「Localization Decisions For Literal Dummies」 Akiba’s Trip 2 and “weaboos”

Marvelous USA (a.k.a. XSEED) is one of the only localization companies I trust nowadays when it comes to Japanese video games. I particularly commend them for respecting the target audience of the niche games they bring over and paying no heed to our western culture’s increasingly incessant need for political correctness.

Their localization of Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed was far from perfect (considering the use of internet slang/memes in Potsuri/Pitter, the game’s parody of 2ch, it’s understandable), but it’s good at getting the point across for the most part. When the game was released in NA during the later part of 2014, many overly-sensitive Politically Correct Babies criticized one Pitter user’s use of the word “trap”, which was used in place of the Japanese version’s use of the slang “nekama” – net okama, which is essentially a guy pretending to be a girl online. I swear, humanity as a species of primates are losing their backbones just as we lost our tails – if fictional insults (if even considered one, really) used by a fictional internet asshole are to become a source of massive controversy and offense, I’m worried about where millennials will take our society next. We already had that one asswipe causing a shitstorm over a white woman’s hand being featured on Super Mario Maker. Freakin’ putrid.

It’s a fictional depiction of the internet, which is not a nice place in real life either. If people are easily offended by words in fiction without processing the context, intent, and tone of the usage, and confusing it with outright slander, they’re better off staying under the shelter of their parents’ roofs for everyone’s own good (eh, maybe not their parents’ own good).

It’s gotten to the point where it seems people value Politically Correct censorship over an accurate translation, which to be honest, the trap translation is. They could have also used something worse that actually is intentionally transphobic, like “tranny” or something. Although, it’s not like the babies will stop complaining either way. Anyways, the only big problem I had with XSEED’s localization (besides the horrid English dub that’s nullified with dual audio anyway) was this:

「Localization Decisions For Literal Dummies」 Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky

Alright, I love the crap out of the Atelier series. Old school JRPG gameplay with adorable characters designed by awesome Japanese artists such as Mel and Hidari, and alchemy management with some minor VN elements thrown in here and there? I’m game, definitely better than your annual soulless first-person shooter series. And I totally appreciate the fact that more and more of the games are getting localized and that it’s becoming a trend. But holy shit, even though the localization’s been getting better ever since Koei Tecmo took over from NISA, it’s not really saying much because the quality control still leaves a lot to be desired. It’s bearable for most of the games, but a lot more noticeable with Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky, the game being riddled with mistranslations, bad typography, and inconsistencies with previous games.

Back with new content and a new PC

Alright then… first post of 2016. Sorry about the sudden disappearance of new posts. What was supposed to be a month-long break from the blog for school turned out to be a disaster.

You see, I was going to write a Christmas/New Years post about my 2015 weeb highlights for 12 Days of Anime, but apparently my blog was hacked (hence the new layout you see before you, my old customized Pool theme was infected and had to be replaced because it was no longer supported by WordPress). Based Maestro thankfully fixed the blog for me, kudos for the great service even after all these years. But by then, it was no longer Christmas nor New Years Eve, so I decided to scrap that post entirely and the disappointment made me go on an indefinite break. I did spend some time to rework a newer theme to my liking, but… that was basically it. I think I have an idea as to why my blog was hacked, but I’m not going to get into it. Not worth it.

Here are some of the anime/manga/video game titles you may have seen if I was able to write the post on time: Owarimonogatari, One-Punch Man, Non Non Biyori Repeat, Nagato Yuki-chan no Shoushitsu, Shenmue III, and others. I might probably just give them individual articles one day, however.

But yeah, what have been up to since my last post? Well, my typical normie life aside, I managed to save enough to build myself a new PC during Black Friday, of course for my Design major, digital fan art, HD/1440p PC gaming, console emulation, and XTREME!!111 animu viewing. Here are the build specs.

