The worst imo is when localizers attempt to incorporate “western-style” writing (i.e. Borderlands-type cringe) where there was none in the japanese versions. Can’t believe we’re going back towards requiring fan translations to get anything remotely accurate.
Totally agree! It comes across as being very cringe, especially when watching an English dub for an anime. Not saying all of them are like this, but take Steins;Gate for instance. After playing the original visual novel with the improvement patch and then jumping into the anime, giving the English dub a try... it's very jarring. 😬 Literally almost every "Japanese" joke in the dub is substituted for a "Western" alternative that is just flat-out cringe.
@@Dutchess5 This is entirely wrong though. Especially in the field of "Jokes", a proper localization becomes incredibly important. In Germany it was very customary around 2010 to translate everything very literally, especially anime. Those sounded incredibly weird and almost surreal, because yes, no one speaks the way those characters do. It was a time, where subtitles desperately included japanese terms like "Nakama" or "Ryoka" with lengthly explanations. The peak was Gintama, when the translators wondered why the audience didn't like it and wasn't laughing at the funny jokes, wordplays that only work in japanese or the references to japanese sports-people no one in the west ever heard about. If you want things to work, you sometimes need to change them, not always of course. Ace Attorney is an incredibly beloved franchise and it is one example that differs the most from the japanese version. The story is basically the same, but the characters and places are named different and they act and talk different. And there are many more examples to this as it has proven to sometimes work far better than estranging a potential audience with terms and practices they are not familiar with. That's why there is that "local" in "localizing", because that is a huge part in it. I take a localization where the localizers took some more freedom over a plain translation any day.
What really sucks is that fan translations often get cease and desists from these big companies. Take the Sakura Moyu fan translation project for example; it was almost done, but they got hit with a cease and desist and now we'll have to wait for years for a butchered release of that game... I hope that AI tools will get good enough to translate games sometime soon
Yeah, that's the worst part about it... Not only that, but fan projects for video games (especially Nintendo) gets swatted down faster than you can say "wait" lol. It almost feels like these video game companies hardly care about their fans anymore now that they're wealthy enough to practically be financially independent if they wanted to.
I think that when localization alters the original intent of the creative work, that's when it's gone too far. It's almost like taking an old painting and painting over certain parts of it, because it might offend someone. Great video as always.
I think the problem is more complex. Sadly, localization has been since almost 5 years the central topic thrown around internet cultural wars, so most of the arguments made online are done in poor faith and in a "checkmate, atheist" kinda way. I admit localizationis in a rough spot, since the culture wars have also impacted the way certain localizers approach their work. He is not a localizer exactly, but the JelloApocalypse drama comes to mind. And sorry to say, but this shit goes back to the 90s, where a lot of sexual/lgbt/religious stuff from Japanese games were also toned down and replaced to not offend Western senibilities, but this is not nearly as mentioned since it does not aid the culture wars. Fuck, a lot of people were trying to start flame wars about "wokalizers" when Persona 3 Reload came around, fortunately the people that were trying to start shit didn't know the Reload localization is based off the original FES from the PS2, so most people told them to fuck off.
Nice video! I saw this after seeing your SMB3 video, and was curious about your take on this subject. I see we're in agreement! I like your video content. Subscribed. :)
@@Dutchess5 Thanks! That's very kind of you to say! I wasn't expecting a reply, so that made my day as well (and it was a hectic one at work! LOL!) I look forward to your next video! 🙂
Sad aspect of all this that doesn't get talked about all that much is that even many fan translations seem to have the same agendas and sensibilities as the corporations. It seems like there's nowhere to go sometimes to get the authentic experience Japanese creatives originally intended for their art as an EN-only Westerner.
Exactly! Not even fan translations are *all* reliable. Which doesn't leave English speaking gamers much of a choice except accepting what was released or going through the whole process of learning Japanese which... isn't impossible, but definitely a time consuming option 😅
@@Dutchess5 Or, as we've now seen, it leads to AI translations- and many openly welcoming them! I'm no fan of this method, but I also can't blame people. As you said, learning Japanese is very time consuming and difficult, and now that we have an easy way to kind of get around the censorship and agenda in localizations of course people are going to take them, and it lets the companies that do this officially save quite a bit of money. A sad state of affairs all around.
