I have seen zero people talking about this on Tumblr so it's time for me to change that.
OTOME FANS ON TWITTER ARE MAD AT AKSYS GAMES.
Why, you ask?
BECAUSE PLAYERS HAVE COMPILED A LIST OF +600 ERRORS FOUND IN COLLAR X MALICE UNLIMITED AND TO THIS DAY AKSYS GAMES HAS STAYED SILENT ABOUT IT.
People have been bringing their attention to this list (you can find the excel listing all the errors with screenshots on Twitter) since day 1 and even sent it to their email for days until Aksys answered some of them saying that they will work on a patch.
That's it. No apology to the people who spent 50$ on the game, no public announcement, no tweets or posts talking about it. We are currently spamming them to announce the patch publicly so that they can't act as if it was never promised to us.
But they still promote the game. That, and the Piofiore preorders. And people comment on those preorder announcements saying they won't buy the game because of the CxMU issue.
CxMU was released in Europe after it was released in USA, and I left a comment in one of Aksys Europe Store's tweets saying that they had the nerve to promote the release of something with 0 quality. And they answered that all complains regarding that should go to Aksys Games USA, that they only sell the games in Europe.
And bear in mind that this has happened before. Many times. Just look for posts talking about the localisation of Norn9 from years ago.
And they even release ports with the same errors as the original release (CxM and C:R Switch ports of PSVita localisations).
CONCLUSION: IF YOU ARE PLANNING ON BUYING CXMU, PIOFIORE, CAFE ENCHANTE OR ANY FUTURE OTOME RELEASES FROM AKSYS GAMES, BEAR IN MIND YOU MIGHT SPEND 50$ ON THIS:
Screenshot of one of the errors listed in the Excel compilation, originally uploaded by @APPLEJUSTICE on Twitter. Yes, THAT WHOLE SENTENCE IN RED is written EXACTLY LIKE THAT IN THE GAME. A game that is 50$.
Please reblog so that people on Tumblr know what's going on!!!
Hello naughty children, I am going to talk about “psychotic breakdowns” in the P5 localization, and the fact that it’s a (very big) mistranslation that could mess up your perception of a fair amount of things in the game. (also, the fact that “psychotic breakdowns” and “mental shutdowns” are different things).
As usual, post is pretty long & screenshot heavy.
In Persona 5, there are incidents the localization refers to as “psychotic breakdowns” throughout the game. “Psychotic breakdown” is wildly different from what the Japanese version of the game seemingly wanted to convey.
In Japanese, they’re often referred to as 暴走事件(lit “runaway incident)” & the term relating to those incidents and the power used to create them is 暴走(lit “runaway/run wildly)”
A more correct translation for these would’ve been things such as human rampages, rampage incidents, berserk incidents, berserk, rampage, frenzy. “Psychotic breakdown” is straight up wrong, and nigh contradictory for how the power is explained to work(more in that later in the post).
In this post, I’ll be using the terms “rampage incidents” and “rampage” in English, and 暴走事件/ 暴走 to cite the exact term in Japanese.
The term in Japanese the localization refers to as “mental shutdowns” is 廃人化(literally “cripple/invalid/disabled person -ification.)” I’ve seen it translated as “shellification” but the localized term “mental shutdown” is fine, so, those will just be referred to as “mental shutdown(s)” for simplicity’s sake.
The rampage power is specifically a power that Akechi’s initial persona, Loki, can use. It was the power used to create the subway accident near the beginning of the game (which was later revealed to have been at the request of one of Shido’s men) by using it on the driver. This ability is not fatal on its own. The subway engineer is still alive after this, and none of the people on the subway were killed, just injured. He also uses it on the two shadows before you fight him the first time, and again on himself when you fight him the second time.
