy being called cute." ~Tamamo-no-Mae

At the very least they're handy for protagonists whose name you can change. Not sure what Rise or Teddie would call the Persona 4 protagonist if not "Senpai" or "Sensei"

This song needs more love.

For Teddie, Boss, Master, and Leader all work.

I don't even really think the sempai-kohai thing needs to be spoken in most cases. It's pretty clear when that sort of relationship is there through context. And English has a hundred thousand pronouns for everything else.

I agree that I generally prefer to smooth out the honorifics to make speech sound more natural, but I can mostly deal with them alright in the current Persona games even if they come across as a bit weeb.

It's still a level of nuance that would otherwise be missing- something that does show how the different characters see/respect each other. The slight difference between calling someone -senpai, -kouhai, or some other honorific (including lack thereof) says a lot about how the two characters think about each other. Especially if they're from an upper/lower class and don't use the honorific (or use a different one in it's stead).

I'm of the camp that it's not weeb if it's culturally and socially relevant- and for the Persona games it very much is.

edited 26th Oct '17 3:08:40 PM by EpicBleye

"There's not a girl alive who wouldn't be happy being called cute." ~Tamamo-no-Mae

I can deal with honorifics, but I prefer for localizations to avoid then as much as possible because it will always sound weeb-y in english.

It kinda irks me that people have no problems with, say, French forms of address if the setting is France, but Japanese must be translated. Personally, I'm not against translating them, but I'm also not against using them.

I feel the honorific argument's problem is that they mean nothing in English that they do in Japanese.

So do "senior" and "junior" not work then?

Let's see if you can get past my Beelzemon. Mephiles, WARP SHINKA!

"oh hey Makoto-Senior/Senior Makoto"

"what's up Futaba-Junior/Junior Futaba"

it just doesn't work. no one talks like that.

Especially since Senior and Junior don't mean the same thing as Senpai and Kouhai.

And the reason it works with japanese honorifics is because Japanese people do talk like that, and it's a part of the setting you're in.

edited 26th Oct '17 4:13:56 PM by EpicBleye

"There's not a girl alive who wouldn't be happy being called cute." ~Tamamo-no-Mae

Just refer to them your junior and senior and call it a day; we don't have to call them that be English doesn't need honorifics, we can determine relationships just by tone and context.

Japanese people also, on average, don't speak English in their day-to-day lives, yet here we are.

edited 26th Oct '17 4:31:06 PM by Ssj3Gojira

Let's see if you can get past my Beelzemon. Mephiles, WARP SHINKA!

"Oh hey Senior" still sounds dumber than "Oh hey Senpai."

But seriously, I don't mind the honorifics. They don't sound that off-putting to me.

edited 26th Oct '17 4:34:56 PM by dragonfire5000

I meant more like "he's/she's my junior/senior in class", people would never use those terms like that.

Let's see if you can get past my Beelzemon. Mephiles, WARP SHINKA!

"Oh hey she's-my-senior-from-school" still sounds dumber than "Oh hey Senpai."

edited 26th Oct '17 4:35:52 PM by dragonfire5000

The issue with senpai/kohai isn't just the lack of equivalent and commonly used words, it's that English doesn't place nearly as much importance on the same relationships.

Once again, that doesn't have the same nuance as the presence of Japanese honorifics, which is why I think they're necessary. Whether they're an upperclassman or not isn't the problem.

I'm not sure what your point is about Japanese people not speaking English. You're right, but that's wholly irrelevant to the argument since this is about localizing a Japanese game to English, not the other way around.

That too.

edited 26th Oct '17 4:37:07 PM by EpicBleye

"There's not a girl alive who wouldn't be happy being called cute." ~Tamamo-no-Mae

It goes back to the "nuance is inherently lost when you translate" problem.

Honorifics and pronouns in Japanese someone uses for themself can also say a lot about their mindset and personality, but those have been dropped from Persona's localization, and that nuance is lost.

And if you're not already familiar with Japanese culture and what a kohai or smepai even is, you're not getting anything out of it when it's presented to you without explanation.

edited 26th Oct '17 5:04:50 PM by Hashil

Well in shows that take place in high-school over here seniors are fucking monsters that torment the freshmen & the juniors. Though that depiction has been declining in recent time.

So yeah we don't place importance on those relationships.

Hell in my high-school in good fun I must assert during prep-rally's the seniors would chant something along the lines of "Get out freshmen" & the freshmen would chant the same.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."