There are a couple of problems that I have with this conversation in general: 1. While I do think there are instances where localization goes too far in sanitizing Japanese games, people on the "anti-censorship" side of the argument often extend the criticism beyond localization. Tifa having thigh-high stockings in the FF7 Remake in both the Japanese and English versions is not the same as an entire game mechanic being stripped out of only the English release. Giving Cammy in Street Fighter 6 a new design with less bare skin is not censorship...it's developers wanting to give a character a that's looked the same for 20+ years a new look (and that's not even getting into the fact that some people find stockings and leggings attractive in their own right). Giving characters stockings in Granblue Fantasy Relink is not censorship, it was a decision made by the Japanese developers. They gave a character a new design: it's a thing that happens. Or, for instance, when people assumed that the speech in Ai: Somnium Files about respecting gay people was only in the English version as a result of "Wokalizers" when anyone who plays the original game in Japanese can hear the character saying "LGBT" in Japanese. There are countless other examples of this sort of overreaction, but if I listed them all off, this comment would be an essay. 2. People tend to make the argument that these sorts of changes, no matter how small, impact the "artistic vision" of the game, and while this is sometimes true, a lot of people overblow how often it actually is that extreme. Saying that the changes in P5R "interfere with the creative vision" proves to me that whoever is making the argument never played P5, original or Royal. The scene that got changed with Ryuuji is literally 2 minutes out of the game's 100+ hour runtime, and never comes up again (outside of a follow-up scene that was only in Royal which, again, was only a couple of minutes). What's more, the reason people were upset about the scene to begin with was because, in the original, it was implied that the two flamboyantly gay men in question SEXUALLY ASSAULTED Ryuuji, a MINOR, offscreen. Saying that making slight alterations to a scene that has literally ZERO significance to the story, and in which the only confirmed gay characters in the game are portrayed as literal pedophiles, is tantamount to "ruining the games artistic vision" is intellectually dishonest. The same goes for altering optional/hidden outfits. They're optional for a reason. Making the super secret bikini outfit that you only unlock by doing the optional super bosses look less revealing when you put it on a literal 12-year-old is not "robbing the game of its cultural context." It's being less creepy. I buy fun action games to play the fun action, not to look up a 15-year-old anime girl's skirt. If you want that, there's a billion websites just for you out there. Once they change the way the game plays, then you can complain. Are there instances where localization goes to far? Absolutely. Do a lot of those changes have to do with an overly-sensitive fear of portraying any sort of sexuality? Yes. Is removing all sexual innuendo from a game aimed at teenagers over doing it? I'd agree with that. I haven't played every game ever, and even for the games I have played, I haven't gone out of my way to look into every little change made in localization. I'm sure there are some claims of censorship that are more valid than others, but at the end of the day, you yourself have said that there is a reasonable middle ground when it comes to making changes for different regions. I think if you look into a LOT of the claims that people complain about with these changes, you'll find that way more of them fall into that "reasonable middle ground" than you may think.
Most people didn't accuse FF7R Tifa of being censored specifically because of the stockings. They said she was censored because the devs explicitly admitted in interviews that they were forced by their "ethics department" to "restrict" her chest, meaning giving her a sports bra to make them appear smaller and reduce jiggle. By their own admission, they were told to do it to tone down her design, not just because they felt like giving her a different outfit. It's a similar situation with Granblue. The devs admitted in interviews that they originally toned down the outfits in Versus and Rising to appease Western sensitivities, because they were afraid it wouldn't be allowed in the esports scene otherwise. They also admitted that a lot of their own devs hated the decision, with the lead modeling dev even saying "“Adding more cloth to Metera’s outfit makes her not Metera anymore." In response, they added the uncensored outfits to those games as unlockables, but then didn't do so with Relink. As for the size of the changes, you can't have it both ways. If you say truly believe that a detail is small and insignificant, then by your own logic you have no reason to change it the first place. It can't simultaneously be so important that it NEEDS to be changed, and so unimportant that nobody is allowed to be upset at it being changed. Either it does matter or it doesn't. If it does, then don't be surprised when other people care that you changed it. if it doesn't, then you have no reason to change it.
@@dood3530 I should specify, I don't have a problem with people having an issue with changes, my issue is people acting as if the change is on the same level as a government body coming in and making people change what they want to do. Even if changes are made due to pressure from an internal ethics committee, it's still an internal decision made by the company that owns the rights to the property. That's not the same as the Indian government coming in and saying "we will not let you sell your game unless you remove the cows because cows are sacred here." If someone just goes "yeah, I don't like Tifa's new design because it's less hot," I would be like "I don't agree, but I get where you're coming from." It's when people start acting like it's the same as China illegalizing gay characters that I think it's stupid. I will also say that a LOT of people don't mention the interviews you just mentioned. I've seen plenty of people go "Tifa has leggings, I'm gonna pirate this game now because fuck censorship." If they had cited interviews and gone "I don't mind the changes themselves, but this interview shows that they have a mindset I disagree with," then again, I'd have a lot more respect for that take. As far as the "you can't have it both ways" argument, my counterpoint is that I'm capable of thinking a change is unnecessary and thinking the devs are overreacting while also going "it's not enough to ruin the game." Nothing is perfect, and everything anyone likes has flaws. I can read an interview about devs feeling pressured and go "I disagree with that," and still acknowledge that the core of the game is fun and not go so far as call for a boycott.
