Column: disappointment with translation | Jim Quarter

After writing my review for Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, I was talking to one of my friends about my pain points in the game. Not its loot system or how it affects combat, but translation from Japanese into English. The person in question is of Japanese descent, and has lived there for seventeen years, thus he is quite fluent in the language, while I learn the language to be an otaku (Or the web, if you follow my colleague) to be able to play games that would never come to the West. So we often argue in Japanese, correcting me (regularly) when necessary, but we also talk in a broader sense about how Japanese media has become more prominent here, with all the astounding consequences that follow.

One of the most amazing things we’ve found is that subtitles for anime and games seem to be getting worse, despite the growing group of consumers who need to stay happy. Logic would dictate that a larger market would lead to more quality control, but the opposite has been proven time and time again. Much to my dismay.

Because I am now in an annoying broker position. I can understand enough Japanese to follow the story of most games and shows, but I don’t understand enough detail to fully enjoy it. I’m familiar with so many words and some sentences I’ve heard so many times that I know exactly what they mean, the basic tones and everything, but I’m not skilled enough to successfully complete a JRPG without subtitles. That’s why I still play my favorite JRPGs the way I played fifteen years ago: in Japanese, but with English subtitles. But in the past couple of years, that has become more and more of an obstacle.

As I gradually became more fluent in Japanese, I noticed that translators often followed the main lines of text, with sentences that barely reflected the spoken words. Stranger of Paradise suffered from this, for example, but the later parts of the Tales series surprised me, too. With the animations, time and time again, the fan subtitles are the ones that show the official sources how it’s done, it makes me quit quipanophile when I see minimal work on expensive collectibles. To be honest, I am very annoyed with it!

Because I love Japan, even if I loved it, I wouldn’t live there for long, and the idea was that learning the language would allow me to enjoy all it had to offer even more. Instead, it ironically detracts from what started my obsession in the first place. Perhaps I should have listened to a proverb from a language I can fully master and realized that the saying “ignorance is bliss” arose for a reason. Because who knows if I’ll ever fully master Japanese…