#drtl

since i’m one of the first english fans to look at the new japanese text in this manner, there’s a lot that i skimmed over or just straight up didn’t read, as a decent amount of dialogue is jumbled or shoved under “scr_text”. i mainly focused on the lore-important segments, since there aren’t as many character voices or jokes with interesting translations as there were in chapter 2… with two exceptions.

tenna

tenna is generally pretty well localized. i didn’t translate a lot of his dialogue, but 8-4 has done a pretty outstanding job of making tenna sound like a japanese TV host. for example, the narration to his intro video is translated from this:

It's now time for our feature presentation FEACHER Coming straight from your house Coming straight from YOUR house! He's the One He's GROOVY and NEVER glooby! You can't get this from an EGG! The sensation of your screen The show that makes you scream Say it with him, folks!

to this:

大変オマタセいたしました！ (Thank you for waiting so long!) はぢまるヨ！ (Lettuce begin!) アナタの　おうちから　お届け！ (Delivered from your house!) アナタの！　おうちから！　お届け！(Delivered! From! Your! House!) ピカ“１”の (The number “one”) シケシケしてない　トレンディマン！ (trendy man who never goes out of style!) タマゴには　マネできない！ (He could never be imitated by an egg!) アンビリーバボーな (With an unbelievable,) キセキの　サケビを！ (miraculous scream!) さあ～　みなさん　ごいっしょに！ (Now… everyone, all together!)

they didn’t need to intentionally misspell the line that replaced “FEACHER” but they did and i love that.

a lot of lines like these were translated to be more in the style of japanese television, and that’s awesome. i really admire the effort, and the shift is palpable even to me, who isn’t fluent in japanese at all.

jackenstein

others have already been curious about how “YOUR TAKING TOO LONG” and its variations are translated— in fact, this youtube video that i found beat me to the punch with covering it. (edit: this one provides a comparison between languages, which is very nice)

jack uses a mixture of hiragana and katakana (no kanji), refers to himself in the third person, misspells things (mostly using ワ for the particle “wa” instead of は), and occasionally uses emoticons. all of these give a strange but fairly childish impression.

and here’s how his iconic phrases were translated:

YOUR TAKING TOO LONG -> ナガイ　シすぎ (nagai shisugi / you’re taking too long)

YOUR TOO BRIGHT -> マブシイ　すぎ (mabushii sugi / you’re too bright)

YOUR LONG -> ナガ　イ (nagai / long)

YOUR TAKING TOO LONG IS TAKING TOO LONG -> ナガイ　シすぎ　ニ　ナガイ　シすぎ (nagai shisugi ni nagai shisugi / you’re taking too long with “you’re taking too long”)

YOUR TAKING TOO TOO -> カワイ　すぎ (kawai sugi / you’re too cute)

YOUR TOO TOO -> すきすき (sukisuki / you look cute, I like you)

raise up your bat

i looked at raise up your bat’s lyrics to see if there was any extra lore behind them. there wasn’t, but… ralsei’s replacement lyrics are pretty funny in this version. here are the full lyrics

鮮血 流れる 悪魔の心 (Senketsu nagareru akuma no kokoro / The devil’s heart flows with fresh blood) -> 先月 出会った あのコと今日も (Sengetsu deatta ano ko to kyou mo / Today, that kid I met last month) バットを振りかざせ (Batto o furikazase / Raise up your bat) -> チャットをするからね (chatto o suru kara ne / will have a chat with me) 希望は　ついえた (Kibou wa tsuieta / Hope has died out) -> 昨日は　ついつい (Kinou wa tsuitsui / Yesterday we ended up) 明日は見えない (ashita wa mienai / and tomorrow’s not in sight) -> 朝まで電話 (asa made denwa / talking on the phone until morning) バットを振りかざせ (Batto o furikazase / Raise up your bat) -> やっぱり楽しいね (Yappari tanoshii ne / It sure is fun) 夜をブチのめせ (Yoru o buchi-nomese / Do it all through the night) -> 今日もウキウキね (Kyou mo ukiuki ne / I’m excited today too) 闇の中へ こぎ出そう (Yami no naka e kogidasou / Let’s row into the darkness) 心の箱船で (Kokoro no hakobune de / With the ark of the heart) 闇の中でも　そばにいる (Yami no naka de mo soba ni iru / I’m by your side even in the dark) その心に導かれ (Sono kokoro ni michibikare / Guided by that heart) 鮮血 流れる 悪魔の心 ( Senketsu nagareru akuma no kokoro / The devil’s heart flows with fresh blood) -> 先月なかよくなった友だち (Sengetsu nakayoku natta tomodachi / The friends I made last month) バットを振りかざせ (Batto o furikazase / Raise up your bat) -> パットと　ブリトニー (Patto to Buritonī / Pat and Britney) 希望は　ついえた 明日は見えない (Kibou wa tsuieta ashita wa mienai / Hope has died out and tomorrow’s not in sight) -> 気取った　ポーズで ダンスがしたい (Kitotta pōzu de dansu ga shitai / They want to do a silly dance) バットを振りかざせ (Batto o furikazase / Raise up your bat) -> ハットをかぶってね (Hatto o kabutte ne / Put on a hat) 夜をブチのめせ (Yoru o buchi-nomese / Do it all through the night) -> スーツを着こなして (Sūtsu o kikonashite / Wear a suit fashionably)

who are pat and britney? are they the secret key to all the mysteries of the story? who knows!