You try to make a list, but then under each item you talk about a million different things. 1. The characters had the same look for several years and only now the developers decided to change it? Sounds like a very poor excuse. 2. Another common excuse is "It was actually Japanese that did that." Which is actually the thing localizers worked towards. To mend the outrage over censorship, the localization team was integrated into the game's development process. Which allows them to basically pre-censor any "problematic" stuff and allows localization apologist to claim "It's was actually Japanese that did that." 3. Well, as stated, if these changes are insignificant, then why were they made in the first place? Besides, by this logic, any scene is insignificant in the scope of the entire work. Does that mean that you can just change anything? This seems to be the main issue with that type of excuse. 4. If you don't want to look up a 15-year-old anime girl's skirt than maybe you shouldn't play a game that designed to provide that? Are there not any other games? Have you been banned from Fortnite? Not to mention that different people have different conception of "being creepy." You can't just change things to appeal to sensitivities of random people. 5. And to say that there are "a billion websites" where you can see it is a completely insane argument. I mean, maybe localization should cut music from the game. If you want music - there like billion websites where you can listen to it. Or you want story and dialogs? Just read a book! In-game movie - just go to the cinema, stupid! You can go further - just replace all models with their collision shapes. Make it look like a Super Hot. I mean, you can't complain unless the game plays the same, right? >Do a lot of those changes have to do with an overly-sensitive fear of portraying any sort of sexuality? Actually no. These are just the most obvious ones, especially when you can easily compare character models. But real issues go way deeper. >Is removing all sexual innuendo from a game aimed at teenagers over doing it? How come The Simpsons can have this, but when it comes to anime, it's suddenly problematic?
@@mervish0 I'm genuinely curious: did you read my response to the other guys reply? Because I feel like I acknowledged most of these points there. Ah well, here we go again: 1. Saying something is a "lousy excuse" is overly vague and not based on any real rationale. 2. Even if it is true that companies integrate localization teams into the Japan side of things, that's still the business' decision. They choose to integrate localization teams, they choose to listen to them when making their product. It may not be a decision you like, but it's not the same as a country passing laws that mandate certain things be removed or changed. I want to make this as clear as possible: I have no problem with people not liking certain changes. The problem I have is when people claim those changes are censorship and use that argument to say that pirating the game is okay because they're "fighting censorship." (I'm not saying you made this claim, but it is one I've seen). The same logic applies to the previous point as well: if you don't like Cammy's new outfit, or Tifa's smaller tits, that's fine, but don't cry censorship and pretend it's on the same level as a government making certain subject matter illegal. 3. The "if it's so insignificant, why did they change it" argument is easily the most complex part of this discussion, if you ask me, so I'll admit my points sometimes get jumbled. I'll try to be as clear as possible here. As with all things in life. Importance comes in different orders of magnitude: just because a developer believes something is important enough to change, does not mean that it is equally important to all other aspects of the game. For instance, sometimes developers make a change for a specific port or a re-release that they think will bring the game up from a 7.99 to an 8, because they're trying to make the game as good as possible, and every bit counts. If you don't like that change, that's fine. That's your opinion. But just as the change was made to bring the game from a 7.99 to an 8, if you don't like the change, a reasonable response would be to say that the game is now a 7.98 instead of a 7.99. My issue is when people look at these minor changes and go so far as to say the whole game is ruined. Changing the model of a character's shoe may be a change that the developers thought was important enough to make, but if someone says it makes and otherwise 8/10 game a 4/10, then I think they're ridiculous. Again, and I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but my issue is more with the language people use to justify outrage more so than them being mad at a change. If you don't like Tifa's smaller tits and leggings, just say that you don't like it and leave it at that. 4. As far as the Persona 5 thing goes, no, this would not imply that all scenes are insignificant on their own. In most scenes, there is a logic behind why a character is doing what they're doing, and the scene ends with a reason as to why the next scene happens. There's causality. And then there are the ramifications outside the scene itself. Sometimes, a character gets new information that they later act on. Removing the scenes would make the story make no sense. In the scene with Ryuuji, there's nothing. The scene explains why he isn't with you for a little while, but it doesn't influence his character at all in the original. Him being scarred by an implied sexual assault isn't something ever brought up again, and if you replaced the scene with Ryuuji needing to pee super bad, or jerk off because they're in the red light district, and he saw a hot lady, or with the new version of the scene in Royal, then the larger narrative is the same. 5. I want to make something very clear: changes between sequels and remakes are not the same as changes made in localization. I have a lot more tolerance for sequels and remakes because they're brand new products, often made with new people on the team, and with their own goals. For instance, if they added leggings to Tifa in the Steam port of original FF7, I would think that's stupid. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it ruins the game, but I'd agree it was a stupid change. When it comes to localizing, I'm actually a lot more critical of changes than people reading this reply chain might think. If a change impacts the intent of a scene or a character, then 99.9% of the time, I don't like it, unless the change has to do with the explicit sexualization of minors. And even then, said sexualization has to be pretty extreme for me to warrant thinking it should be changed. Like, the girls in P3 are all under 18, but if the English version of the original game or P3R changed their swimsuits, then I'd think that was dumb. The thing being changed has to be a 12-year-old getting lewded for me to think it's okay to change in localization 99.9% of the time. The change to P5R is literally the only localization change that isn't tied to sexualized minors that I defend, and that's for two reasons: The scene has literally NO impact on the plot, and the content of said scene is morally dubious. If either one of those wasn't the case, I'd agree that the change was stupid. If there was a moment where Ryuuji's sexual assault was brought up and clearly had an impact on him, I'd be against changing it. If the gay men in the scene did literally anything other than imply they were going to fuck a 17-year-old and then dragged him off as he was shouting "No." If Ryuuji came back from the scene and was like, "Yeah, we went to a club and had a good time," then I'd think the change was stupid. I still wouldn't go so far as to say the game is ruined, but I'd agree that the change was stupid. 6. Just because a game gives you the ability to do something, doesn't mean it was "built for that purpose." Just because the game gives you the opportunity to look up a girl's skirt doesn't mean when they brought out the white board the first thing they wrote down was "PANTY SHOTS." This ties in heavily to my previous point about how I take issue with people talking about the "core" of the game being ruined. Granblue was originally a fighting game series. The core of the game is fighting. Now, I'd agree that the characters having hot designs is a "secondary core" of sorts, but the characters are still hot even if they have leggings. Now, if they made every character flat-chested and showing no cleavage, and any sexuality at all was removed, then yeah, that'd be stupid. But they don't. Again it's all about orders of magnitude: you're allowed to be annoyed at the changes, but to claim that giving stockings ruins the game's core is hyperbolic to say the least. And before you say "well, it *starts* with stalkings, but then..." let me just say that the slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy. 7. I don't avoid games where you can look up a girl's skirt because most of the time, there's other stuff in the game like a cool story, or characters with fun personalities, or fun combat, or a hype soundtrack, or a visually spectacular world. You know, the qualities that are ACTUALLY a part of the CORE for games like FF7R or Nier: Replicant. to be continued because this comment is too long I guess...
