Author Topic: Touhou 15.5: 東方憑依華 (Eastern Blooms of Possession) ~ Antinomy of Common Flowers  (Read 520026 times)

7TC7

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk-CdmLe8nI

Yesterday on stream, Unabara showed off the English Subtitles and Overdrive difficulty. Also some new spells. Also crashing the game. Starting around 27 minutes in.

At 22 minutes in there is also some Reitaisai merch looking cute.

From a quick glance the English translation looks pretty good, thought I didn't compare it with the fan-translation and Unabara skipped through dialogue pretty quickly.
< picture leads to my YouTube channel

Drake

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It didn't look completely terrible, basically

A Colorful Calculating Creative and Cuddly Crafty Callipygous Clever Commander
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Gpop

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He also said on stream that the patch is coming out on April 23rd.

「まだまだ、ぬるいぞ!」 -> "You still have a long way to go!"

i never wanna hear complaints about fan translations ever again

Lebon14

  • 椛ちゃん、助けてぇぇぇぇぇ!
「まだまだ、ぬるいぞ!」 -> "You still have a long way to go!"

i never wanna hear complaints about fan translations ever again

"Madamada, nurui zo!"
Google Translate gives me "It's still too lukewarm!".
Rikaichamp TLs "Mudamuda" as "Still a long way to go before the goal" and "nerui" as "lenient, lukewarm".

It's not a bad translation. However, it's not a direct translation but at the same time, I just can't make a sentence out of the translation of the words from rikaichamp.
Also note that "lukewarm" could be interpreted as "it's not ready"; "not hot enough". So, there you go.

I am going to try to be patient here. so the line before that one was at 33:58 on the video.

Byakuren says 'お前たち、中々やるじゃない', which they translated as "You two are pretty good." which, well, is accurate, but a bit flat.

The next line is Futo saying 'まだまだ、ぬるいぞ!' which they translated as "You still have a long way to go!" If I go by that, if read as a conversation, could read as Futo telling Byakuren that they're not as good as Futo are.

A better translation would be something more along the lines of "We're just warming up!" (lit: 'Still just warm!') As in, Futo taking the compliment and responding appropriately.

This is probably indicative that either the translator didn't catch the names and thought it was a line Byakuren was giving, or that they didn't have this information to begin with, because that's the only way that makes sense.

In general the translation seems okay just a bit flat. Characters don't come off as having a lot of personality.

My guess is that the translator was given a list of lines with no speakers or context or anything. It reads a bit stiff like that.

Gpop

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He also said on stream that the patch is coming out on April 23rd.
Update: It has been delayed for the 24th due to bugs still existing in this patch. And just in case it wasn't obvious enough, it's 1.10, which means big changes like balance changes.

N-Forza

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My guess is that the translator was given a list of lines with no speakers or context or anything. It reads a bit stiff like that.
This wouldn't surprise me at all, but I was under the impression he was a big fan of Touhou. He even appeared on the last Touhou Station and even that one Nikenme show to talk about the fandom in South Korea and stuff, so I hope he at least played the game beforehand.

I still think Inchling is a really weird translation to go with for 小人.

I still think Inchling is a really weird translation to go with for 小人.
So did they use "Inchling" for Kobito? Or some other word?

Suspicious person

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1.10 in, woo.Y'all now better refer to the setting of the series as "the gensokyo", embrace Jyoon as a thing, and pity Reimu for apparently being an unplaned shrine maiden, all of this in accordance to the official english translation

also blocking is for the weak and overdrive AI doesn't need to do it

So did they use "Inchling" for Kobito? Or some other word?
Inchling was used.

Lebon14

  • 椛ちゃん、助けてぇぇぇぇぇ!
"Jyoon" is not even remotely correct... it's a beginner in Japanese's mistake. If it would have been "Zyoon", it would have been correct, technically, since it would have used Nihon-Shiki or Kunrei-Shiki romaji.

