#game localisation

“Songs don’t have to be dubbed or replaced unless it is necessary to do so through copyright restrictions or creator requests.”

Remember last year when a definition for “English entitlement” popped up on Urban Dictionary? The definition included a reference to “foreign music”, which I thought was just as bullshit as the rest of it. As I said, people aren’t likely to complain about a song being in English and that chances are that they wouldn’t have heard about or understood the song in the first place.

Songs are a part of what makes something iconic. Making a fan cover of a song in another language basically means you have to write the lyrics again, because the original lyrics aren’t always something you can just directly translate. Also, if the version of a song in a localisation is (radically) different to the one used in the original, people aren’t necessarily going to like it. If another version of a song exists in a different language, whether it be official or fan-made, then hey, good on them and good on you if you happen to like that version as well.

If, for some reason, an original song cannot be used in a localisation, then it’s easy to replace it or leave it out. Even then, that doesn’t change anything about the original, so as always, if you like the original version, then go for it.

“Politics and political ideologies should not be forced into anime dubs as they are irrelevant to the subject matter.”

In recent years, I’ve discovered a new excuse for not preferring dubs - because dub scriptwriters have been shoehorning buzzwords relating to SJW culture into the dubs of anime. You can find some examples in this Reddit comment here. I haven’t been following anime myself for years now, but I’ll give my thoughts on the subject anyway.

I stated at the start that scriptwriters would take liberties with the translation while writing and producing the dub track. In regards to that, there’s a difference between making some lines more appealing to the audience and trying to push a political agenda. I don’t think this rule has ever been stated before, but it should be an unspoken rule that translators should keep their translations in the original spirit of what they are translating. Even if you’re trying to make sense of Google Translate, you try the best you can to understand the result without forcing irrelevant subject matters into it.

Speaking of this topic, I should talk briefly about Funimation’s response to the whole situation in case someone asks. Basically, they didn’t address the situation properly and considering their situation, why wouldn’t they? This is a “damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t” situation - they were going to get criticism from any sector of the community regardless of what they said. They are like politicians in the way that they try to please as many people as possible.

I know that this is something from last year - I was busy, goddammit.

“If a crossover game features more characters from dubbed games/franchises than subtitled games/franchises, then the game should be released with dual audio, or at the very least, partial dubbing.”

On the English Dubbed Game News page, I’ve calculated the dub-sub ratios on three crossover games, and they are as follows:

J-Stars Victory VS+ (subbed) - 16-all

Warriors All-Stars (subbed) - 7-6 dub

BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle (dubbed) - 3-1 dub

Yeah, I know three games aren’t enough to make a good enough statement here, but come on, why not? People should be able to choose whether they want to hear their favourite characters in Japanese or English, and if they can choose different options for each character, then that’s even better.

“Minimising delays is not a good excuse to not dub a game.”

This goes back to some of the points I made during my early days in ranting - you can release a game subbed with the intention of patching the game with a dub track later. If they did it with the Japanese voices, then why can’t they do it with the English voices?

If it becomes inevitable that the game needs to be delayed, particularly for the production of the English dub, then fans need to be patient and understanding to the situation. If they enable publishers to localise games without dubbing, then they might adopt it as the norm for future games, given that other factors don’t have a role to play in their situation.

“Sub-only games should be sold at a lower price to dubbed games or games with dual audio.”

My response to this statement is mostly based on conjecture, so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

There always seems to be a baseline price when it comes to pre-ordering or buying newly-released games, particularly the more hyped-up ones you see in advertisements, news articles or social media posts. Then I look at Japanese games localised with subtitles and I see that they are sometimes more expensive than popular Western games.

It is then that I wonder - should an incompletely localised game be sold at the same price to a game localised with English dubbing and/or dual audio? Here’s my two cents - you deserve an A+ for effort (everyone deserves that), but you don’t necessarily deserve to be paid that much for a game where corners have been cut. There will always be sheep who are willing to pay full price for such games, particularly if the game’s franchise is a cash cow for the publisher.

(I don’t have to mention any particular company for you to know what I’m talking about, but if you know another company who is like this, then this can be said for them as well.)

I understand that this is on a different calibre to anti-consumer practices, like completing unfinished games with DLCs. However, with all the paid content that publishers are putting out following the game’s release, you would think they would have earned more than enough revenue from the game even with a lowered retail sale price.

“Should games and animes focusing on Japanese history and culture be dubbed?”

In the case of games such as Samurai Warriors, Yakuza, Utawarerumono, Toukiden and Hakuoki that contain themes relating to Japanese history and culture, some contend that these games should not be dubbed in order to retain the authenticity of these themes. However, I contend that players should be able to choose what language they want to play a game in and not have that decision forced on them if it can be helped. Having the belief that “everything set in or based around Japan should be subbed and not dubbed” opens up a slippery slope that could be expanded to all Japanese games and animes, regardless of genre or theme.

If you want to experience the authenticity of the Japanese themes in the game, then by all means, play the game with the original voices. However, it should be noted that even if you play it with subtitles, the translations in them are basically the aggregated opinions of a few people regarding what a line of text or dialogue means in English. Chances are that it’s not going to be a perfect translation of the original and hey, it’s not like the dub track will be any better or worse because it’s basically another version of the translation. Therefore, if you really want to get all up in this “originality” thing, then you should be playing the original Japanese version of the game, with Japanese voices and texts.

As people have said in the past, dubbing or localising something doesn’t ruin the original, so if a company wants to dub a game during localisation, regardless of the contents’ nature, then they should go for it. This extends to animes as well.

“The intentions of the creator should be respected regardless of voice preference.”

In some cases, there is no specific voice option that a game or anime should be played in - that is, unless a certain option is not available for various reasons, thereby “forcing” fans to enjoy the game or anime in whatever language is available. In rare cases, however, what if that option was imposed by request from the creator, who says that fans should play it that way? In that case, fans should be more understanding to the creator’s decision. However, if the game is dubbed anyway, that “decision” becomes a recommendation and at this point, fans should make their own decisions about which voice track to listen to.