Part 2: 8. I'm willing to admit that the "Billion websites" argument was poorly-worded to say the least. The point I was trying to get at was similar to what I talked about in arguments (6) and (7) of this post: purpose and foundation. Tifa is hot. Her boobs are big. In the original game, her thighs are exposed. But Tifa's hotness is not explicitly tied to her boobs being the exact size they were in the artbook. Her hotness is not dependent on being able to see her legs. Her wearing leggings and her boobs being a size G instead of J does not affect the "core" of the game. Now if they made her a flat-chested ugly redhead with peach fuzz, then that would be changing the fundamentals of the character and that would be stupid. But that's not what they did. They just made her tits extra-massive instead of super-massive. When I said "there are a billion sites" I wasn't trying to imply that games shouldn't have sexy ladies in them, that's absurd. I love sexy ladies in my video games. What I was talking about is how there are actual games and other media where sexiness does not just exist, but core to the experience. If HuneyPop had been made in Japan and the English version took out the H-scenes, then I'd think that's stupid, because the sexiness is part of that game's core loop. It's literally the reason people play that game. Changing that shit in localization would be ridiculous. And that's why the whole "just make every game the collision boxes" argument is stupid. Because when music plays in the background constantly, it counts as a fundamental part of the game. When the game builds itself off its sense of exploration and beautiful vistas, that's a fundamental part of the game. In games like HuniePop, getting to see big ol' anime tiddies is fundamental to the game. But whether or not Tifa is wearing leggings is not fundamental. 9. When I was talking about removing sexual innuendo, I was saying that I agree with the belief that it is too far. Teenagers be horny. They make jokes. It would be stupid to remove that. So I don't know why you were arguing with me on something I agree with you on, but okay, I guess? 9. I've said it a thousand times at this point, but I'll say it again just for posterity: like or dislike whatever the fuck you want. It's your opinion, and it's your money. But don't throw around words like "censorship" when it's literally just a business making decisions you don't like. Don't pretend you have some moral high ground because you think you're "fighting censorship" because you aren't because it's not. And don't try to justify your anger by saying they've "betrayed the core appeal of the game" because unless it's a literal porn game, it's not the core appeal. Just admit you're horny and you think Tifa is hotter with bigger boobs and look up fanart of the Tifa you want. Or just get the game on PC and mod it?
In Animal Crossing NH, the Western version replaced Merry Christmas with Happy Holidays, Christmas eve is "Toy Day", and Thanksgiving is Turkey Day. Why??
Because the goal of localization is to appeal to as broad an audience as possible. Attaching in-game holidays to real world holidays that are tied to specific religions or countries limits that. Japan does celebrate their own secularized version of Christmas, as well as a similar Thanksgiving in November, and since Japan is very culturally homogeneous they can just use those holidays. In much of the English speaking world however, Christmas is an explicitly Christian holiday, and while some non-Christians do celebrate a secular version, most people from different religious backgrounds do not, and have their own winter holidays with different traditions on different days. To some, celebrating the holiday of another religion may even be considered blasphemous. Thanksgiving happens to be celebrated at a similar time to the Japanese version in America, but Canada's Thanksgiving is in October, so Canadian players might be put off by it being on the "wrong" date. The UK doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving at all. By taking elements of real-world holidays, stripping them of regional and religious connotations, and adapting them into fictional holidays to be celebrated in the fictional setting of Animal Crossing it allows everyone to partake in the fun without substantively altering the content of the game, or requiring separate localizations for every individual English speaking country. This of course isn't appropriate for every game, as with games that specifically take place in Japan (Persona and Yakuza for example), it would be strange and jarring to have the Japanese characters call the Japanese holidays anything different, but in something like Animal Crossing where the player character is intended as a self-insert and the setting is purely fictional, it makes sense to keep it generic.
I believe it was to make the game appeal to a broader audience like what the other person said. I personally didn't care for that decision, but it wasn't really a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, in my opinion.
The worst imo is when localizers attempt to incorporate “western-style” writing (i.e. Borderlands-type cringe) where there was none in the japanese versions. Can’t believe we’re going back towards requiring fan translations to get anything remotely accurate.
