#me in highscool: im not very romantic | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

imustbenuts · 8 months

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personal thoughts about playing JP games in JP vs EN, a lot of weird thoughts that probably won't make sense to many

not a dig at localization or translation or anything, just a word vomit on how im perceiving things.

theres 2 main categories in my head when i play games made by japanese devs. Western Themed, and Eastern Themed.

for Western Theme, games like final fantasy (all of it), some/few entries of fire emblems, no more heroes, and elden ring all fall into this category.

for Eastern Theme, it's games like persona, shin megami tensei, sekiro, sengoku basara, tales of series and RGG games

in my head, games in the Western Themed box are games i find far more enjoyable in english localization or dub, and actually find some of the japanese script to be kind of off putting. the Eastern Theme would be the opposite, games that are far more enjoyable in full JP than EN.

learning japanese has done quite a bit to my brain and the more i learn the more i think, "@_@ oh god im in a weird place where people won't understand me help"

because see, if i try to explain, it becomes weird and very subjective. and one of the main factor is that language is kind of intrinsically tied to culture in my head, which, :v

trying to type it down to explain anyway:

as an example, calling people by titles such as "Lord", "Sir", "Madame", "Knight", works far better for a Western themed game than an Eastern one. like, yes, that makes sense if i think about it, historically and even right now, those terms instantly spring up the images of a medieval knight and societal system in stone castles. cool beans.

but we don't use the word knight for Samurais. this is a whole other thing referring to the Japanese class of people wandering around with swords serving their feudal lords.

and in JP, it works the same. Kishi is used for Knights rather than the word samurai. for Lords, 卿(kyou) is used for English lords, and 殿(tono) is used for JP lords. but the japanese pronouns are still there, with some of the roots just reminding me of how a stereotype in JP media would speak. the -sama suffix is the same, and other words like -chan or anime/japanese rooted verbal tics can totally get in there, pulling me out of the immersion.

its like running face first into "Tis but a flesh wound" in the script - you know that specific root is in monty python, a fully ENGLISH bit. a good example of JP would be running into a cat who says "wagahai wa neko de aru", refering to nastume soseki's book I Am A Cat.

especially in the case of Final Fantasy. with very few exceptions like 7, a lot of them fit better wtih an EN script bc of how much western themed theatrics and setting is packed in there.

as an example, i think i prefer seifer in ff8 for example going "One of these days, I'm gonna tell ya 'bout my ROMANTIC dream!" like a dumbass jock over "itsuka kikasete yarusa! ore no ro~~~~~mantikku na yume wo na!" like a dumbass JP highscooler (which he kind of is, but still not a dipshit jock)

so its really the little things like that. subs not dubs doesnt work for me anymore, im in a very strange place, kupo.

another thing is really, just... the tropes. the deep disconnect between how people behave irl and how anime thinks people behave irl. kind of like how Hayao Miyazaki puts it in 2014,

so, learning Japanese has actually done a weird bit where it's caused me to actually fully understand the JP, meaning when i pick up on the script getting off putting, it gets off-putting.

when people usually go "subs not dubs", its voiced from a sense that the JP voice is better than EN. but as the years go by this isn't really true anymore, some dubs can have serious quality that's unthinkable back in 2010 ffs. i think this is largely bc anglo-speaking audience do not understand JP, and so builds an imagination between the sub and the tone of the voice acting to carry the work.

but just like old ps1 horror games, that imagination is doing a good bulk of elbow greasing.

to explain:

there are times when JP writers puts in an objectively anime trope or thing. especially in the case of FE, where sometimes that it becomes 'ew' to people who aren't hardcore anime nerds. im talking things like the whole big booba onee-chan Camilla and the kawaii imouto/otouto Sakura and Takumi tropes thats kinda there in FE Fates. and the JP version of Anna's S support in Engage and the weird undertones thats going there.

masking it with subs can cause the audience to kind of brush it off as "aaah those silly japanese" or "ok this is just an anime trope". i mean, hell, check some discourse from people who yell about how this is censorship essentially defending it from what is effectively lolicon tropes and it's just. :v

and thats the thing. once that localization or sub barrier is removed, once im hearing actual JP and past any subconscious filter, i fully see the scene in its original form. i would then have a reaction exactly like hayao miyazaki.

having that ignorance kind of protects an audience from just how deep the writers ouroborous'd themselves into the nerd sphere. i kind of wish i had that sometimes. the creep vibes in some original JP scripts makes me want to crawl out of my skin, and there is no way i can explain this to an audience without first sounding like im disparaging the original work, shitting on the writers, and bringing in my personal bias into the conversation.

which, yeah i guess it kind of is. but man. if elden ring can commit to their bit with anime tropes used in a good/interesting/subtle way, then so can every one else.

when i started learning JP to play JP games never to see the light of localization, this was not the experience i expected, tbh.

so in summary, im totally disillusioned to the idea of Original = Best, Localization = Censorship at this point. that rose colored glasses are hanging on by a thread now. kind of wondering what other stuff i'll run into but it's been a real interesting journey that i totally get if people wont understand.

loneliness and language learning goes hand in hand lol

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