Processor: Intel Core i7 4790k @ 4.00GHz (with overclock later when I get a better CPU cooler)
Motherboard: MSI Z97 Gaming 5 (the psuedo-sound card audio quality provided by the motherboard is sextastic out of the box)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Red 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866
Local Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5″ Solid State Drive
Secondary Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5″ 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (should have gotten the 2TB version, but I was a dumbass and got scared by Backblaze’s circumstantial failure rate statistics)
Case: Enermax ECA3253-BW ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair CSM 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B3ST/BLK/G/AS DVD/CD Writer (reused, the case leaves room for me to add in a Bluray player, but I already have a PS3 in the meantime)
Case Fans: 1 Stock (Bottom-mounted), 1 Thermaltake Pure 12 LED 41.0 CFM 120mm Fan (rear)
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Drawing Tablet: Wacom Intuos Pen and Touch w/ Clip Studio Paint Pro
Monitor: Dell ST231​0 23″ Full​ HD Widesc​reen LCD
Speakers: Altec Lansing ATP3 3-Piece Speaker System

Once I get my gaming keyboard/mouse combo and a new mouse pad, I’ll post pics of my setup. Very recently, I also received my copy of The Fruit of Grisaia along with the Grisaia series display box from Sekai Project’s KickStarter (the side I have on display vs. the other side). Can’t wait for the other two to come out.

Anyways, I’ve planned to start off a new year of Mahou Zenkai ~The Otaku Spot~ with a new series of posts called Localization Decisions For Literal Dummies, where I take a piss on extremely asinine localization/translation decisions and mishaps that happen in Official English versions/subtitles of the anime, manga, and games that come over here. Quality Control can be really bad on the translation side because of editors (people taking the translated text and making it sound natural in spoken English) not being familiar with the source material. Generally though, it also probably happens because they weren’t really thinking period or they’re just simply the type of people that like to smear their shit all over foreign works because they think they’re more creative than the original creators. With video games, it also isn’t limited to translation, but also handling the UI and typesetting as well. This series will generally consist of shitshortposts unless the subject matter happens to be really, really stupid.

Just as always, I’ll also continue to update my series of Cardcaptor Sakura posts and continue my recap of the Suzumiya Haruhi light novels. I must say, I am absolutely hyped at what CLAMP has in store for Cardcaptor Sakura‘s 20th anniversary. Cheers to an upcoming fun year.

Oversensitive people shouldn’t indulge in creative media, ever

Rin’s look of disgust.

Shinji being a sicko.

The justice served by Lancer (and more).

This was from an ANN review of episode 19 of Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works, and no, I’m not going to link to it. If you really want to read that review, look it up yourself, although I suggest not to. I’m not helping these clowns get revenue by linking to them on my blog.

What, so basically “bad guys shouldn’t do bad things because bad things are bad”? Shinji, who is clearly a sicko and desires Rin, should have baked her a batch of cookies instead?

Prequels, Sequels, Originals: Knowing the Difference

Gigantic franchises with multiple iterations often have newcomers thinking to themselves, “Where exactly do I start?”

Usually, folks assume that every franchise that contain iterations that fall into the same in-universe “timeline” require them to start at the very beginning of its chronology. And usually, all it ends up being is one big incorrect assumption.

Uguu Review! Fate/stay night (Visual Novel)

問おう。貴方が私のマスターか？

If the banner change hasn’t tipped you off, I’ve been on a Fate/ kick lately.

Of all the big franchises to get hit by the so-called “dirty secondary” syndrome, I believe the Fate/ series is one that genuinely gets hit pretty hard by it. I’m not going to lie, I sound like a giant snobby prick for even using the term “dirty secondary”, but in Adaptation Land, if you’re one to actually care about media besides animation/movies enough venture into what’s often used as source material, you’ll find that the term often holds… well, some painful truth to it.

