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This reminds me of an interview I read with the guy who did the Japanese localization of Overwatch (a game that I imagine this article would mention if it was u

This reminds me of an interview I read with the guy who did the Japanese localization of Overwatch (a game that I imagine this article would mention if it was updated). The interviewer asks what the localizer thought about all the weird Japanese dialog and copy in the English version of the game, and he answers to the effect that: a lot of the text would definitely be out of place in a Japanese title, but on the other hand it kind of fit with the game's off-kilter style. He likened it to the way Hollywood movies often indiscriminately mix Asian cultures together, saying he was fond of the effect, and that "fixing" everything in localization might break the humor. So when Blizzard asked him for input he says his answer was "Frankly the Japanese is pretty messed up but let's go with it". source (JP): https://www.gamespark.jp/article/2017/03/17/72229.html https://www.gamespark.jp/article/2017/03/17/72229.html

princeb 7y ago
the two japanese characters in overwatch were more "blizzard" than japanese. one of them, before doing some special skill, would shout "taste my blade" in japanese. unsurprisingly, this phrase also appeared in the warcraft series as part of the blademasters voice lines. the other yells something like "dragon devour my enemies". it's all a bit odd of course, because in typical japanese fighting games (or even chinese wuxia films) the characters normally yell the name of the skill before doing their special skill, like "wave fist" or "dragon subduing 18 palms", rather than yelling something the hero intends to achieve. they'll never say something like "die!" because that's just not heroic. the game is nice, but those two characters just feel very not-japanese, even with all japanese work for them.
- fenomas 7y ago
  The "shout the name of the move" thing is neither here nor there, I think. Overwatch isn't a fighting game, and voice lines like that aren't common in shooters (Japanese or otherwise). For the rest, I'd guess it's a simple matter of Blizzard not having anybody in house who can check content. They've never done JP versions for any of their games, and the mistakes they make tend to be of the "copy/pasted from Google translate" variety. Also the 3rd-party localizer in the interview mentioned Blizzard asking him to check their Japanese, even though that would have been pretty late in the process. (One also suspects that the JP voice lines may largely be the work of the voice actors. That would explain why Genji (voiced by a native speaker) has tons of Japanese voice lines, while Hanzo speaks only English outside of his ult.)
- amyjess 7y ago
  > it's all a bit odd of course, because in typical japanese fighting games (or even chinese wuxia films) the characters normally yell the name of the skill before doing their special skill, like "wave fist" or "dragon subduing 18 palms", rather than yelling something the hero intends to achieve. they'll never say something like "die!" because that's just not heroic. While, yeah, calling your attacks is common, I've also seen Kurae! ("Eat this!") in anime and toku more times than I can count. Honestly, that would make a good translation for those phrases...
thaumasiotes 7y ago
> The interviewer asks what the localizer thought about all the weird Japanese dialog and copy in the English version of the game, and he answers to the effect that: a lot of the text would definitely be out of place in a Japanese title, but on the other hand it kind of fit with the game's off-kilter style. You remind me of something I noticed while reading the Temeraire novels. The protagonist receives a Chinese dragon, and there's a plotline in which they travel to China to argue that he should be allowed to keep his dragon. This introduces enough Chinese dragons that we can get a feel for how they are named -- there is a very regular system. Each dragon is referred to by a combination of their species and a given name. Temeraire is a celestial dragon, 天龙, and his Chinese name is 龙天翔 (in the book, "Lung Tien Xiang"). "Lung Yu Ping", 龙玉平, is a jade dragon, 玉龙. They're all like that except for 龙李白. (李白 is the name of a historical person who, in the world of the novels, was a dragon instead. I guess it's possible that there's a "plum dragon" variety, but no such species is mentioned - I doubt the author put that much thought into it.) This bothered me the whole time, since two parts of the system are backwards. First, obviously, the species name gets flipped around in the name of the dragon. Second, normal Chinese practice is to put titles after the name, not before. But I asked a Chinese friend about this and her response was: yes, it's weird for the species name to be flipped around. However, the style the book uses sounds nice compared to the normal way. So yes, sometimes random bungling can produce something that natives appreciate for stylistic reasons.
- adelie 7y ago
  i'm not familiar with the temeraire novels, but based on your description the naming system makes total sense to me - and definitely sounds more natural to native ears. it looks like they're using personal name conventions for the dragons rather than species names. for example, in the name 龙玉平, 龙 would be the surname/family name, and 玉平 would be the given name. the 'family name' is shared amongst all dragons, while dragons of the same species share the same first syllable in their given names. this mirrors how chinese siblings will often share a syllable in their given names (sometimes known as 'generation names'). not sure if any of this is intentional, of course - but from my perspective, those names work well to humanize the dragons.
  - 7y ago

