Sandbox / Woolseyism Wick Check

This is a Wick Check for the trope Woolseyism, with the purpose of analysing whether it has redundant overlap with the very similar trope Cultural Translation.

Cultural Translation is about changes made during the exportation of a work with the intention of better adapting elements and references to the country's culture. The laconic says the following:

When a dub replaces foreign cultural references with their own.

Woolseyism, on the other hand, is also about changes made to a work's content during a change of culture, though it seems to be restricted to dialogue. Its laconic says the following:

Stuff gets changed during translation to work better in the new language.

As it can be seen, both tropes are very similar and often have the same intentions (adapting a content to better fit a different culture). The fact that Wooselyism is named after a Nintendo American translator not particularly well-known outside American video game communities may also cause problems, as the practice has become greatly deprecated in the wiki.

The objective is analysing a sample of 50 random wicks, accessible here. Anyone can feel free to contribute.

Potholes and commentaries will be marked in bold.

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15/50

Changes in the translation in general, with no mention to why was it made

1. Foil.Final Fantasy: In the English localization, it was changed to Claire, which is French for 'light'. Despite this, both are referenced very frequently in-game. She changed her name to Lightning when her parents died to be a stronger person for Serah, but ended up alienating her and ruining their relationship.
2. DragonBall.Tropes A To D: Most of the main characters are martial artists and other fighters by trade who primarily fight for sport or to challenge themselves. This caused a lot of controversy when much of the dialogue was changed in the English dub to make the heroes sound a lot more like superheroes, including Goku's infamous "I am the Hope of the Universe!" speech in Z.
3. Our Manticores Are Spinier: In Power Rangers Mystic Force, using their Legend Powers allows the rangers to transform into a firebird and a lion. When the firebird attaches to the lion's back, it can then rise up on its hind legs and transform into the Manticore Megazord (a Winged Humanoid with a lion's face on its chest). This may be a Woolseyism from Mahou Sentai Magiranger, where the combination is simply named "MagiLegend".
4. Hold Your Hippogriffs: The Mega Man Battle Network series has quite a few of these, primarily in the first three games, where the translators were using Woolseyisms:
5. KonoSuba: The blue armor with gold gilding that Kyouya wears in the anime, has similarities with that of the iconic Roto (better known as Erdrick in the English version) equipment set from the Dragon Quest series. The cross guard of Cursed Sword Gram also bears a similar shape to that of the Roto's sword. Roto was a savior from another world, the champion of a water goddess, who defeated the Demon King with an almighty blade: traits Kyouya sought to embody.

Changes made with the intent of adapting cultural aspects and references to the work's public (possible overlap with Cultural Translation

1. GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff.Western Animation J To R: The show is slowly starting to become this in Japan as of 2021, likely due to the good amount of Woolseyism(s) in the Japanese Dub and other things that would be good for catering the Japanese fans.
2. Shadow Star: Bungo is renamed Kazuyuki in the Dark Horse manga volumes, probably just because it anglicizes better than ''Bungo''. The last few chapters they translated (which never made it into English graphic novels) changed his name back to Bungo, though. Also, Tomonori is called Akinori on Central Park Media's page for the anime, possibly due to their translators misreading the kanji for his name.
3. Language of Magic: Harry Potter: The vast majority of spells consist of pseudo-Latin words, and it would seem that knowing Latin makes it easier to develop certain types of spells. However, there's little mentioned about where spells come from or how they're made.
   • The Hindi version translated it as classical Sanskrit.
4. NoNameGiven.Anime And Manga: While not a major character by any stretch of the imagination, Tomoki's older brother in Digimon Frontier was never named in the Japanese version; both Tomoki and their parents simply call him "oniichan," or "big brother," which isn't uncommon in Japanese families. However, it would have sounded strange to the American target audience, so, in a fit of Woolseyism, the dub writers named him Yutaka. "Yutaka" is an anagram of "Takuya," The Hero, and he and Tomoki have sort of adopted each other as replacements for their actual brothers.
5. El Chavo del ocho: The show has been too difficult to translate, due to the nature of its very regional humor. The only exception is Brazil, where the show was renamed Chaves and got an over-the-top translation.

Changes made to preserve acronyms, puns, rhymes and otherwise other elements not inherently associated with cultural aspects

1. FunWithAcronyms.Literature: Hermione starts up the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare. She insists the acronym be pronounced in letters rather than as a word, understandably enough.This is lampshaded when Ron and Harry object to S.P.E.W. and Hermione retorts that she was originally going to have "Stop the Outrageous Abuse of Our Fellow Magical Creatures and Campaign for a Change in Their Legal Status" but it wouldn't fit on a badge... and humorously, Ron asks if Hermione had changed the name to "the House Elf Liberation Front", or, very conveniently the House E.L.F. for short. Ron tended to call the old one Spew, mostly just to annoy her. The translations tend to use Woolseyisms to get a similar effect to their local audiences:

Zero Context Examples (entries and potholes)

1. Treasure Hunter: Don't call them a thief, or they'll rip your lungs out!

Unsure

1. HIMYM.Tropes Season Eight: In "Something Old". Despite the blatant Spexico in the way it's delivered, "el ganso con la riñonera" DOES mean "fanny pack dork". Although it's a rather bland mocking by Spaniard standards, the translation is completely sound and even has some Woolseyism involved: "ganso" literally means "goose", but figuratively can mean also "dork" depending on the situation. Plus, the sentence is simplified to make it flow better in English (a more word-for-word translation would be "the dork with the fanny pack").
2. PlayingWith.Cultural Translation: Exploited: The translators manage to sneak in some Woolseyisms this way, and proudly presents them when they apply for future translation work.
3. Quotes.The Abridged Series: (approximate translation)