#localisation fails

[hauntedbloodywhirlpool]

i wonder if people find it confusing why gyakusai introduces some psuedo jury system in 4, drawing attention to the fact a jury never existed before, then its never mentioned again

the context is that it was included to introduce a judicial reform happening in japan in 2009 (gs4 was 2007)

there wasnt a jury at all before that, but this introduced a lay judge system, which is more similar to what they have in france and germany than common law juries (from the start japans legal system was more influenced by european civil law than english common law)

i got 'lay judge' from an english site about the japanese system, but ive also heard it for germany etc. (gyakusai only ever really mentions america. i suppose thats the famous one. i wouldnt be confident the writers know about any foreign legal systems other than america tbh, apparently the people who wrote the first game didnt even know prosecuters have badges in their own country)

the reason it was never brought up again might be partly for the sake of gameplay, and there wasnt a good story for it, and partly cause 5 was released like 5 years later. the lay judges were introduced to give more public input into the justice system, but there still seems to be issues with people being falsely accused

so even though gyakusai is just a mystery character drama that doesnt seriously deal with political issues on a deeper level, it went with reflecting the continued issues which arent related to lay judges. the way gyakusai handles legal stuff was never realistic or serious, but when it started including systemic issues as plot points in 4 5 and 6 you can see it gets obvious

[hauntedbloodywhirlpool]

i dont think ive made a post yet about one of the biggest translation fails outside localisation

so, of course mayoi calls naruhodo 'naruhodo-kun'. 'kun' is really hard to translate, and usually i think first name is best for lastname-kun, but that doesnt really convey the meaning well here because it sounds pretty normal in english

kun is usually used to refer to younger people/subordinates in a friendly or proffessional way, depending on context. but mayoi is a lot younger, so its really weird that as his assistant she calls him that. she also uses plain speech without the added respectful language, so overall she comes across as really overfamiliar and not respectful as would be strongly expected (though not rude in this case)

so the reason she calls him naruhodo-kun, and treats him like that, is actually because of chihiro. mayoi mentions hearing about him from her, and at the end of 1.2 when she stops calling him mr lawyer and they start working together, she says she'll call him that like chihiro did

edit: 'naruhodo kun'

thats normal for chihiro to call him as a younger subordinate, and although theyre fairly close in age and friendly, they talk to each other in the register youd expect

(the younger sibling of someones boss thing also happens the other way around with mitsurugi and akane, where he talks to her more respecfully than usual because shes his boss's sister, but akane doesnt act like his boss, and naruhodo also treats mayoi normally for her age)

so this also explains the jokes about mayoi being the office boss and naruhodo's older sister figure. the way mayoi treats naruhodo starts off so casually because of mayois viewing him through his relationship with chihiro, and the way they meet being so linked to chihiro is really important to their relationship

even though they become important to each other themselves after working together, they way they met affects their relationship a lot, and the way she addresses him so unusually informally and the influence of chihiro cant just be emitted. i dont really have a solution for how it should be translated, except they both absolutely have to call him the same thing

[hauntedbloodywhirlpool]

HALLO!!!!! I really loved last time you helped me out with understanding the og game!!!! And now that im finishing to watch gameplay of all ace attorney games (currently nearing the end of SoJ's case, the one before last, i have seen investigations already and i just need to see tgac) I REALLY want to know how this dialogue was in the original with context and everything!! i remember hearing you say somehing about Phoenix being originally Ryuichi and the Ryu means dragon which I believe to be really interesting in the original with this dialogue!!!

love you content!! Never stop informing!! 🩷💛🩵

龍一、龍 means dragon. durk is also apparently based off a word in a different language that means dragon but i dont remember where i read that

(this is what chihiro taught naruhodo)

(of course what durk says. theres no actual 'a' or 'the'. could also be like isnt daunted)

(hopes/sentiment/thought/mind/affection etc)

theres no 'virtuous', looks like they just put that in there for sentence flow, and dont think it really works thematically. scattered instead of blow away is better though, i just translated directly here

dragons seem to represent strength, protection, wisdom, water. (its not really anything to do with phoenixes representing rebirth but the translation shot itself in the foot from the first game there)

its the influence of both naruhodo and durk on odoroki as the two people who taught him and influenced him as a lawyer. theyre both lawyers represented as dragons, and both have a similar message of dont give up bluster through it.

so i think its showing the parallel with their similar messages, and nayuta doesnt seperate them as having different qualities like in the translation

[hauntedbloodywhirlpool]

physical evidence from gyakusai that show the games physically couldnt be set in a country that isnt japan even if you ignored the culture and practical reasons (part 2 here)

that image is from wikipedia '弁護士記章', theyre also mentioned in the jpanese lawyers association

here are people wearing the lawyer badges and a thumbnail with the prosecution one from a major news site. and an info pamphlet by the japanese ministry of justice

that name stand the mp candidate has is what they have in the japanese parliament

those green payphones are everywhere in japan and nowhere else, plus the villiage is traditional japanese architecture

plus theyre wearing japanese school uniforms in several flashback photos

so even ignoring the canon text saying its japan, the anime and every other reason why something can only be set where it was written as being set because the context informs the story, this demonstrates that it literally is physically japan because these things dont exist in other countries

[hauntedbloodywhirlpool]

why its physically japan part 2 (part 1 here) (inspired by seeing people literally try to insist it wasnt even intended as japan, like wtf?)