princeb 7y ago

the two japanese characters in overwatch were more "blizzard" than japanese. one of them, before doing some special skill, would shout "taste my blade" in japanese. unsurprisingly, this phrase also appeared in the warcraft series as part of the blademasters voice lines. the other yells something like "dragon devour my enemies". it's all a bit odd of course, because in typical japanese fighting games (or even chinese wuxia films) the characters normally yell the name of the skill before doing their special skill, like "wave fist" or "dragon subduing 18 palms", rather than yelling something the hero intends to achieve. they'll never say something like "die!" because that's just not heroic. the game is nice, but those two characters just feel very not-japanese, even with all japanese work for them.

fenomas 7y ago
The "shout the name of the move" thing is neither here nor there, I think. Overwatch isn't a fighting game, and voice lines like that aren't common in shooters (Japanese or otherwise). For the rest, I'd guess it's a simple matter of Blizzard not having anybody in house who can check content. They've never done JP versions for any of their games, and the mistakes they make tend to be of the "copy/pasted from Google translate" variety. Also the 3rd-party localizer in the interview mentioned Blizzard asking him to check their Japanese, even though that would have been pretty late in the process. (One also suspects that the JP voice lines may largely be the work of the voice actors. That would explain why Genji (voiced by a native speaker) has tons of Japanese voice lines, while Hanzo speaks only English outside of his ult.)
amyjess 7y ago
> it's all a bit odd of course, because in typical japanese fighting games (or even chinese wuxia films) the characters normally yell the name of the skill before doing their special skill, like "wave fist" or "dragon subduing 18 palms", rather than yelling something the hero intends to achieve. they'll never say something like "die!" because that's just not heroic. While, yeah, calling your attacks is common, I've also seen Kurae! ("Eat this!") in anime and toku more times than I can count. Honestly, that would make a good translation for those phrases...

thaumasiotes 7y ago

> The interviewer asks what the localizer thought about all the weird Japanese dialog and copy in the English version of the game, and he answers to the effect that: a lot of the text would definitely be out of place in a Japanese title, but on the other hand it kind of fit with the game's off-kilter style. You remind me of something I noticed while reading the Temeraire novels. The protagonist receives a Chinese dragon, and there's a plotline in which they travel to China to argue that he should be allowed to keep his dragon. This introduces enough Chinese dragons that we can get a feel for how they are named -- there is a very regular system. Each dragon is referred to by a combination of their species and a given name. Temeraire is a celestial dragon, 天龙, and his Chinese name is 龙天翔 (in the book, "Lung Tien Xiang"). "Lung Yu Ping", 龙玉平, is a jade dragon, 玉龙. They're all like that except for 龙李白. (李白 is the name of a historical person who, in the world of the novels, was a dragon instead. I guess it's possible that there's a "plum dragon" variety, but no such species is mentioned - I doubt the author put that much thought into it.) This bothered me the whole time, since two parts of the system are backwards. First, obviously, the species name gets flipped around in the name of the dragon. Second, normal Chinese practice is to put titles after the name, not before. But I asked a Chinese friend about this and her response was: yes, it's weird for the species name to be flipped around. However, the style the book uses sounds nice compared to the normal way. So yes, sometimes random bungling can produce something that natives appreciate for stylistic reasons.

adelie 7y ago
i'm not familiar with the temeraire novels, but based on your description the naming system makes total sense to me - and definitely sounds more natural to native ears. it looks like they're using personal name conventions for the dragons rather than species names. for example, in the name 龙玉平, 龙 would be the surname/family name, and 玉平 would be the given name. the 'family name' is shared amongst all dragons, while dragons of the same species share the same first syllable in their given names. this mirrors how chinese siblings will often share a syllable in their given names (sometimes known as 'generation names'). not sure if any of this is intentional, of course - but from my perspective, those names work well to humanize the dragons.
- 7y ago