Totally agree! It comes across as being very cringe, especially when watching an English dub for an anime. Not saying all of them are like this, but take Steins;Gate for instance. After playing the original visual novel with the improvement patch and then jumping into the anime, giving the English dub a try... it's very jarring. 😬 Literally almost every "Japanese" joke in the dub is substituted for a "Western" alternative that is just flat-out cringe.
@@Dutchess5 This is entirely wrong though. Especially in the field of "Jokes", a proper localization becomes incredibly important. In Germany it was very customary around 2010 to translate everything very literally, especially anime. Those sounded incredibly weird and almost surreal, because yes, no one speaks the way those characters do. It was a time, where subtitles desperately included japanese terms like "Nakama" or "Ryoka" with lengthly explanations.
The peak was Gintama, when the translators wondered why the audience didn't like it and wasn't laughing at the funny jokes, wordplays that only work in japanese or the references to japanese sports-people no one in the west ever heard about.
If you want things to work, you sometimes need to change them, not always of course.
Ace Attorney is an incredibly beloved franchise and it is one example that differs the most from the japanese version. The story is basically the same, but the characters and places are named different and they act and talk different. And there are many more examples to this as it has proven to sometimes work far better than estranging a potential audience with terms and practices they are not familiar with. That's why there is that "local" in "localizing", because that is a huge part in it.
I take a localization where the localizers took some more freedom over a plain translation any day.
What really sucks is that fan translations often get cease and desists from these big companies. Take the Sakura Moyu fan translation project for example; it was almost done, but they got hit with a cease and desist and now we'll have to wait for years for a butchered release of that game... I hope that AI tools will get good enough to translate games sometime soon
Yeah, that's the worst part about it... Not only that, but fan projects for video games (especially Nintendo) gets swatted down faster than you can say "wait" lol. It almost feels like these video game companies hardly care about their fans anymore now that they're wealthy enough to practically be financially independent if they wanted to.
I think that when localization alters the original intent of the creative work, that's when it's gone too far. It's almost like taking an old painting and painting over certain parts of it, because it might offend someone. Great video as always.
That's an awesome way to put it, friend! 😁 I couldn't agree more. Thanks so much for watching, your support means a ton!
I think the problem is more complex. Sadly, localization has been since almost 5 years the central topic thrown around internet cultural wars, so most of the arguments made online are done in poor faith and in a "checkmate, atheist" kinda way.
I admit localizationis in a rough spot, since the culture wars have also impacted the way certain localizers approach their work. He is not a localizer exactly, but the JelloApocalypse drama comes to mind.
And sorry to say, but this shit goes back to the 90s, where a lot of sexual/lgbt/religious stuff from Japanese games were also toned down and replaced to not offend Western senibilities, but this is not nearly as mentioned since it does not aid the culture wars.
Fuck, a lot of people were trying to start flame wars about "wokalizers" when Persona 3 Reload came around, fortunately the people that were trying to start shit didn't know the Reload localization is based off the original FES from the PS2, so most people told them to fuck off.
JelloApocalypse defender.
Nice video! I saw this after seeing your SMB3 video, and was curious about your take on this subject. I see we're in agreement! I like your video content. Subscribed. :)
Glad we both agree! 😁 Thanks for taking the time to comment and for subscribing. Means the world to me and it made my day! 😊
@@Dutchess5 Thanks! That's very kind of you to say! I wasn't expecting a reply, so that made my day as well (and it was a hectic one at work! LOL!) I look forward to your next video! 🙂
Sad aspect of all this that doesn't get talked about all that much is that even many fan translations seem to have the same agendas and sensibilities as the corporations. It seems like there's nowhere to go sometimes to get the authentic experience Japanese creatives originally intended for their art as an EN-only Westerner.
Exactly! Not even fan translations are *all* reliable. Which doesn't leave English speaking gamers much of a choice except accepting what was released or going through the whole process of learning Japanese which... isn't impossible, but definitely a time consuming option 😅
@@Dutchess5 Or, as we've now seen, it leads to AI translations- and many openly welcoming them! I'm no fan of this method, but I also can't blame people. As you said, learning Japanese is very time consuming and difficult, and now that we have an easy way to kind of get around the censorship and agenda in localizations of course people are going to take them, and it lets the companies that do this officially save quite a bit of money. A sad state of affairs all around.
There are a couple of problems that I have with this conversation in general:
1. While I do think there are instances where localization goes too far in sanitizing Japanese games, people on the "anti-censorship" side of the argument often extend the criticism beyond localization. Tifa having thigh-high stockings in the FF7 Remake in both the Japanese and English versions is not the same as an entire game mechanic being stripped out of only the English release. Giving Cammy in Street Fighter 6 a new design with less bare skin is not censorship...it's developers wanting to give a character a that's looked the same for 20+ years a new look (and that's not even getting into the fact that some people find stockings and leggings attractive in their own right). Giving characters stockings in Granblue Fantasy Relink is not censorship, it was a decision made by the Japanese developers. They gave a character a new design: it's a thing that happens. Or, for instance, when people assumed that the speech in Ai: Somnium Files about respecting gay people was only in the English version as a result of "Wokalizers" when anyone who plays the original game in Japanese can hear the character saying "LGBT" in Japanese. There are countless other examples of this sort of overreaction, but if I listed them all off, this comment would be an essay.
