English Localization Cleanup

And along those lines, Anime.Legend Of Galactic Heroes (and its Analysis/, Awesome/, Characters/, FamousLastWords/, FanficRecs/, Fridge/, Funny/, Headscratchers/, Heartwarming/, HoYay, Laconic/, MagnificentBastard/, Monster/, NightmareFuel/, TearJerker/, Trivia/, WMG/, and YMMV/ subpages) to Literature.Legend Of The Galactic Heroes. It's both mis-titled and mis-namespaced.

Edited by bwburke94 on Oct 31st 2021 at 9:58:02 AM

Kunio-tachi no Banka has been localized as River City Girls Zero, so I moved it over to its new title.

We have a problem, though luckily neither have wicks:

• Tsuki To Laika To Nosferatu
• Irina The Vampire Cosmonaut

I have a question re: different translations for different adaptations of the same work.

The foreign novel series Mo Dao Zu Shi will be officially translated in English by Seven Seas Entertainment soon. However its animated adaptation (which is quite different from the novel) already has its own official English subtitles by Tencent on legal streaming sites. The recap pages are 100% dedicated to the animated adaptation, while the other pages refer to both the novel and its multiple adaptations (mainly the novel).

It's very likely there will be name/terminology translation differences between the two English translations. In that case, should the recap pages follow the official novel translation by Seven Seas Entertainment (aka the most recent translation) or should it keep Tencent translation (which is specific to the animated adaptation)? The main page and rest of the subpages will be following the novel translation.

Edited by Rhapsody on Oct 30th 2021 at 10:51:34 PM

The page (and original work) is in Literature/, so ideally we should follow the literary translation except when specifically talking about adaptations.

Sounds like the page might need to be split between Literature and the Animated versions, if they're that different.

Yup I understand that. In this case the recap pages specifically refer to the animated adaptation, so should those pages follow the official animation subtitles (Translation A)? Or should it follow the literary translation (Translation B) once it's available, since it's the original work and it'll be consistent with the other pages?

The other day I wrote some recap pages based on Translation A (since the only other alternative was the fan translation), so I just need to check if I should go back to them later so that the names/terminology matches what Translation B uses.

My bad, I think I exaggerated the differences a bit there. The adaptation made many changes but it's not divergent enough to need its own page/section imo. The translation differences I'm concerned about here is really just the name translations, there won't be any other major translation clashes between the two I don't think.

If the recap pages refer to a specific version, they should use the terminology that version uses.

While I know Pretty Cure is it's own can of worms (I've actually discovered how Toei USA themselves call them), I'd like to bring up the wikiword issues for SmilePrecure (Smile PreCure!), DokiDokiPrecure (Doki Doki! PreCure), MahoGirlsPrecure (Maho Girls Pretty Cure!), KiraKiraPrecureALaMode (KiraKira★Pretty Cure à la Mode), as they're they only ones to use Precure in the namespace compared to PrettyCure like the rest, what should be done with those?

Looks like they should be moved to use PrettyCure in the title, with the "PreCure" versions of the titles being made into redirects since they are Officially Shortened Titles.

For what it's worth, I've started work on moving the Legend of the Galactic Heroes pages to the correct titles.

I've also started work on the Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne pages.

Edited by gjjones on Oct 31st 2021 at 12:01:27 PM

the precure wikiwords always trip me up because it doesn't seem consistent which ones use precure and which ones use pretty cure. ideally they should all be the same, and pretty cure would probably be the better option

Noticed the Legend of the Galactic Heroes subpages weren't fully moved (yes, I see the process has started above), so I've finished the job for subpages before they get buried by redirects. (Did I forget the Characters page? I may have.)

Edited by Amonimus on Nov 5th 2021 at 9:47:20 PM

Why does Dark Messiah of Might and Magic redirect to Dark Messiah and not the other way around?

Not really within the bounds of this thread, as it's a shortened-title situation. Same reason Super Mario RPG omits its subtitle.

Regardless, because it overlaps with the trope Dark Messiah, I think it should be moved to the full title.

EDIT: I've created a new thread to deal with pages at the wrong title for non-localization reasons.

Edited by bwburke94 on Nov 7th 2021 at 11:41:38 AM

The sandbox has "Non-Localization-Related Moves" segment, so I've thought it's fine to bring it up here.

Edited by Amonimus on Nov 7th 2021 at 8:57:01 PM

Hello, I am back to ask another question (related to Mo Dao Zu Shi again, I'm sorry ).

Mo Xiang Tong Xiu's three novels are listed on TV Tropes under their Chinese names. The upcoming official translations go by their English translated name with their Chinese names as subtitles (a link for reference), eg. the above series officially goes by Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi

I recall people in this thread saying that works with similar official names can have its title shortened on TV Tropes for the sake of conciseness, but I don't remember if it's a definite rule. So in this case, do I leave the three novels under their Chinese names, create new pages using the full official names or create new pages using just the English portion of the official names?

I think you can just go with Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi. I think when a work title exceeds 65 characters is when we run into issues. Since it displays fine under it’s full title we don’t have to worry about that. I think we could still leave out Mo Dao Zu Shi for conciseness sake but there’s no definite rule on that.