detailed picture of japanese coins (right is photo) (they didnt need to show a picture, but they did to show the ridiculous tiny change she had. clearly not trying to hard to be an 'ambiguous country')

the colluseum is named 'hinomaru' ie the japanese flag, which is flown in the background

literally the first episode of the first game has a picture of the japanese passport. they didnt even have to include a full picture, could have just made it say 'passport' with 🌐 if theyd wanted not to be specific. shows it was intended as japan from the start

normal police cars for japan. cant make out the writimg and numberplate on the left but the format looks same as normal in japan. (you can even see the same numberplate format in the photo)

right to left book

armbands for stuff like forensic detectives. it seems to say 科捜, short for 科学捜査官. im mainly including this cause at least in some of the games the translaters couldnt edit the sprites so they had to leave the kanji in. but armbands for officials only exists in a few countries. i saw it for security guards or something in japan and for detetives in tv shows

i dont have a picture, but it mentions japans civil code a few times for example, which only exists in civil law countries (and have different names)

and like, i know the localisation changed some of these pictures. but i think thats actually really fucking weird. like, you cant pretend it isnt originally concretely japan, and say the country is actually interchangeable. and yet the translators go that far to pretend its a different country. not normal behaviour at all.

[hauntedbloodywhirlpool]

i actually saw the translation first for the scene in 2.4 where naruhodo tells mitsurugi about mayoi getting held hostage, but i thought it seemed a bit off. he was like "i dont need your pity" about organising a search squad, which is a really weird response?

the search squad is just the basic social and moral obligation to help someone in danger, doing the practical thing. and trying to make it so mitsurugi can do his job in court properly. 'pity' suggests that this is someone insulting naruhodos pride? even with his current feelings about mitsurugi faking his death, thats really out of character for naruhodo, where mayois life is still whats important, and either way, hes never that petty to see being helped as an insult

so this is what its actually supposed to be: (conversation is naruhodo and mitsurugi, no harumi)

what he actually says makes a lot more sense. its that he thinks its pointleess, and mitsurugi saying shell be found quickly is just consolation. hes still not happy with mitsurugi, and worried about mayoi, so hes still dismissive, but its a lot more in character and makes more sense

(btw i wonder if this was an attempt to americanise the social norms? im not sure, but that concept seems more like what you see in american media only)

[hauntedbloodywhirlpool]

cause this is one of the absolutely most botched translation choices i cant not complain about it

ive seen people talking about and screeeshots where yuugami/blackquill calls people the outdated japanese honourific 'dono'. and is also inexplicably british, or at least uses words americans dont

this is how he addresses people by name. by taking one character from their name and using that and 'character', it doesnt translate into english, but like, 'character for mud', or something. (chinese derived character to be clear)

he doesnt use any honourific, this is rude and disprespectful

to say 'you', he uses 'ommesan', which is archaic/has old fashioned connotations. its fairly rude/supeiorier, although the 'san' makes it politer. but its not a really polite way to refer to people

hes also used another word for 'you', 'temee', which is particularly rude and famous for only being used in anime (gyakusai characters dont always talk realisticly, but you dont see this)

as for 'dono' (殿), its historical/archaic and formal. it used to be used used for important people but apparently came to be used more towards inferiors like omae, but can also be polite when used in business towards people of equal status. anyway it has a connotation of samurais/anime/otakus/etc now. yugami never actually used this in canon as far as ive seen

he does speak archaicly/old fashionedly in general. ive seen people guess the translaters made him 'british', to try to show him using old fahioned language

trying to make the characters american was pathetic enough but this is even less understandable. for a start, from the screenshots ive seen the reasons he was 'british' was cause he said stuff like 'bloody' and 'bloke'. hardly the formal archaic language theyre going for, is it

without trying to assign irrelevent nationalities, they could easily have made him talk like a character from a high fantasy novel or something, making him sound like a nerd with the archaic language that isnt used normally now, that wouldve shown that much better without adding random honourifics and being inconstent. his character references historical japan specifically, but you shouldnt have made them american in the first place, it ruins it loads of places

cause he does use some old fashioned/nerd language and talk about swords/etc, and you can argue that omeesan for 'you' was swapped out with the 'dono' honourific. you get the samurais/archaic/etc, but it loses most of the nuance of it, especially with how he addresses people pretty rudely. most people who are playing are going to think 'dono' is meant to be really polite

remember, the audience of this 'localisation' is americans whove never heard of other countries so much they dont even know what ramen or curry is. arent you meant to be getting rid of any mention of japan cause it might be alieniation, or confuse them. but it seems, when they thought of an even worse way to ruin it they just couldnt help themselves

[hauntedbloodywhirlpool]

Lang Shilong's name is the only one thats actually more accurrate in the english tranlsation than the original japanese

in japanese, chinese names are read with japanese pronunciation of the characters that are common to both. the readings that origionally came from china with the chinese characters are used, but theyve changed a lot

so 狼 士龍 is pronouned in the japanese version as Rou Shiryuu, but the english translation just took the normal chinese pronounciation (id been wondering if thats what they did)

the translaters didnt actually localise this name at all. (technically they unlocalised it) inconsistently, it seems they prioritised keeping the same language over understanding, opposite to the usual approach

狼 literally just means wolf

士 means 'warrior', but its used in words like 弁護士 (advocate) lawyer

龍 means dragon. its also in naruhodo's given name, though thats probably a coincidence

also when i put just 狼士 into google translate it said werewolf, though its not a real word that exists anywhere