UNUSED

i didn’t find many changes in the text of the chapter 3 and 4 “unused” text (otherwise known as “the voice in the code”), but i noticed that their dialogue sounds a little less feminine/childish compared to in chapter 1. maybe. it does seem like a lot of time has passed. idk

edit: actually, after looking back at all the unused text, it seems like they’ve been always more gender-neutral than i previously assumed.

prophecy

a few changes to the prophecy lines stood out to me.

THE THIRD HERO. A PRINCE, ALONE IN DEEPEST DARK. (eng) The third hero / A lonely prince living in the depths of darkness (jp)

reference to “depths”. nothing of note besides that

THE FLOWER MAN, TRAPPED IN ASYLUM. (eng) The flower man is captive in a facility (jp)

this is the word used to replace “asylum” here. take it as you will:

and the one i found by far the most interesting…

LOVE WILL FIND THE GIRL. (eng) The girl will learn the true meaning of love. (jp)

huh????? what the fuck does that mean??

also, the word for “love” used in japanese is 愛, which refers to any kind of love. so no double meaning here, but that doesn’t rule out the possibility of an intended double meaning in english, as the japanese translation of undertale has often had to erase intended double meanings that were not translatable, like “determination”.

addendum: As you know,

i’m editing the post to add this in because i forgot that it’s important.

you know the carol line where she says YOU in bright red text and no one knows whether she’s talking to kris or the player? well, luckily, japanese usually omits the word “you” in place of a person’s actual name, so hopefully looking at the japanese version of the line should—

she just uses the word for “you”.

this just makes it more evident that it is meant to be unclear who she’s speaking to.

CONCLUSION

you can see that these rules are already not very exact, as the speaker uses the copula “da” near the end. they also use the particle “wa” in a sentence where it could have been omitted to sound more feminine.

chapter 2:

誰にも　聞こえてない… そうなんでしょ…？ … やっぱり。 自分でも　自分の声が 聞こえているのかよくわからない。 ここは　とても静かだ… …なのにときどき なにか聞こえる…　気のせいじゃない… なにか…　カリカリいう音…？

using “da” and “wa” again, but otherwise using very few particles and sentence enders.

chapter 3:

ここは　いったい　なんだろう…？ どうして　迷い込んだんだろう？ …ずっと考えているけど　わからない。 あの夢は… 何度も　見た。 闇の中へ　歩いていく夢。 とびらから　光が差していて… そのとびらが　背後で　ピシャリと閉じて… あたりは　真っ暗になる。 …これは　あの悪夢なの？ …それとも　それ以外が　全部　夢？

now the dialogue sounds significantly more neutral than feminine. i’m not sure if this is actually a significant change, or if it’s just because the speaker is saying more complete sentences.

chapter 4:

時間の感覚が　なくなってきた。 何日？　何時間？ 何年もたったといわれたら　きっと信じてしまう… 前は　太陽がのぼって… たくさんの　すばらしいことが起きて　時間には意味があった。 朝ごはん…　夜ふかしして見るテレビ… ここでは… もう　食べもしないし　飲みもしない。 目が覚めているのか　夢を見ているのかもわからない。 死んでいるのか　生きているのかも。 真っ暗な静寂しかない。 …ただ　あの音がする。 ときどき聞こえる　引っかくような音。 信じてもらえないかもしれないけど…この声は　だれにも　届いていないかもしれないけど… あの音を聞くたびに　この声が　だれかに　届いている気がする。 聞いてくれている人…　聞こえているなら…　ありがとう。

same deal here.

it’s with this one that i’ve started to wonder if the gender of the speaker is being intentionally obscured. they haven’t used a first-person pronoun (meaning “i” or “me”; these usually indicate femininity or masculinity, depending on the one used)—it isn’t exactly uncommon to usually omit those in japanese, but at this point it’s a tiny bit conspicuous, especially with them saying “I feel like this voice (この声, kono koe) is reaching someone” instead of “my voice”, which would require them to use a first-person pronoun.

i was not the first person to come up with the idea that the unused text used feminine/childish speech patterns, but it became embedded into my idea of the text, especially after researching for the chapter 2 post i made last year. it should be mentioned that said post is over a year old at this point, and that i have improved greatly at japanese translation since then, so i feel okay with saying that i was wrong to believe that, that the unused text speaks in a generally gender-neutral manner, and that they are likely supposed to have an unclear gender.