2. People tend to make the argument that these sorts of changes, no matter how small, impact the "artistic vision" of the game, and while this is sometimes true, a lot of people overblow how often it actually is that extreme. Saying that the changes in P5R "interfere with the creative vision" proves to me that whoever is making the argument never played P5, original or Royal. The scene that got changed with Ryuuji is literally 2 minutes out of the game's 100+ hour runtime, and never comes up again (outside of a follow-up scene that was only in Royal which, again, was only a couple of minutes). What's more, the reason people were upset about the scene to begin with was because, in the original, it was implied that the two flamboyantly gay men in question SEXUALLY ASSAULTED Ryuuji, a MINOR, offscreen. Saying that making slight alterations to a scene that has literally ZERO significance to the story, and in which the only confirmed gay characters in the game are portrayed as literal pedophiles, is tantamount to "ruining the games artistic vision" is intellectually dishonest. The same goes for altering optional/hidden outfits. They're optional for a reason. Making the super secret bikini outfit that you only unlock by doing the optional super bosses look less revealing when you put it on a literal 12-year-old is not "robbing the game of its cultural context." It's being less creepy. I buy fun action games to play the fun action, not to look up a 15-year-old anime girl's skirt. If you want that, there's a billion websites just for you out there. Once they change the way the game plays, then you can complain.
Are there instances where localization goes to far? Absolutely. Do a lot of those changes have to do with an overly-sensitive fear of portraying any sort of sexuality? Yes. Is removing all sexual innuendo from a game aimed at teenagers over doing it? I'd agree with that.
I haven't played every game ever, and even for the games I have played, I haven't gone out of my way to look into every little change made in localization. I'm sure there are some claims of censorship that are more valid than others, but at the end of the day, you yourself have said that there is a reasonable middle ground when it comes to making changes for different regions. I think if you look into a LOT of the claims that people complain about with these changes, you'll find that way more of them fall into that "reasonable middle ground" than you may think.
Most people didn't accuse FF7R Tifa of being censored specifically because of the stockings. They said she was censored because the devs explicitly admitted in interviews that they were forced by their "ethics department" to "restrict" her chest, meaning giving her a sports bra to make them appear smaller and reduce jiggle. By their own admission, they were told to do it to tone down her design, not just because they felt like giving her a different outfit.
It's a similar situation with Granblue. The devs admitted in interviews that they originally toned down the outfits in Versus and Rising to appease Western sensitivities, because they were afraid it wouldn't be allowed in the esports scene otherwise. They also admitted that a lot of their own devs hated the decision, with the lead modeling dev even saying "“Adding more cloth to Metera’s outfit makes her not Metera anymore." In response, they added the uncensored outfits to those games as unlockables, but then didn't do so with Relink.
As for the size of the changes, you can't have it both ways. If you say truly believe that a detail is small and insignificant, then by your own logic you have no reason to change it the first place. It can't simultaneously be so important that it NEEDS to be changed, and so unimportant that nobody is allowed to be upset at it being changed. Either it does matter or it doesn't. If it does, then don't be surprised when other people care that you changed it. if it doesn't, then you have no reason to change it.
@@dood3530 I should specify, I don't have a problem with people having an issue with changes, my issue is people acting as if the change is on the same level as a government body coming in and making people change what they want to do. Even if changes are made due to pressure from an internal ethics committee, it's still an internal decision made by the company that owns the rights to the property. That's not the same as the Indian government coming in and saying "we will not let you sell your game unless you remove the cows because cows are sacred here." If someone just goes "yeah, I don't like Tifa's new design because it's less hot," I would be like "I don't agree, but I get where you're coming from." It's when people start acting like it's the same as China illegalizing gay characters that I think it's stupid. I will also say that a LOT of people don't mention the interviews you just mentioned. I've seen plenty of people go "Tifa has leggings, I'm gonna pirate this game now because fuck censorship." If they had cited interviews and gone "I don't mind the changes themselves, but this interview shows that they have a mindset I disagree with," then again, I'd have a lot more respect for that take. As far as the "you can't have it both ways" argument, my counterpoint is that I'm capable of thinking a change is unnecessary and thinking the devs are overreacting while also going "it's not enough to ruin the game." Nothing is perfect, and everything anyone likes has flaws. I can read an interview about devs feeling pressured and go "I disagree with that," and still acknowledge that the core of the game is fun and not go so far as call for a boycott.
You try to make a list, but then under each item you talk about a million different things.
1. The characters had the same look for several years and only now the developers decided to change it? Sounds like a very poor excuse.
2. Another common excuse is "It was actually Japanese that did that." Which is actually the thing localizers worked towards. To mend the outrage over censorship, the localization team was integrated into the game's development process. Which allows them to basically pre-censor any "problematic" stuff and allows localization apologist to claim "It's was actually Japanese that did that."
3. Well, as stated, if these changes are insignificant, then why were they made in the first place? Besides, by this logic, any scene is insignificant in the scope of the entire work. Does that mean that you can just change anything? This seems to be the main issue with that type of excuse.
