A while ago, I wrote a post to aid Namco in their localization of Tales of Graces F. Too bad they didn’t read it!
I am told that Tales of Graces mentions the Hearts characters, as well as other characters from the franchise, in the form of Carta cards. Kohack– err, Kohaku– err, Amber, is also a cameo boss. Obsessed fans of the series waited with bated breath to see how they would handle these characters. And handle them they did. By which I mean they manhandled them. Let’s see how they did:
Shing Meteoryte
HURGH
Okay, just kidding. Last time, I commented on how his name references stars (Xing/星 in Chinese) and how “Shing” reminds me of herpes. These are still true. However, I have uncovered new evidence that suggests that Shing is totally legit. Or rather… Shung.
If this site is to be believed, shungite is an “elementary noncrystalline carbon with a metastable structure incapable of graphitization”. I don’t want to give any undue spoilers, but I think this sounds suspiciously like it’s the mineral theme basis for Shing’s name. This lends some creedence to the choice of Shung– I mean, Shing– as the guy’s name.
Verdict: Namco obviously just went with whatever the Japanese said his name was instead of reasoning it out. Nevertheless, I’m pretty okay with it.
Amber Hearts
Whew! They localized this one nicely. I’m not clear on whether they followed the efforts of Absolute Zero, that “other” group, my own project, or none of the above, but it turned out as I (and many others) had hoped.
Verdict: Some of you posted on the Tales Facebook wall whining about this change. You know who you are. Welcome to the Hall of Shame.
Jadeite Hearts
HURGH
Now I’m wondering if they simply lifted all the names from Absolute Zero’s teaser screenshot. Localizing the name and making sure it doesn’t conflict with preexisting names is certainly a start, but consideration for how it sounds is important, too. Jadeite? What the Heck kind of name Is That? The only one with an awkward-sounding name like that (Shing aside) is Kunzite, the party’s resident Mechanoid Guardian robot dude. It fits him fine. But Jadeite? He’s a hot-blooded dude who is ultra super awesome, as I may have previously mentioned. I don’t think having a robotic/awkward name suits him at all. My own suggestion was Jaden, and another interesting one I heard thrown around was Jasper (it goes nicely with Amber). Hell, they could have named him Jerome for all I care, as long as it’s not Jadeite. The resulting parallels to Sailor Moon only make it that much more ridiculous.
Verdict: Why must you do this to me, Namco.
Bonus: Tales of Innocence
Not content with only ripping Tales of the Heart: Translator’s Cut: American Edition a new one, they decided to mess with names from a game whose full fantranslation has already been released. Let’s see here… Ruca Milda. God damn it. Well, there goes my “they’re just copying Absolute Zero” theory. C’mon, Ruca, really? It’s such a lame non-name, and Luca fits in with the theme naming of Innocence much better. Well, okay, I guess they just stuck to the Japanese names– Illia Animi? What the heck? It’s not even a bad choice, just… why defy the Honorable Japanese Engrish for Iria and not for Ruca? Ruca and Iria would have made sense, Luca and Iria would have made sense, Luca and Illia would have made sense… but this?
Verdict: What.
Bonus: Artes
Allow me to pretty much copy and paste something from my original post:
Guren Kourin
紅蓮皇輪
Based on Gurenken/紅蓮剣/Hell Pyre.
My Localized Name: Pyre Ring
Welp, that’s a pretty straightforward Arte name. I imagine Namco came up with something pretty similar, or maybe Hell Ring or something. Let’s see here–
Namco’s Localized Name: Crimson Disk
…
…
Verdict: pro trollan
—
That’s it, I give up, I’m done. Actually, from what I’ve heard, Tales of Graces F’s localization is overall quite good… it’s just that these nitpicky details weren’t handled well. I don’t even blame them for it; they have a massive game to translate and can’t really be bothered spending time to figure out if minor stuff meshes well with other games in the series that haven’t even been translated yet. They’re professional translators, not obsessive Tales series fanboys/fangirls. Still, though, it raises some interesting questions: Should the fanbase be bound to abide by official localization conventions that likely weren’t all that carefully considered? Are serious business Tales series fans better judges of these sorts of things than pros bound by time constraints? Is there a good way for the localization team to somehow cross-check names, terminology, etc. with the fanbase to make sure they’re not missing any subtle nuances? If you find this sort of thing interesting, I welcome discussion in the comments below. Thanks!
Finally, some of you have been clamoring for an update on progress. I am glad you asked! I have been working on Jerome– err, Jadeite– err, Lucio’s high ohgee (that’s Japanese for Mystic Arte) and have gotten the main animation down, but need to code quite a bit of glue to get it to trigger right and interact with enemies properly. I am hoping that some of you who have played some of the newer localized Tales will find his new high ohgee quite familiar, though of course he has his own twist on it. Also, I think my translator may have translated some stuff, not sure.