And, more about the translator:
http://clarste.tumblr.com/post/173266519831/clarste-clarste-finnkaenbyou-so-i-did-a

ideally, for an english translation, you want to translate names in such a way that someone who does not know japanese will know how to pronounce it correctly

the correct translation in that case is Jo'on. for a speaker unaccustomed to Japanese, Joon will likely be pronounced as a single syllable, like June. Jyoon will be spoken as, well, Jyoon, which isn't right. maybe that'll sound like Jiyuna for fighting game power. And Zyoon is only fine if you're reading it, not speaking it, and know the romanization methodology.

Know who you are translating for is a very important part of translating. it's not enough for things to be technically correct, especially once they are out of a controlled environment. you can't just point people at a wiki and go "this is how you say this!"

in other news i'm a fan of just ignoring the official translations for being nonsense.

Drake

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For all the flak this translation will get, please hard note that Jyoon is literally the romanization put in the omake.txt. I would not at all fault the translator for adhering to ZUN's romanization, even though ZUN is just weird and inconsistent at romanization. It isn't this guy that made it up.

A Colorful Calculating Creative and Cuddly Crafty Callipygous Clever Commander
- original art by Aiけん | ウサホリ -

ideally, for an english translation, you want to translate names in such a way that someone who does not know japanese will know how to pronounce it correctly

the correct translation in that case is Jo'on. for a speaker unaccustomed to Japanese, Joon will likely be pronounced as a single syllable, like June. Jyoon will be spoken as, well, Jyoon, which isn't right. maybe that'll sound like Jiyuna for fighting game power. And Zyoon is only fine if you're reading it, not speaking it, and know the romanization methodology.

Know who you are translating for is a very important part of translating. it's not enough for things to be technically correct, especially once they are out of a controlled environment. you can't just point people at a wiki and go "this is how you say this!"

in other news i'm a fan of just ignoring the official translations for being nonsense.
It's not a translation. This is actually a really important distinction because labeling transliterations as translations ties into a lot of baggage surrounding whether a term is actually Japanese or not.

This name probably doesn't really have a "correct" transliteration, but it's likely a battle between "Jyoon" and "Zyoon". Macrons and apostrophes are non-starters, always.

It literally never matters what's "correct". What's actually correct is what's actually used, no matter how much anyone else might hate it. Joon is used in the game itself, so that takes precedence over a text file outside of the game, as well as literally everything else anyone could ever say about it.

Knowing who you're translating for is a very tiny part of translating, because the vast majority of time you're translating for yourself (especially if it's your job to translate weird Japanese games), and the rest of the time you're having to adhere to nonsense tradition like this apostrophe garbage. This is why it really never matters what's "correct", because this "correctness" is a maze of made-up bullshit with no internal logic.

But yes localizations are basically always nonsense. Very rarely is anyone willing to make a localization that doesn't suck somehow, and it's got nothing to do with being hyperliteral or whatever. Fortunately we have the very topic of this thread as a fantastic example of just how little most people really care about this stuff.

N-Forza

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You seem oddly upset for someone who doesn't seem to care about the quality of this patch.

Knowing who you're translating for is a very tiny part of translating, because the vast majority of time you're translating for yourself (especially if it's your job to translate weird Japanese games),
Oh, okay.

despatche just does that. ignore and move on.

anyway i read more of this translation and ehhhhh. I don't think it's up to the level of quality we are used to, and the questionable and unnatural choices of wordings to use. which is kind of the saddest part, I think. It's not that it goes against fan convention that has existed for well over a decade at this point (god it has been awhile), but that it does so with choices that simply don't fit as naturally or clearly in English. and it would really be sad if that is what they decide they want to stick with, overall.

i'm super happy that they are finally translating officially, but it puzzles me that they couldn't find someone who is a native speaker or who would be willing to understand what it is both fans and newcomers to the series would like to hear, because I think they missed both marks there.

Lebon14

  • 椛ちゃん、助けてぇぇぇぇぇ!
Quote from: Despatche
This name probably doesn't really have a "correct" transliteration, but it's likely a battle between "Jyoon" and "Zyoon". Macrons and apostrophes are non-starters, always.
I disagree Despatche. Romanization standards exist for a reason. Hepburn was especially made for a non-Japanese reader perspective. Zun being inconsistent is because, well, he's clearly doing a favor to us for giving us a hint on the reading but otherwise he doesn't have to and not his forte. But somebody not knowing how Japanese works will take it at face value which is pretty bad. A translator or us the community have to take care to make sure anybody could come and understand how to read it properly. Because "Jyoon" could be read in very unorthodex ways such as "Ji-un" (un as in June), "J'yo-on", "Jai-o-n", "Jai-un", etc. All of which is far from the intended "Joe on" or Joon in hepburn. The other romanization standards makes more sense to the Japanese themselves more than foreigners except wapuro, which is closer to hepburn than the other two (wapuro is literal after all - は is "ha" no matter the context).