4. If you don't want to look up a 15-year-old anime girl's skirt than maybe you shouldn't play a game that designed to provide that? Are there not any other games? Have you been banned from Fortnite? Not to mention that different people have different conception of "being creepy." You can't just change things to appeal to sensitivities of random people.
5. And to say that there are "a billion websites" where you can see it is a completely insane argument. I mean, maybe localization should cut music from the game. If you want music - there like billion websites where you can listen to it. Or you want story and dialogs? Just read a book! In-game movie - just go to the cinema, stupid! You can go further - just replace all models with their collision shapes. Make it look like a Super Hot. I mean, you can't complain unless the game plays the same, right?
>Do a lot of those changes have to do with an overly-sensitive fear of portraying any sort of sexuality?
Actually no. These are just the most obvious ones, especially when you can easily compare character models. But real issues go way deeper.
>Is removing all sexual innuendo from a game aimed at teenagers over doing it?
How come The Simpsons can have this, but when it comes to anime, it's suddenly problematic?
@@mervish0 I'm genuinely curious: did you read my response to the other guys reply? Because I feel like I acknowledged most of these points there. Ah well, here we go again:
1. Saying something is a "lousy excuse" is overly vague and not based on any real rationale.
2. Even if it is true that companies integrate localization teams into the Japan side of things, that's still the business' decision. They choose to integrate localization teams, they choose to listen to them when making their product. It may not be a decision you like, but it's not the same as a country passing laws that mandate certain things be removed or changed. I want to make this as clear as possible: I have no problem with people not liking certain changes. The problem I have is when people claim those changes are censorship and use that argument to say that pirating the game is okay because they're "fighting censorship." (I'm not saying you made this claim, but it is one I've seen). The same logic applies to the previous point as well: if you don't like Cammy's new outfit, or Tifa's smaller tits, that's fine, but don't cry censorship and pretend it's on the same level as a government making certain subject matter illegal.
3. The "if it's so insignificant, why did they change it" argument is easily the most complex part of this discussion, if you ask me, so I'll admit my points sometimes get jumbled. I'll try to be as clear as possible here.
As with all things in life. Importance comes in different orders of magnitude: just because a developer believes something is important enough to change, does not mean that it is equally important to all other aspects of the game. For instance, sometimes developers make a change for a specific port or a re-release that they think will bring the game up from a 7.99 to an 8, because they're trying to make the game as good as possible, and every bit counts. If you don't like that change, that's fine. That's your opinion. But just as the change was made to bring the game from a 7.99 to an 8, if you don't like the change, a reasonable response would be to say that the game is now a 7.98 instead of a 7.99. My issue is when people look at these minor changes and go so far as to say the whole game is ruined. Changing the model of a character's shoe may be a change that the developers thought was important enough to make, but if someone says it makes and otherwise 8/10 game a 4/10, then I think they're ridiculous.
Again, and I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but my issue is more with the language people use to justify outrage more so than them being mad at a change. If you don't like Tifa's smaller tits and leggings, just say that you don't like it and leave it at that.
4. As far as the Persona 5 thing goes, no, this would not imply that all scenes are insignificant on their own. In most scenes, there is a logic behind why a character is doing what they're doing, and the scene ends with a reason as to why the next scene happens. There's causality. And then there are the ramifications outside the scene itself. Sometimes, a character gets new information that they later act on. Removing the scenes would make the story make no sense.
In the scene with Ryuuji, there's nothing. The scene explains why he isn't with you for a little while, but it doesn't influence his character at all in the original. Him being scarred by an implied sexual assault isn't something ever brought up again, and if you replaced the scene with Ryuuji needing to pee super bad, or jerk off because they're in the red light district, and he saw a hot lady, or with the new version of the scene in Royal, then the larger narrative is the same.
5. I want to make something very clear: changes between sequels and remakes are not the same as changes made in localization. I have a lot more tolerance for sequels and remakes because they're brand new products, often made with new people on the team, and with their own goals. For instance, if they added leggings to Tifa in the Steam port of original FF7, I would think that's stupid. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it ruins the game, but I'd agree it was a stupid change. When it comes to localizing, I'm actually a lot more critical of changes than people reading this reply chain might think. If a change impacts the intent of a scene or a character, then 99.9% of the time, I don't like it, unless the change has to do with the explicit sexualization of minors. And even then, said sexualization has to be pretty extreme for me to warrant thinking it should be changed. Like, the girls in P3 are all under 18, but if the English version of the original game or P3R changed their swimsuits, then I'd think that was dumb. The thing being changed has to be a 12-year-old getting lewded for me to think it's okay to change in localization 99.9% of the time.
The change to P5R is literally the only localization change that isn't tied to sexualized minors that I defend, and that's for two reasons: The scene has literally NO impact on the plot, and the content of said scene is morally dubious. If either one of those wasn't the case, I'd agree that the change was stupid. If there was a moment where Ryuuji's sexual assault was brought up and clearly had an impact on him, I'd be against changing it. If the gay men in the scene did literally anything other than imply they were going to fuck a 17-year-old and then dragged him off as he was shouting "No." If Ryuuji came back from the scene and was like, "Yeah, we went to a club and had a good time," then I'd think the change was stupid. I still wouldn't go so far as to say the game is ruined, but I'd agree that the change was stupid.