Well, I must go to bed now, so I need bid you Gute Nacht. Until next time, everyone!
May 13, 2012 at 4:03 am | Permalink
Ohgee!
May 13, 2012 at 5:23 am | Permalink
Personally I hope you and the rest of the translation community don’t abide by the “official localization” terminologies, I say the whole damn series needs re-translation, replacing every Gel with Gummy, fixing those terrible Arte’s and if needed (probably) rework the main script’s. Argh! why is learning japanese so hard.
Thanks for the update, looking forward to some more tales!
May 13, 2012 at 6:05 am | Permalink
“gute nacht” 😀 are you german?
May 13, 2012 at 8:01 am | Permalink
““gute nacht” 😀 are you german?”
Names: Part Deux
What about the French here so ? 😮
May 13, 2012 at 10:49 am | Permalink
Maybe they went with Ruca to avoid sounding like Luke? But then they went with Jadeite… ARGH. This is why all Tales games should be translated officially! Not so we can play them, but so they don’t balls up the future ones.
May 13, 2012 at 5:24 pm | Permalink
This is for the time the official localization, instead of being in denial about what should or should not have been the name and if or if not the localization did a lazy job. These are the official names for the time being and lets just accept that fact.
May 14, 2012 at 2:51 pm | Permalink
Shing and Jadeite I can live with. Ruca I most certainly cannot. The name is clearly meant to be Luca.
May 14, 2012 at 3:13 pm | Permalink
I liked the names Seig, Anna, and Lucio for them… I mean I’ll go with whatever you wanna’ call them but I’ve gotten used to calling them Seig Metoryte, Anna Hearts, and Lucio Hearts…
May 14, 2012 at 5:17 pm | Permalink
Ohh now you update
May 14, 2012 at 6:34 pm | Permalink
Fan Translators That Think They’re Allowed To Have Opinions On The Industry: The Blog Post
May 14, 2012 at 8:22 pm | Permalink
Well they do have the right to have and express opinions, however, these have the same value as fans opinions, which is none at all.
May 15, 2012 at 9:13 am | Permalink
@nesta, so you speak englsih, of course ^^
kaji-kun please update more frequently, even it’s just troll <3
May 15, 2012 at 2:01 pm | Permalink
I don’t even know why names should be localized. They are names after all. Names aren’t supposed to be “translated”. It pisses me off when a certain character has several different names because of silly localizations. Just keep the originals, damn.
May 15, 2012 at 6:01 pm | Permalink
No matter what they did to ToI, The translations names are much better, and “sure” correct!
May 15, 2012 at 9:57 pm | Permalink
Says the guy who has never actually finished a translation project.
May 16, 2012 at 7:26 am | Permalink
I’d like to see you keep your translations because I just think they make sense, especially the Hell Pyre/Pyre Ring/Hell Ring one.
I’m quite upset that they didn’t use Luca and Iria though, I mean, they touched the one that was perfectly fine and left the one that needed changing ._.
May 16, 2012 at 7:46 am | Permalink
To be fair, you get “crimson” when you plug 紅蓮 (guren) into an online Jap-English dictionary and “wheel” or “disk” when you do 輪 (rin). Illia reminds me of another イリア who got translated as Ilia (who also had a male partner whose name’s first syllable ロ got translated as “ro” and not “lo”).
@Young_Link trololol let’s make a petition! bamco should bring back the original names! vote now for the rightful カタカナ ネイム! down with silly ingurishi rokarisashion! we want 漢字! we want 日本語! and we wannit NAU!!!!!
– プロ- トロルラ-ン
May 16, 2012 at 1:14 pm | Permalink
@protrollan I meant to romanize them, gee. Like Kohak/Kohaku (I’m not skilled at Japanese so I’m not sure) and Hisui. But Amber and Jadeite? xD
Anyway, I’ll enjoy the game whatever their names are. It’s just a minor matter.
Sorry if my English sucked, I’m Spaniard. Support from here too, Kaji!
May 16, 2012 at 4:32 pm | Permalink
I don’t even come here for a Tales of Hearts translation anymore. The website is just funny. lol
May 18, 2012 at 4:17 am | Permalink
And suddenly the christmas post makes (more) sense. Fascinating.
May 18, 2012 at 4:23 pm | Permalink
I honestly don’t think “Crimson Disk” is what it’s localized as.
I just thought she was describing the move.
Like when Malik says “cloak of ice” when he uses Cold Front for the shortened incarnation.
Also, it doesn’t make sense that they ONLY translated Guren Kourin and none of the other artes. If they did that one arte, then what’s stopping them from doing the other artes? *sigh* I’m probably just looking into it too much.