Edited by MacronNotes on Nov 13th 2021 at 6:42:50 AM

Film.Space Pirate Captain Harlock 2013 should be Anime.Harlock Space Pirate (possibly disambiguated) - another case where it's both mistitled and mis-namespaced, as it's a full CGI film.

Not sure about the source material; obviously we'd want to make a call on that first because of potential disambiguation concerns.

Not sure if it has the definite franchise name, but Anime.Captain Harlock could be moved to Manga.Space Pirate Captain Harlock since 1. Manga was first 2. The first one is localized under that name, at least in one publishing.

Anime.Queen Emeraldas may need the same treatement.

Other Leiji works overall could probably get some checkup, I know they all are kind of some cult classic, but the the pages don't get a lot of traffic depsite being as old as the website.

Edited by Amonimus on Nov 13th 2021 at 2:54:36 PM

, : Looks like the original manga is localized as Captain Harlock or Captain Harlock: Space Pirate.

Edited by Twiddler on Nov 13th 2021 at 3:54:08 AM

I see Captain Harlock and Captain Harlock: The Classic Collection, I don't see Captain Harlock: Space Pirate mentioned there? Also if that's reliable, Crunchyroll and Funimation just use Captain Harlock for the anime release. I guess it could be Manga.Captain Harlock.

Toei calls the anime Space Pirate CAPTAIN HARLOCK.

Hello. I came upon this forum recently and I wish to express my concerns about something. I will apologize in advance for sounding incoherent, and please know that I did not write this with the intention to offend.

I understand that rules are there to keep things as accurate and streamlined and organized as possible, but the tropes Translation Train Wreck and Lost in Translation also exist for a reason. Both these tropes are prevalent when it comes to translations of any adaptation of a Chinese work (in this particular case, I am talking about danmei), especially when it comes to animated or live-action adaptations.

More often than not, in said adaptations, Translation Train Wreck applies since it is not just a few words or sentences, but rather, almost everything from the episode titles to the terminology and even the dialogue gets either Lost in Translation or really poorly phrased or worse, outright incorrect.

In cases like this, wouldn't it be alright to use unofficial translations instead? Even if it is unofficial, the translations done by fans capture the nuances of the original language of the text far far better. Between a translation that is official but not accurate or something that is unofficial but accurate, I personally believe that going with the latter would be better. It isn't just a matter of preference; it's also for the sake of the people who will be reading he pages. We're not just explaining to them how this or that qualifies under a certain trope — we're also telling them the about the plot, characters, and the setting and everything in between, so going with the most accurate translation is the best way to tell it to them.

Granted, the official English translations of the novels are certified to be accurate and true to the spirit of the original text. However, I saw some discussions about how the Recap page - where the episodes of either animated/live-action adaptations will be listed - would have to go with an entirely different translation source. The problem is that the words and names that this other translation goes with are not the same - which means that any viewer who goes from say, reading the Characters and the Main pages to the Recap pages will be met with whiplash and confusion. Consistency is also important. It wouldn't help if one read this term as "A" in one page then suddenly read it as "Z" in another, and then they see that only one of the many trope pages of a work go with term "Z". It is just too disconcerting.

Not to mention, the overall translation quality is inferior. Technically speaking, they capture the letter of the text, but not the nuance or the spirit. Each and every episode will require an insanely long entry of what gets Lost in Translation, which becomes unnecessarily tedious for both the readers and those writing the tropes. And another issue, the Anglicized names they use - which results in the original meaning getting Lost in Translation (and this is an understatement) - also ends up coming across as outright Narm. And in this case, it is not the intended effect, which just ends up becoming an overall detraction. For one prominent and recent example as to why official subtitles are not always the most reliable, there is how Netflix's subtitles for Squid Game have been pointed out to be inaccurate or even wrong by several sources.

I also feel the need to point out that, especially when it comes to danmei adaptations, WeTV, Tencent, and Bilibili's translations have never been the most reliable, which is putting it nicely. To cite a few examples, WeTV/Tencent used "spiritual energy is in our pubes" (that is not a typo, by the way) for The Untamed when people clarified that it was supposed to read "spiritual energy is in the dantian/lower abdomen". And their translation for the Animated Adaptation for Qian Qiu is downright atrocious that even those who have not read the novel or speak/read Chinese could notice that the subtitles seemed very off. And again, this is only a few examples. To list all of them here would take time and a lot of space.

Many, many translators or people in general fluent in the language have said that Chinese is an extremely tricky language to translate. Even just explaining the meaning behind a name (whichever or whoever is named) will require paragraphs to get the entire message across. Sure, it could all be generalized under how it's all Lost in Translation, but I think that we should also consider which helps the reader understand things both better and easier.

What I meant to say is, if an official translation ends up causing confusion to the reader as well as make them cringe at how much the translation is sounds silly or narm-y when it's not the intended effect, and fans who know the language like the back of their hand have offered better options on how to translate a text, it would be better to go with the fanmade or unofficial translations instead.

Edited by yin_13147 on Nov 14th 2021 at 12:22:04 AM

On the covers

Subtitles on covers can be rearranged freely and thus the text on the first page (where all the legal info is) should be taken into account, if available. Though yes I see your point. But I'm not sure if the cover of Dimensional Voyage can be applied to the other entries. Ironically, the "series" image reverses the order.