6. Just because a game gives you the ability to do something, doesn't mean it was "built for that purpose." Just because the game gives you the opportunity to look up a girl's skirt doesn't mean when they brought out the white board the first thing they wrote down was "PANTY SHOTS." This ties in heavily to my previous point about how I take issue with people talking about the "core" of the game being ruined. Granblue was originally a fighting game series. The core of the game is fighting. Now, I'd agree that the characters having hot designs is a "secondary core" of sorts, but the characters are still hot even if they have leggings. Now, if they made every character flat-chested and showing no cleavage, and any sexuality at all was removed, then yeah, that'd be stupid. But they don't. Again it's all about orders of magnitude: you're allowed to be annoyed at the changes, but to claim that giving stockings ruins the game's core is hyperbolic to say the least.
And before you say "well, it *starts* with stalkings, but then..." let me just say that the slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy.
7. I don't avoid games where you can look up a girl's skirt because most of the time, there's other stuff in the game like a cool story, or characters with fun personalities, or fun combat, or a hype soundtrack, or a visually spectacular world. You know, the qualities that are ACTUALLY a part of the CORE for games like FF7R or Nier: Replicant.
to be continued because this comment is too long I guess...
Part 2:
8. I'm willing to admit that the "Billion websites" argument was poorly-worded to say the least. The point I was trying to get at was similar to what I talked about in arguments (6) and (7) of this post: purpose and foundation. Tifa is hot. Her boobs are big. In the original game, her thighs are exposed. But Tifa's hotness is not explicitly tied to her boobs being the exact size they were in the artbook. Her hotness is not dependent on being able to see her legs. Her wearing leggings and her boobs being a size G instead of J does not affect the "core" of the game. Now if they made her a flat-chested ugly redhead with peach fuzz, then that would be changing the fundamentals of the character and that would be stupid. But that's not what they did. They just made her tits extra-massive instead of super-massive.
When I said "there are a billion sites" I wasn't trying to imply that games shouldn't have sexy ladies in them, that's absurd. I love sexy ladies in my video games. What I was talking about is how there are actual games and other media where sexiness does not just exist, but core to the experience. If HuneyPop had been made in Japan and the English version took out the H-scenes, then I'd think that's stupid, because the sexiness is part of that game's core loop. It's literally the reason people play that game. Changing that shit in localization would be ridiculous. And that's why the whole "just make every game the collision boxes" argument is stupid. Because when music plays in the background constantly, it counts as a fundamental part of the game. When the game builds itself off its sense of exploration and beautiful vistas, that's a fundamental part of the game. In games like HuniePop, getting to see big ol' anime tiddies is fundamental to the game. But whether or not Tifa is wearing leggings is not fundamental.
9. When I was talking about removing sexual innuendo, I was saying that I agree with the belief that it is too far. Teenagers be horny. They make jokes. It would be stupid to remove that. So I don't know why you were arguing with me on something I agree with you on, but okay, I guess?
9. I've said it a thousand times at this point, but I'll say it again just for posterity: like or dislike whatever the fuck you want. It's your opinion, and it's your money. But don't throw around words like "censorship" when it's literally just a business making decisions you don't like. Don't pretend you have some moral high ground because you think you're "fighting censorship" because you aren't because it's not. And don't try to justify your anger by saying they've "betrayed the core appeal of the game" because unless it's a literal porn game, it's not the core appeal. Just admit you're horny and you think Tifa is hotter with bigger boobs and look up fanart of the Tifa you want. Or just get the game on PC and mod it?
In Animal Crossing NH, the Western version replaced Merry Christmas with Happy Holidays, Christmas eve is "Toy Day", and Thanksgiving is Turkey Day. Why??
Because the goal of localization is to appeal to as broad an audience as possible. Attaching in-game holidays to real world holidays that are tied to specific religions or countries limits that. Japan does celebrate their own secularized version of Christmas, as well as a similar Thanksgiving in November, and since Japan is very culturally homogeneous they can just use those holidays. In much of the English speaking world however, Christmas is an explicitly Christian holiday, and while some non-Christians do celebrate a secular version, most people from different religious backgrounds do not, and have their own winter holidays with different traditions on different days. To some, celebrating the holiday of another religion may even be considered blasphemous. Thanksgiving happens to be celebrated at a similar time to the Japanese version in America, but Canada's Thanksgiving is in October, so Canadian players might be put off by it being on the "wrong" date. The UK doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving at all.
By taking elements of real-world holidays, stripping them of regional and religious connotations, and adapting them into fictional holidays to be celebrated in the fictional setting of Animal Crossing it allows everyone to partake in the fun without substantively altering the content of the game, or requiring separate localizations for every individual English speaking country.
This of course isn't appropriate for every game, as with games that specifically take place in Japan (Persona and Yakuza for example), it would be strange and jarring to have the Japanese characters call the Japanese holidays anything different, but in something like Animal Crossing where the player character is intended as a self-insert and the setting is purely fictional, it makes sense to keep it generic.
they didn't? christmas isn't in animal crossing at all. it's named that everywhere.
I believe it was to make the game appeal to a broader audience like what the other person said. I personally didn't care for that decision, but it wasn't really a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, in my opinion.
The 90s were worse though.