I’ve decided to go with Sieg for the main character’s name in Tales of Hearts. I’m sure many will object, but I feel that this is the right decision from a localization standpoint. As I’m sure you’re aware, primarily because I discussed it last time, the character names in Tales of Hearts were just temporary placeholder names that ended up sticking around longer than expected. The fact that these names ended up being used in the final version of the game clearly brings great pain to the Japanese developers. As I’ve already noted, never before in the Tales series have non-ninja main characters had Eastern names. This is certainly not the time to start. As such, I will be following the developers’ wishes and using the names they were planning on using.
Henceforth, Xing Meteoryte is a figment of the past. Let’s all give a hearty welcome to Sieg Meteorit! His name means “victorious meteorite” in German, which is clearly the meaning intended by the development team, as it signifies his determination to rise above all odds and stand victorious as a defender of truth, justice, and the American way. By the way, the names of your favorite brother and sister duo are now Anna and Lucio, just as the developers were intending.
In other news, I have finally completed a feature that will bring greater accuracy to KAJITANI-EIZAN’s Patch Site’s translation of Tales of Hearts: Translator’s Notes. Often known as “TL Notes”, these notes will pop up on screen any time additional explanations that cannot fit into the text are required. I feel that this was a necessary feature to be able to deliver a truly accurate Tales of Hearts experience to you, the audience. Tales of Hearts is a Japanese game, and as such, it is chock full of rich historical Japanese bunmei (culture) that will be lost on many of you. Unless, that is, I can pop up a TL Note to explain what you would otherwise be missing. This will allow Tales of Hearts to become the most pure and accurate fan translation of a game to date.
On a related note, I reviewed the translated script thus far and realized that it was far too liberal in its translation. It deviated too far from the purity of the Japanese script to even be called the script to Tales of Hearts; rather, it is as if it is a bad fanfiction about Tales of Hearts written by some foolish gaijin (dirty foreigner) who wants the characters to sound like they’re speaking conversational English. They are not; they are speaking Japanese, because that is the language that people of the planet Celland speak. Thus, I have revised the script to be more accurate and true to the pure Japanese script. For example, I noticed that people were not calling each other -san and -kun, as has been traditional in Japan since the Meiji era, so I added these honorifics (titles suffixed to people’s names to convey a sense of Japanese honor and spirit, known as bushido) back to the script. This, together with the TL Notes, should deliver a pure Tales of Hearts experience that best conveys the true story of Sieg and Anna just as the developers intended it.
I am guessing a small minority of you may be against these changes, but whatever; I can’t please everyone. I simply have to please the vocal majority of the fanbase and do whatever sticks closest to the Japanese original source and I will be doing the right thing. Tsurai asa o sukue (follow your heart every morning), as they say, according to an ancient Japanese proverb. And anyway, I’m confident most of you agree with me in that these changes are very much for the better. Just one thing… which style of TL Notes do you guys prefer? Would you like the way it is above, or the style below?
Please let me know what you think in the comments, and o-saraba da, teme-ra (until next time, friends)!
May 21, 2011 at 4:47 pm | Permalink
Wha? Translation professor, a person that teaches you how to translate? Like, wha?
May 22, 2011 at 4:22 am | Permalink
Hey guy, your “A Progress Bar” stopped for a long time.
Do your pj still alive?
May 22, 2011 at 12:28 pm | Permalink
Are your brain cells still alive?
May 22, 2011 at 5:54 pm | Permalink
The Freeman collective….has returned….
all your….brain cells…are ours….
we own all….X and Y….make a human….male….
we have an infinite….number of chromosomes…..
we are all…..and all are we…..
May 23, 2011 at 6:15 am | Permalink
@Foxy: Translation Theory. I don’t know about North America, but it’s an actual class in some Brazilian colleges.
Boring as heck, but still.
May 28, 2011 at 6:52 pm | Permalink
I don’t mind the honorifics or the translation notes, but… why would you put them in the middle of a battle? They appear to be covering the health gauges and I think that would be kind of problematic.
