Daedalus must be proud.

[Rob-Bert]

Also visual design matters, or at least it does to me.

It matters to most people, it's just that you're the only one here who doesn't like the design of this game (who's spoken up about it, anyway).

He's the only one here who doesn't like the visual design of anything at all, last I checked.

[gr4yJ4Y]

Mario Sunshine = ?????

It's not gay-related, but I distinctly hear some of the NPCs say, "You want to kill me."

[Shadow Hog]

Gay propaganda in 3D Mario games:

Mario 64 = "So long gay Bowser"

Mario Galaxy = "UR MR GAY"

Mario Sunshine = ?????

You fight Bowser in a giant hot tub. I think his son is with him. If that's not at least KIND of gay I don't know what is.

[j-man]

Bowser tries to steal "the sunshine" from an island full of purple men in grass skirts. That's definitely leaning towards gay, if not leaning directly on it, or propping it up on its erect penis.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

I met a purple man once, gave him the Heimlich maneuver. Guess he was thankful for reasons unintended.

themoreyouknow.jpg

[James McGeachie]

I can't be arsed quoting anyone but I just wanna say on the whole Bowser/Koopa thing, when I was a kid I actually thought they were 2 separate characters and brothers. The Koopa kids were Koopa's children and Bowser was their uncle.

Name changes through localisation are always confusing when you're young. I admit now though I prefer the name Bowser.

[Green Gibbon!]

I might decide I like Frodo Baggins better as Poopy Pants McGillis and I might start calling him that. But it doesn't change the fact that IT ISN'T HIS FUCKING NAME!

[CM August]

Yeah, and it's not Goomba, Pirhana Plant and Shy Guy - it's Kuribo, Pakkun and Heiho! What the hell were they thinking, etc.

[G.Silver]

Make sure you pronounce those with correct emphasis or you're calling them by the wrong name too. In fact, if you aren't writing them in kana, technically you're misspelling them.

[Crowbar]

I might decide I like Frodo Baggins better as Poopy Pants McGillis and I might start calling him that. But it doesn't change the fact that IT ISN'T HIS FUCKING NAME!

It would be if it were used in an official translation into your language that was endorsed by the original author.

[Gaz]

It's not Mario. It's Jumpman damnit!

[Rob-Bert]

This isn't a Sonic forum, it's a Sonikku forum.

[Delphine]

I was about to come vomit all over this post but I can see y'all have already done that.

[Green Gibbon!]

It would be if it were used in an official translation into your language that was endorsed by the original author.

Then you would have to consider why it was changed in the first place. I can think of only 3 reasons:

1) Someone thought it was too British for the target audience so they decided to Americanize it. Which is a slap in the face to the audience.

2) Someone thought he could do a better job than Tolkien. Which is a slap in the face to Tolkien and the audience.

3) Someone thought it wasn't marketable enough. Which is just a tragedy.


The Achilles heel of my argument is of course in the 3rd option. Certainly names are chosen in the original market based on their appeal in the language they were written in, which more often than not, is impossible to translate. Of course it would be fantastic if the entire overseas audience would be interested in, heaven forbid, learning something about another culture or language - "Oh, so 'kuri' is 'chestnut' in Japanese, interesting" - but considering most don't even have the patience to read subtitles in a foreign film much less use the overwhelming mental processes required to make the connections between simple words, it completely negates any possibility of successful marketing (at least on the same scale as in the original country), so... the audience gets slapped in the face. C'est la vie.


But it still sucks, and "Bowser" is still gay.

[Green Gibbon!]

By the way, "c'est la vie" is French. It means "such is life."

Didn't mean to upset anyone's fragile thought processes with foreign words!

[Dr. BUGMAN]

As Gaz has already pointed out, Mario wouldn't be "Mario" had he not been renamed by NOA. What would Luigi have been named had the Italian motif not been in place? Kinda hard to imagine!

Wario wouldn't even exist had it not been for a trans-language pun!

[Crisis]

I see no problem in localising text with the author's consent, if it's better than the original. Robotnik, for instance, is objectively a better name than Eggman, and Mario is better than Jumpman, etc.