Although in Fate/stay night’s case, I blame it a little more on Studio DEEN than the fans themselves. Regardless, it’s utterly depressing seeing diehard fans of the Fate/Zero anime write off the original Fate/stay night as being inferior because of the DEEN anime and movie. I suppose ufotable’s new Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works anime is fixing that divide somewhat, but it’s still there to a certain degree mainly because UBW is only 1/3rd of the full experience. Plus, there are secondaries who recommend newcomers to start with F/Z, skip the Fate route – by this, they mean the DEEN anime – then watch the UBW anime (according to them, “the definitive adaptation”; it’s good, but not definitive – it’s only one route), and then after that, watch the upcoming Heaven’s Feel movie… and I’m like “no, that’s wrong, please stop for the sake of your own experience.”

While I did enjoy Fate/Zero and what it had to offer as a spin of the Fourth Holy Grail War, which was constantly and vaguely mentioned in F/sn, it’s merely a prequel at the end of the day (note: different from preceding work) meant as an expansion to an even greater tale that people are unfortunately diluting their own experience of. F/Z spoils more of F/sn than the latter does for the former, and I wish more people that are thinking of getting into the franchise had that in mind, instead of getting fed a bunch of crap from, well, dirty secondaries.

With the context and details that weren’t present in any of Studio DEEN’s animated adaptations, the visual novel is certainly one hell of a ride, even with the shoddy English fan-translation desecrating the Nasutext. I’m 21 now and dislike using the word “epic” to describe, well, anything. But here I find it the word extremely fitting, because it is fucking epic.

I mean, okay, as much as I loved it, it was far from perfect. Like the onslaught of info-dumps, diarrhea of the mouth, cooking scenes that make you hungry, etc. Art-wise, Réalta Nua PSVita should have updated the art to match Takeuchi’s current style. But the pros definitely outweigh the cons of Fate/stay night. Nasu’s world-building is excellent, so as a person who appreciates that kind of imagination in High Fantasy stories such as this, it’s no wonder that I enjoyed it so much.

Alright, enough with my unnecessarily long preambles, and onto the review!

Cancerous Ship Girls Rant: The Expansion

Image Credit: 蒼天空 from Pixiv

…Illness when writing that mess aside, I don’t think it needed to be any clearer for comprehension.

I was going to do another Cardcaptor Sakura post or a Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works post, but in light of certain reactions to my previous Kantai Collection post from denizens of the anime community’s infamous cesspool (I say “the”, but in actuality, there are quite a few of them – pick your poison) repeatedly missing the point, I feel the need to clarify more than a few things for others who might also misunderstand the context.

(The real reason is mostly because cramming for midterms in college sucks, and I’m finding an excuse to procrastinate and letting out stress.)

Happy New Year!

Image Credit: あきのん from Pixiv

よいお年をお迎えください!

It’s finally 2015 on my side of the world, guys! I didn’t do a “12 Days of Anime” countdown for the end of 2014, but I’m still up to share some blurbs of my Japanese-related highlights of 2014 all in one post (excluding Fanime, you can see that post here).

Happy Belated Halloween! (Project Zero/Fatal Frame)

Big giant NO

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween! Though more than a day late, I felt compelled to honor the horror festivities we had this season using this humble little Japanophile blog of mine in some way or another. Rather than diving into some bizzarro horror manga by the likes of Itou Junji and such, I’ve decided to ramble a bit about one of my favorite Japanese survival horror video game series that I find myself playing every October: 零 (Zero), otherwise known as Project Zero in Europe and Fatal Frame in the United States.

Uguu Review! Hoshizora no Memoria -Wish upon a Shooting Star-

Pray to become starry sky tomorrow…

So finally, after about 50 years, here’s another write-up of a visual novel (I fully admit that I’m absolutely damedame). The title of the day is Hoshizora no Memoria -Wish upon a Shooting Star-, a moege/charage by Favorite and one that is available with a fan-translation (by Staircase Subs).

I have to say that the art is simply gorgeous. The delicious illustrations are, of course, drawn by Shida Kazuhiro. He’s really good at drawing absolutely heart-melting loli characters and cute females in general, and honestly provides one of the strongest aspects that Favorite brand visual novels have going for them.

Also, beware. There will be major spoilers (even if I don’t go too deep into them and mostly just share my thoughts).