I really like TL notes that cover trivia stuff, but their placement during an actual battle is kind of distracting and again, covers up parts of the screen that I might want to look at. Especially if the note would pop up every time I used that Arte. On top of that, the information given isn’t really necessary for the battle. I think the Arte translation stuff would be better placed in the status menu or something, not during an actual battle. It really only bugs me cuz it could seriously detract from gameplay and make ToH not as fun to play through, haha.
May 30, 2011 at 3:56 am | Permalink
Haha 😀
That’s why this post is tagged J/K, haha.
June 1, 2011 at 7:29 pm | Permalink
LMFAO that’s what I get for not reading the tags! XD Good, my fears are put to rest.
(Hey, you’d be surprised how many people actually would do this…)
June 2, 2011 at 7:33 pm | Permalink
Seriously, guys, what the heck? This isn’t a tranlation. This is a silly excuse for translation. But since that’s a FAN-translation, I’m not gonna say more than that.
June 3, 2011 at 1:52 am | Permalink
Seriously, Gabriel, that’s because it’s not finished yet. Ergo you couldn’t know if it’s awesome or not. I’m not gonna say more than that.
June 3, 2011 at 6:34 am | Permalink
@Gabriel
I’m going to have to agree with Nivea. It’s not finished so therefore you cannot know the quality of translation. Also you’re saying that fans cannot be valid translators without any evidence to back up your claim, therefore it can be dismissed.
June 9, 2011 at 6:11 am | Permalink
Maybe its just me, but I always cringe when I see romanized Japanese. I know its helpful in combination with TL notes but sometimes I feel like it’s totally unnecessary.
Since you’re part of the team, it’s more of in your hands, but I personally would rather stick to more of an localized “English” role. Kind of like how all the Tales games came out in their respective areas. You don’t have to twist their names around entirely, just keep most of it close to the way they sound in dialogues. With the speaking that the characters do, some people who vaguely understand Japanese or certain phrases will really be turned off at the translation in some cases.
June 16, 2011 at 5:39 pm | Permalink
(Nothing I say here is meant to offend…I’m just interested in discussing translation theory, as you are, and am very, *very* appreciative of the effort you are putting into this. =)
I personally draw a line between games that take place in Japan (or feature Japanese characters) and games that don’t. A fan translation of, say, a Megaten game, or a visual novel, should leave cultural references intact and even include honorifics, cultural terms, etc. in romaji — simply because they take place in Japan. But games that don’t, like every Tales game to date (not counting Mizuho and Ashihara, and a handful of Japanese characters/weapons/items), shouldn’t have a word of Japanese. Period.
Of course, by saying that, I’ve implicitly stated that I don’t believe the residents of Celland speak Japanese, as you believe — however, that is not to suggest that they speak English, either. Simply put, there is *nothing* to confirm that they speak any given language spoken here on Earth; therefore, there is no reason to remain pure to the original Japanese (as stated above, many individual names in the Tales series are Japanese, but even more are non-Japanese, just as you’ve recognized in this post; moreover, the three translated names you’ve revealed here originate from German, Hebrew, and Italian — a cultural melting pot).
I think that translating a script from one culture to another conveys a unique opportunity to test your mastery of both cultures, in addition to your mastery of both languages — no matter how delicate or intricate a conversation in Japanese may be, it can always be reworked in English. Where the original *meaning* is less important than the original *intent*, as in video game scripts, dynamic equivalence is preferable to formal equivalence (you even say that you translated Anna and Lucio in non-Japanese form “just as the developers were intending”). Your way of preserving intent is by featuring translation notes, which is (and again, please understand that I mean no offense) a backdoor method and is hampering your own creativity as a translator.
But why am I even talking about this? You’re very skillfully translating the best DS Tales game and I’m certainly looking forward to it. =)
November 13, 2011 at 1:06 pm | Permalink
What the hell is that? Good thing I dropped waiting for this LONG ago and learned japanese.
Won’t see crappy wannabe localization sh!t.
If it’s a fan translation, it should preserve everything the original has, and not add anything. Just do it like Phantasia PSX translation, with original arte names and all, and everyone will be happy.
November 13, 2011 at 3:12 pm | Permalink
@Ololo youre rite
kaji was obvs super srs in this post so
it obvs deserves a super srs respons such as yours
super srs