The Japanese also have a tendency to make puns that take about 5 minutes to explain to a lowly gaijin, thus ruining all funny potential. The obvious example is Mother 2 (Earthbound is a better name, by the way) and the pencil eraser. A slightly more obscure example - the piece of paper on Banon's desk.

[Green Gibbon!]

"Better" is subjective in most cases, but you're arguing for allowing someone other than the original author to make that decision for you. I'll take the original work and make a decision for myself, thank you very much!

That's the whole point - I don't want someone to make it more "palatable" for me. I don't need mommy to mash up my food.


Of course in most cases (especially in games, and especially in Japanese games) the original "authors" don't give a fuck what happens to their shit in their home country let alone overseas. It belongs to the company, not them, and they know it. It's designed from the ground up for marketability. That's kind of a shame in and of itself, but it's beside the point.

There is no argument for intrusive localization that doesn't amount to "sorry, I'm too lazy to think." And it's because so many people have this attitude that the scope of "marketable" is so small in the first place!

[Rob-Bert]

I suppose the next thing you're gonna tell us is that the original version of every song is automatically better regardless of how good the cover is.

[Green Gibbon!]

What exactly does that have to do with what I'm talking about?

[CM August]

I concur. In fact, I don't think games should even be translated into other languages in the first place. So many English speakers are used to having their hands held. They want to understand all the moonspeak and funny letters? Let the fuckers work for it. God forbid they actually learn something.

[Green Gibbon!]

That would certainly be the ideal! Of course it isn't feasible. Luckily, there is a huge difference between a translation and an alteration.


But these absurd, broadly exaggerated parodies of (vastly unrelated) perceived notions in the place of any actual, y'know, arguments looks like fun. I think I'll try it myself:

MOONSPEAK WEABOO!! GOD BLESS AMERICA! FUCK MUSLIMS!!!

[Senbei]

Then you would have to consider why it was changed in the first place. I can think of only 3 reasons:

1) Someone thought it was too British for the target audience so they decided to Americanize it. Which is a slap in the face to the audience.

2) Someone thought he could do a better job than Tolkien. Which is a slap in the face to Tolkien and the audience.

3) Someone thought it wasn't marketable enough. Which is just a tragedy.

Naturally, this lead me to look into the Japanese translation of LotR. Some interesting articles here and here. The book is, of course, as far from Japanese culture as you can get, so there's some controversy about how the translation was handled.

Some proper nouns where translated into kanji, like Underhill becoming Yamanoshita (mountain + under) and Strider becoming Haseo (run + man). Gollum's name was changed to Gokuri, apparently the onomatopoeia for swallowing. This type of translation results in names that sound rustic and old-timey, which I think is appropriate for a fantasy setting, and more importantly it keeps the context of each name intact for the Japanese reader.

On the other hand, some names, particularly Baggins becoming Baginzu, were just left in katakana. This is the more faithful translation and sounds more exotic to the Japanese reader. But the context of some of these names, Proudfoot sounding pompous, Strider sounding adventurous, is lost.

So what do you think? Is it better to translate the names by sound or meaning? Is one way pandering to the audience? To me, it sounds like the translator did a good job of knowing when to use kanji and when to use katakana. Names that are already fantastical, like Sauron, remain unchanged, while names that have meaning attached, like Strider, are translated for meaning.

(Reaching the end of this, I realize it has nothing to do with the Bowser-Koopa debate, but dammit I wrote this whole thing out and I'm going to post it!)

[Green Gibbon!]

I don't think character (or location) names should ever be changed. In cases where they have some significance or meaning outside of simply, y'know, being a name, it's a much better solution to simply include notes for the reader, ie, "This means this in the original language, hence this."

[CM August]

In a game clearly intended to appeal to any culture such as Mario, refusing to let the audience in on otherwise obvious puns and references is doing the game a disservice. In a 'pure' model like that, anybody who is not Japanese is at a disadvantage, period. Tough luck? I don't think so. It's not a good model.

On the other hand, a game that is entirely about a particular culture, and part of its appeal, will almost always keep the symbols and funny names intact; see Shenmue, or hell, the different countries in Sonic Unleashed.

Treating things on a case-by-case basis, like Senbei's example, seems to be the best way to do it.