Yes, Zun said "Jyoon". Was it correct by the today's standards for what he intends to be read as? No. And it's not the first time Zun has made incorrect romaji.
Is it a good job from the translator to take Zun's romaji to the letter without looking at the kanji first? No. That's just laziness.

However, it is true that any translation is bound to leave some meaning and flavor behind. That goes for any translation but things like reading じょ incorrectly and interpret it "jyo" is a beginner's mistake.

N-Forza

  • Information Superhighway Robbery
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I don't want to sound like I'm bragging but I've met the Tasogare guys at a number of events and made it clear I wanted to help, and there's also a friend of mine who's been friend with them for a while and even joined ZUN as an interpreter to events in the US, and both of us would've been glad to take the job, but this other guy had an "in" of some sort so he got it. It's just how the business goes sometimes.

That being said, it's also likely some of the stranger naming choices were made on Tasogare's side despite the translator wanting to go another way, although it doesn't excuse the weird writing elsewhere.

Leon゠Helsing

  • 0 - The Fool
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Jeez, this is kinda like that "Altria" mess all over again over on the Type-MOON side of things :V

if you meet with them again ask them when suimusou 2 is happening for me if you get the chance

(nope, never letting it go. ever. iamp's still in my top 5 favorite games, ten years later.)

Sedrife

  • Amateur Touhou Piano Player
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Reminder that Tasogare Frontier publishing AoCF to Steam is a commercial business led by  Sunfish Co. Ltd. (http://sunfish.ne.jp/) and that means a whole different set of implication on who's "in".

While the Korean translator (known as ジョン (정), which is his last name) seems knowledgeable on Touhou and Korean fandom, it's not guaranteed that he's familiar with the way that he's familiar with English fandom as well.  And nobody in Korean Touhou community know who this guy is.  "Korean translator of Japanese game translating in to English".  Bound to be have some things off.

It's noteworthy that ジョン appeared in Nikenme Radio #90 (https://youtu.be/7kFksWwiFto), and Touhou Station #11 (http://live.nicovideo.jp/gate/lv310832259) as well, explaining how translating Touhou itself to other language is a difficult job. 

nyttyn

  • Drill baby drill!
I'm just personally bothered by the complete lack of any sort of accent or flavor. Obviously, to some extent some character traits may or may not show in a translation depending on who's handling it, but when a translation doesn't even attempt to convey Futo's old timely way of speaking, among other things, that's a massive let down. Plus, how absolutely half-assed it all feels - capitalization in menus are inconsistent, spell cards and last words are untranslated, the winner text and winner's name are untranslated, songs are untranslated, even the copyright is untranslated.

Perhaps by itself this it would be whatever, but combined with the abysmal netcode that they've only mentioned in a off-hand comment and the fact that this english translation was only mentioned in japaneese tweets on a twitter that isn't even tasofro's main twitter, along with a lack of updates on steam, and i'm just left confused. Like, if this was to reach out to western fans, wouldn't it be ideal to like...give them an idea of when they can reliably play the game? And if this is just to sell the game to a wider audience, wouldn't it make sense to update the steam page accordingly?

Also is Sunfish just a company made by tasofro themselves or something? As far as I'm aware the only two things they've done are the ps4 release of ULiL and the steam release of AoCF, and research doesn't seem to reveal anything else.

Sedrife

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Also is Sunfish just a company made by tasofro themselves or something? As far as I'm aware the only two things they've done are the ps4 release of ULiL and the steam release of AoCF, and research doesn't seem to reveal anything else.

This might help. https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/White_Canvas_Case/White_Canvas_Comment

It's around for a while (since 2003) and it's mainly there for protecting legal rights of Tasogare Frontier's creations, and has close ties with Kourindo Co. (which is ZUN's).