May 18, 2012 at 9:46 pm | Permalink
I’d actually love to see this end up with Amber and Jasper as the names there. They work really well in my mind.
May 19, 2012 at 9:22 am | Permalink
@Paarish: That’s an interesting interpretation, but a) it sounds pretty clearly like she’s shouting an Arte name and not a general descriptor, and b) she shouted the Arte name in the Japanese version and not a general descriptor. I have no idea why they decided to muddy the waters with this one when they simply had the character grunt generically for all the other non-high ohgee cameo Artes, but I think we can safely assume that they really intended to put down Crimson Disk for Guren Kourin.
Which, of course, means I will be blithely ignoring it.
May 20, 2012 at 1:46 pm | Permalink
It also kinda makes you wonder why they didn’t have her say “Rising Phoenix” or Veigue say “Diabolic Rage”.
A lot of it seems like laziness but then you get that one “Crimson Disk” and it’s just confusing.
May 20, 2012 at 6:59 pm | Permalink
Keep it up Kaji. Ignore Namco’s illogical decisions and just go with what you think fits best.
May 21, 2012 at 8:26 am | Permalink
Would it be possible to change the names to their original counterparts? It could get confusing HEARING them say “Kohak” and reading the subtitles say “Anna”.
May 21, 2012 at 8:28 am | Permalink
Nevermind, my comment, I just remembered you could change their names to whatever you wanted to in the Japanese version too.
May 22, 2012 at 4:32 am | Permalink
They actually say “Kohaku,” not Kohak. Just sayin.
http://disinfo.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/4568069317_b652e295911.jpg
Spread the love.
May 23, 2012 at 5:38 pm | Permalink
Yeah. And they also say “rucku” instead of luck and “Maku” instead of Mac.
Justu sayingu.
May 27, 2012 at 7:53 pm | Permalink
*Welcomes myself to the Wall of Shame*
Amber Hearts sounds like a stripper’s name.
May 27, 2012 at 10:29 pm | Permalink
Welcoming to the stage the naughty Amber Hearts.
May 28, 2012 at 8:41 am | Permalink
Well she also dresses like a ho and is always throwing herself at Shing so I guess the name suits her just fine.
May 28, 2012 at 12:09 pm | Permalink
I welcome myself to the wall of shame as well Alexandra
Sorry granted I know Kohaku means Amber in Japanese but my name means Dark One as well, and I sure as hell don’t want to be called “Dark One” all the time. -.-
May 28, 2012 at 6:08 pm | Permalink
Everyone quiet the Dark One speaks. You do think that sounds awesome.
May 28, 2012 at 9:34 pm | Permalink
What’s so awesome about a black guy speaking?
May 29, 2012 at 4:11 pm | Permalink
I dunno but Obama was elected because of his speeches.
May 29, 2012 at 5:56 pm | Permalink
@Zerj: Depends whether or not he has a dream.
May 29, 2012 at 9:37 pm | Permalink
@Zerj not talking about skin color lol
June 1, 2012 at 7:01 pm | Permalink
Awesome stuff, K-E! It’s your translation so go with whatever you think is right!
June 18, 2012 at 9:02 pm | Permalink
kaji is an niger’s
July 1, 2012 at 4:20 pm | Permalink
still no patch kaji’s so pro
July 4, 2012 at 3:25 pm | Permalink
No one’s a bigger troll than you, Kaji.
Also, isn’t it about time to update your banner again?
July 7, 2012 at 7:28 am | Permalink
Aren’t you just waiting for an eventual Hearts R release and then possibly waiting to see if that game ever gets localized before releasing your patch or something? e.e Though that’d take ages…
July 10, 2012 at 8:06 am | Permalink
this place is bull shit. none of the project is completed . seems like absolute zero still better.
July 10, 2012 at 10:20 am | Permalink
me is amazed by how bad your engrish be.
July 11, 2012 at 12:44 pm | Permalink
God, Kaji u suck straight up
July 11, 2012 at 4:55 pm | Permalink
Dear “kaji suck”,
Congratulations! You have been banned. You probably can’t see this message because you are banned, but that’s fine.
Reason: Repeatedly spamming in Chinese (comments removed)
Regards,
KAJITANI-EIZAN’s Patch Site
July 11, 2012 at 9:54 pm | Permalink
what do you mean ?
it’s a joke right T_T ? ….
July 12, 2012 at 12:21 am | Permalink
[This comment has been un-removed to demonstrate what sort of spam will get you terminated. Thank you for your continued cooperation!]
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July 12, 2012 at 10:47 am | Permalink
Banning in a site like this is completely useless. Create an username, make up an email and presto. None that I think Kaji is serious, but you get the point.