“Bastard, you made yourself rampage!” or along those lines. The thing of note here is the usage of 暴走
What it does is remove the bonds on one’s heart, causes them to run wildly, and they forget what happened afterward. He describes how it works here:
Localized line is mostly fine, however “chains” is better translated as “bonds.” He uses 枷 here, which can refer to literal or more metaphorical bonds, such as society’s restrictions, relationships, or what you’re allowed to do. The explanation for how the power works is (mostly) intact in the localization, but “psychotic breakdown” doesn’t convey that at all.
Localized line is fine, thing of note: usage of 暴走(rampage). “Psychotic” also changes your perception of the character, because the power is noted to have been born from his own heart:
Localized lines are mostly fine, but “control” should’ve been “manipulate” in line #2. He can’t control people with the ability, just remove their restraint and cause them to run wild. This isn’t a “psychotic breakdown.”
Before the first boss fight, Akechi noted how he was jealous of Joker, because he wasn’t imprisoned by who he’s been so far or his relation to others, the very same types of bonds the rampage power is able to temporarily free one from. The localization messes this up by translating 暴走 as “psychotic.”
The first should’ve been “the person you’ve been until now” rather than “past selves.” The second line should’ve been “I envy that from the bottom of my heart” instead of “To be honest, I’m envious.”
In short, any and all instances of “psychotic breakdown(s)” and “psychotic” are better translated as “rampage incident(s)” and “rampage.” The latter gets the point across way better than what Atlus USA localized it as.
Moving on, “psychotic breakdown(s)” vs “mental shutdown(s)” are different things. The localization also made the mistake of giving these two similar sounding terms when they are completely separate events. The Japanese terms 暴走事件 (rampage incident) and 廃人化 (shellification) do not sound similar at all.
A mental shutdown occurs when the shadow self is killed. It’s not necessary lethal per se (it’s left people comatose, such as Ohya’s partner) but, it is what was causing deaths throughout the events of the game. What happens is something similar to apathy syndrome in Persona 3, but, it causes death when the person is in poor health(like the SIU Director, Okumura) or in immediate danger (Wakaba, the principal).
A “psychotic breakdown” does not lead to a “mental shutdown.” They’re two different things with different causes.
The localization also made the mistake of combining the two into a general statement when both were explicitly mentioned in some lines, such as this one:
Here it doesn’t mention 暴走 specifically, but, it was "mental shutdowns & chain of incidents" rather than just “mental shutdowns.”
Akechi’s approach of Shido was offering the rampage power, specifically.
And and all instances of killing had come from Shido(or the adults you spent the cruise ship talking to). I go over that a bit more in-depth here.
Shido even says so, here:
Localization left out “to achieve my ideals” at the start of the sentence, implying that eliminating people for his ideals was his idea. A common misconception I’ve seen is that Akechi killed people to get Shido’s attention or that he had killed people before he approached Shido, which is wrong.
tl;dr “Psychotic” in the Persona 5 localization is better translated as “rampage” and “mental shutdowns” and “psychotic breakdowns” are different things. Hope this clears up some misconceptions!
shoutouts:
@redwhiteandgold for helping me with translation stuff & proofreading, that one anon on my blog who helped me word some things here, another friend for helping w translation stuff
This is one of those Localization flubs I frequently come across where a Winquote is translated once and then they just leave it for subsequent games, not changing it when the quote DOES change.
The first two quotes are the same: English and Japanese.
The third quote was changed in Revelator, but never got translated and still has the same English text from the first quote.
Eventually I will translate this once I get it OCR'd. But it's one of those pet peeves of mine that nags me to no end with stuff like this.
Once the GGXrd series is done, I intend to document all the changes between quotes and make sure everything is properly translated... 'cuz it drives me crazy otherwise.
Okay, here’s the Quote:
私の命を脅カす人間…。
何世紀ぶりだろうか、ゃっと終幕を降ろすことができそうだ。
“A Human who can threaten my life...
After all these centuries, someone can finally take me down!”