Sedrife

  • Amateur Touhou Piano Player
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On an unrelated note, ZUN has approved electronic sales of Touhou doujinshis on BOOK☆WALKER and Nico Nico e-Books. 

Famitsu has ZUN interview regarding the topic: https://www.famitsu.com/news/201804/25156325.html


spell cards and last words are untranslated, the winner text and winner's name are untranslated, songs are untranslated, even the copyright is untranslated.
I think it will come later. I'm even surprised the full English story mode translation is already here, I would have expected it way later.

Drake

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Perhaps by itself this it would be whatever, but combined with the abysmal netcode that they've only mentioned in a off-hand comment and the fact that this english translation was only mentioned in japaneese tweets on a twitter that isn't even tasofro's main twitter, along with a lack of updates on steam, and i'm just left confused. Like, if this was to reach out to western fans, wouldn't it be ideal to like...give them an idea of when they can reliably play the game? And if this is just to sell the game to a wider audience, wouldn't it make sense to update the steam page accordingly
Transparency is not a strong suit of Japanese production environments. Heck it's only become more prevalent in the western somewhat recently and PR is still a nightmare for many companies. Maybe it's just me, but I think it's fairly well-known that Unabara uses his personal Twitter for discussion and minor updates while relegating the Tasofro twitter to news. The accounts fall on each side of their old blog, basically. Japan is also not particularly good with managing where people tend to pay attention to for updates and I don't really know why. It's often very much "you come to me" rather than "I come to where you look". It would make sense to manage the Steam page more often, especially wrt the English mode, but it doesn't seem to be a location they're particularly concerned with.

A Colorful Calculating Creative and Cuddly Crafty Callipygous Clever Commander
- original art by Aiけん | ウサホリ -

obviously ZUN is using wapuro romaji, which is totally a legitimate form of romanization (lol)

Which it is, and always will be. It solves the problem Hepburn causes with its pointless and misleading macrons. It shouldn't just be called "waapuro" and it shouldn't be treated as some weird "quirk" of anything.

You seem oddly upset for someone who doesn't seem to care about the quality of this patch.
Odd take. I'm not sure where you got that impression? I do actually care a lot about the very first official translation of an actual official entry (i.e. not Koubutou or whatever) in a cult series.
Oh, okay.
I don't really know what to say to someone who does it for a living. I had a whole conversation in the IRC channel about this with someone else who does it for a living (well, I think they do, anyway). It was an actual conversation, unlike the following:

despatche just does that. ignore and move on.
I'm not apologizing for things that weren't my fault, and I'm not taking responsibility for things I'm not doing. You wanna flaunt your credentials? I've been in a lot of these communities a lot longer than you have, and you were always mostly fine with that because you never really cared about a lot of those said communities. You always seemed more upset that most of the people in those communities never really seemed to care about their own communities, and that's just common sense on your part.

None of this makes sense. This isn't like you, and you don't have to be like this. We are two people who can say the following...
i'm super happy that they are finally translating officially, but it puzzles me that they couldn't find someone who is a native speaker or who would be willing to understand what it is both fans and newcomers to the series would like to hear, because I think they missed both marks there.
...with the exact same tone and intent. Anyone who can do that should be able to get along incredibly well, because the above is a surprisingly complicated thing that touches on a lot of a person's life.

Transparency is not a strong suit of Japanese production environments. Heck it's only become more prevalent in the western somewhat recently and PR is still a nightmare for many companies. Maybe it's just me, but I think it's fairly well-known that Unabara uses his personal Twitter for discussion and minor updates while relegating the Tasofro twitter to news. The accounts fall on each side of their old blog, basically. Japan is also not particularly good with managing where people tend to pay attention to for updates and I don't really know why. It's often very much "you come to me" rather than "I come to where you look". It would make sense to manage the Steam page more often, especially wrt the English mode, but it doesn't seem to be a location they're particularly concerned with.
Because that underlying "you come to me" system exists. It used to be how the west did things, and it still is for certain topics. It's a much better system than what we have now, where individuals try so hard to be brands and brands try so hard to be individuals.
« Last Edit: May 02, 2018, 05:41:19 AM by Despatche »