Author Topic: "Inside Games" Feature: Inside Touhou's Commercial & Overseas Expansion  (Read 9748 times)

cuc

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The Japanese website "Inside Games" have done a long feature interview with members of the Play,Doujin! programme, covering a wide range of topics, giving us a "one year later" update on the progress of the programme.
http://www.inside-games.jp/article/2016/11/08/103284.html
« Last Edit: November 08, 2016, 02:21:42 PM by cuc »
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N-Forza

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Re: "Inside Games" Feature: Inside Touhou's Commercial & Overseas Expansion
« Reply #1 on: November 08, 2016, 02:19:49 PM »
One thing of note is that they mention was the English translation of Bullet Ballet was originally done by Cubetype and gave it to NISA to edit, except I dunno if they provided the original Japanese text as well...

cuc

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Re: "Inside Games" Feature: Inside Touhou's Commercial & Overseas Expansion
« Reply #2 on: November 08, 2016, 03:11:25 PM »
That "original English translation" must be the same one they used for the Asian English version. I won't be surprised if it is actually done by localizers hired by Sony, as is the case for some other Asian versions. These translations can be notoriously bad in quality though.
Touhou Fantasy News: twitter

N-Forza

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Re: "Inside Games" Feature: Inside Touhou's Commercial & Overseas Expansion
« Reply #3 on: November 09, 2016, 01:50:41 AM »
I think the initial translation was used for the Asian release, but he explicitly said both in the interview and to me personally that it was done by his circle, so unless he was lying, that's not entirely the case.

cuc

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Re: "Inside Games" Feature: Inside Touhou's Commercial & Overseas Expansion
« Reply #4 on: November 09, 2016, 03:49:45 PM »

Looking at this screenshot of the Asian English version, I definitely believe the translation is done by themselves now. No localization company, however shoddy, will translate 種族 here as "Breed".

I'm also wondering about what you said - the possibility that they NEVER sent the original Japanese text to NISA, since the character profiles posted by NISA translated 種族 as "Species", when it should be readily apparent that the use of the word here is firmly in the RPG tradition of calling everything a "Race".
« Last Edit: November 09, 2016, 03:52:23 PM by cuc »
Touhou Fantasy News: twitter

Helepolis

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Re: "Inside Games" Feature: Inside Touhou's Commercial & Overseas Expansion
« Reply #5 on: November 09, 2016, 06:21:18 PM »
Huh, funny to see inconsistency with the translations. Yukari's subtitle reads: 'Yokai' while the main description 'Youkai'.

N-Forza

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Re: "Inside Games" Feature: Inside Touhou's Commercial & Overseas Expansion
« Reply #6 on: November 10, 2016, 02:06:36 AM »
He mentioned in the interview they relied a lot on the wiki to translate things like titles, so if that never got checked by NISA either, or they simply didn't edit the image containing Yukari's title, it's definitely plausible.

I really hope NISA does Genso Wanderer more justice because so far, editing this seems like it was more of an afterthought. If they didn't have the original JP to go by, there was only so much the one editor could have done, but it shouldn't have been that slap-dash regardless.

Drake

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Re: "Inside Games" Feature: Inside Touhou's Commercial & Overseas Expansion
« Reply #7 on: November 10, 2016, 02:49:05 AM »
You know what they say, Forza. It can't be helped.

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Sedrife

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Re: "Inside Games" Feature: Inside Touhou's Commercial & Overseas Expansion
« Reply #8 on: November 10, 2016, 05:50:10 AM »
"Doujin game makers wanting to cater to the Western fans by directly referring to the 'language' used in Touhou Wiki", is what I'm catching with this interview. (Imagine, if "Yokai" / "Youkai" is replaced with "monster")

Given that CUBETYPE was the first circle to cut the English localization tape, I'd imagine Yuro-san's effort might end up as "slap-dash", no matter how hard he tried to have the Genso Rondo title catered to the West.

Besides, there's bound to be a disconnect of Nippon-ichi Software (which was mentioned on this interview) and NIS America (what was presented to Western fans during AX) due to the virtue of it being a huge video gaming industry.
« Last Edit: November 10, 2016, 05:52:23 AM by Sedrife »

Re: "Inside Games" Feature: Inside Touhou's Commercial & Overseas Expansion
« Reply #9 on: November 11, 2016, 09:16:21 AM »
If you hope to get on the translation close to the "canon", then sure, it's not about NIS-America. They never put such a goal.
You just have to get acquainted with other Japanese localization of games from this publishers.

Lebon14

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Re: "Inside Games" Feature: Inside Touhou's Commercial & Overseas Expansion
« Reply #10 on: November 13, 2016, 04:00:01 AM »
Huh, funny to see inconsistency with the translations. Yukari's subtitle reads: 'Yokai' while the main description 'Youkai'.
Yup. Hepburn or Wapuro. Choose one, lol. There's no consitancy at all here. Most fan like us like "Youkai" over "Yokai" (real Hepburn would be "yōkai". I hate macrons)
From what I've seen from Forza posting on twitter... it looks like VERY sketchy translation. >.<

N-Forza

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Re: "Inside Games" Feature: Inside Touhou's Commercial & Overseas Expansion
« Reply #11 on: November 13, 2016, 12:43:31 PM »
Actually, I double-checked Yukari's description in the US English version and they standardized it to Yokai. I can give NISA that much at least, and to be fair, it's an overall serviceable translation; I just post the weirder lines, heh.