(pt1) just remembered another line that's probably causing misunderstandings. in the jp version, while goro's using his ability on himself, mona's surprised he can use two (personas') powers together, then says 「なんて奴だ…姿さえ、嘘だったってのか！ 」. that got localized as "Then everything… even his appearance is a fake!" but there's no "everything" in the original sentence, just surprise that he's even able to alter his appearance. a lot of people seem to think that how he acted when he's with the party was
(pt2) completely fake, probably at least in part because of that line, even though in the same scene morgana points out that it’s genuine (& that + calling him out on caring about joker sets his denial off). mistranslations like that + translating the 暴走 terms with “psychotic” did a lot of damage to his character in the localization, i think. （・∩・）
mhmm, thanks for pointing that out! it kind of sounds like the localization team thought “everything” was fake, too _(:3」∠)_ like 3 diff japanese speakers & i are working on compiling a post dissecting the original dialogue vs the localization in a bunch of varied scenes (like a tv scenes, justice rankup scene, sae’s palace stuff, shido scene, and the loki bossfight scene), mind if i include that point in there?
“you care about joker” being localized as “you don’t hate joker” kind of hurt that, too.
go for it! there's definitely other parts where the localization team misinterpeted something and messed up the translation (there's a scene on 10/28 that has… a really blatant error in the localization… the motorcycle line in mementos is about the bicycle kind of bike in jp too but that's more innocuous), so i… wouldn't be surprised at all if they screwed that line up because they thought everything about him pre-reveal was fake. (￣□￣;;)
Thanks ovo !
And oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to bring that one up here! It’s the scene where Haru asks what justice means to him.
Here’s a rough translation of the scene by @redwhiteandgold
“The very worst adult.
Yes. My spirit to rebel against this individual is the very root of my own justice.
It’s not for society, or for idealism’s sake.The reason’s nothing lofty like that.
It’s extremely personal… It’s just a worthless sense of resentment” *
* being the same word that was used after boss fight #2 when talking about the power he awakened. Also an important word that should’ve been translated consistently.
The problem here is that he was talking about a singular person, which you later find out to be Shido. The localization might’ve given people the idea that he was talking about the people Shido was having him kill rather than Shido himself. Here’s the english dialogue:
“Because of sickening human beings…
Yes. My contempt for such people drives my sense of justice.
It isn’t for some grand reason like society’s sake or some lofty ideal.
It’s simply an absurd grudge. And extremely personal.”
So, yeah, another error that could give people the wrong idea.
So, @vork---m shared a certain video on Bridget with me recently... and it only highlights all the political and social confusion going on with the not-Perfected American Localization (and social media promotional engine) for Guilty Gear Strive.
I’ll be honest... I’m getting too old for these debates and discussions... it tires me out to the point of stress (literal knots in my stomach).
What I will say is... just like with the confusion over Sin’s Gear Eye entry in the GG World Library article (which contradicts previous Lore information)... there’s still confusion over how to treat various characters.
Now, either they just didn’t want to step on a landmine, or they inadvertently created a Nuclear Bomb of discussion/arguments/abuse and whathaveyou... regardless, I think it’s still important to look at the interpretations as just what they are: Interpretations.
Please... Don’t assert your opinions, don’t enforce the idea that people are wrong or non-deserving of being ‘true fans’... it’s fine to like characters on your own terms.
But, the very fact this conversation is still going on proves to me that:
1. People don’t look at characters in earnest and just see what they want to see.
2. Arbitrarily Rewriting Fiction for the sake of Pandering is more important now than it was years prior (or at the very least, the standards for such have dropped).
3. People use Characters/Icons to enforce their own personal Agenda instead of letting the character be itself.
4. People still don’t have the maturity to discuss these things without resorting to personal and verbal attacks... Nobody deserves this on either side. It needs to stop.
Yes, it’s fine to “stand up” for your takes... but stand up for them for the sake of enforcing the TRUTH. Not your own spin of it.
But above all else... Respect people around you...
“The Truth is only as big as those willing to believe in it.”
–Frau (07 Ghost Children)
