I’m currently recording a playthrough of Tales of Symphonia with the Japanese voices, which was at least partly done so I could take notes of the differences between the Japanese and English in this game.
In Episode 4, we talk about things that weren’t translation errors, and a couple different ways one can say ‘you’ in Japanese..
Watch Episode 4 here!
If you’d rather read this on google docs, head over here!
Notes on other episodes can be found here!
> This episode opens with some, er, “Desians”—Can I call them Renegades at this point? They’re Renegades, okay, I’m keeping a lid on some spoilers but not fucking all of them. Anyway it opens with them discussing how it’s unfortunate, there’s no way Lloyd will escape execution. However, if you know anything about the Renegades, you know that “killing Lloyd” is not on their agenda list. @texanona contacted me wondering if this was a mistranslation—it’s not!
Here’s screenshots of the lines in Japanese just for posterity. (Thanks again to EmriuTheKnight and their playthrough in Japanese!) They say essentially the same thing as in English.
Guard 1: …if that’s the case, I feel sorry for Lloyd
Guard 2: Yeah, there’s no way he’ll escape execution.
The thing of note here is that we don’t see the entirety of what Guard 1 is referring to, just that “Lloyd won’t escape execution”. Perhaps Guard 1 is talking about how Lloyd won’t be able to escape the Desians, and the information was just omitted to make Lloyd and the player think that Lloyd was in immediate danger of execution, hence the need to escape. Otherwise, Renegades this far down on the ladder just aren’t privy to the full of the plan, I guess.
> At 1:41, Lloyd’s battle intro translates to “This will be an easy victory!”
> The English has Yuan say “Why you little—” but in Japanese he just straight up says kisama, which is the most insulting second-person pronoun you can use, often translated as “you bastard” but like most Japanese swears is only a swear if you choose to translate it as one.
> The next line is: “An exsphere! You’re Lloyd!?” which in Japanese is まさか、きさまロイドか？ It’s not a big difference other than that まさか (meaning ‘It can’t be!’, roughly, or other generic exclamations of surprise) was cut out, though Yuan’s surprise is probably conveyed well enough in his words/tone alone, really. Also he uses kisama for Lloyd again.
> The Renegades all call Yuan リーダー, literally, “leader”, said in English.
> Yuan uses watashi as his first-person pronoun of choice.
> Botta uses polite speech when addressing Yuan.
> Honestly I have never heard Yuan use a second-person pronoun for Lloyd that isn’t kisama, though perhaps towards the end of the game that changes. We’ll find out when we get there, I suppose.
> Botta uses kisama @ Kratos, again.
> Raine shows up and says “Ah, Lloyd, Genis told me what happened. I’m sorry for the trouble he caused you.” It’s roughly the same in Japanese, the Japanese just feels more like “Genis told me a lot of things. It seems like he’s a troublesome child, isn’t he? I’m sorry.”
> Lloyd uses anta (instead of say, omae,) when addressing Kratos during the night scene in Triet. They’re both words for “you”, with the only difference being that anta is “more polite”. It’s hard to make definitive calls this early in the game, but since Lloyd uses omae pretty consistently with Genis and Colette (Genis especially), it’s possible that Lloyd’s use of anta @ Kratos (which is a common thread) is indicative of the slight distance in their relationship. Like, they aren’t distant enough for Lloyd to use super polite forms or anything, but they aren’t close enough for Lloyd to use omae, you know? Maybe I’m reading too much into it.
> (I said in the first episode’s notes Lloyd uses omae for Kratos at some point, but I forget what I was referring to? I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a thing that happens late-game, after they become closer, nor would I be surprised if it only came up in Tales of Fandom vol 2, which is post-game. I’ll keep you updated on this, as well, I suppose.)
> Since everyone loves swearing: Lloyd says kuso, here, which is translated as ‘damn’. This is pretty standard. Of course, kuso can be translated as ‘crap’ if you want to be more tame, or ‘fuck’ if you want to be more extreme, but this game is rated PG-13 so we ain’t getting anything more explicit than ‘bastard’.
That’s all for this episode!! If you want to keep an eye out for more posts like this, check out the tag for this series!
I’m currently recording a playthrough of Tales of Symphonia with the Japanese voices, which was at least partly done so I could take notes of the differences between the Japanese and English in this game. The following is a list of differences and other interesting things I noticed from Episode 3 of the playthrough.
In Episode 3, we mainly talk about a handful of different ways you can refer to your parents.
Watch Episode 3 here!
If you’d rather read this on google docs, head over here!
Notes on other episodes can be found here!
> For some reason I didn’t mention it in Part 2, but for the record: Lloyd calls Dirk oyaji, instead of otousan. According to jisho.org, 親父 oyaji literally means just “one’s father”. So it’s probably got more formal connotations than otousan? Dirk being oyaji also means that when Lloyd’s talking about either of his two fathers (not that we’ll know who the other one is for a long time) (unless you’ve been spoiled), it’s really clear which one he’s referring to, because the other one gets tousan! I suppose if the localization had really wanted to keep this nuance, Lloyd could have called Dirk “papa” in English, not that it matters too much, because context usually makes it fairly clear which one he’s talking about without them having separate names. STILL.
> Lloyd uses kaasan, and not okaasan for his mom! It’s a minor thing that doesn’t mean much, just a lack of an honorific. (Maybe I could argue it’s more masculine, or more casual.) Really I’m just fond of pointing it out.
> While we’re on the subject of parent terms, Dirk uses hahaoya 母親to refer to Lloyd’s mom. Makes me wonder if the oya line of parent terms is like, a dwarf thing?? Or maybe just a Dirk thing. It’s interesting, nonetheless. (Also, it doesn’t actually come up in this episode! It comes up in the previous, I just… forgot about it.)
> Lloyd asks “So you’re forgiving me?” and… it’s really a minor thing I don’t even have to point out, but it’s by recognizing such minor things and pointing them out that I’m getting my practice, so: In Japanese, Lloyd uses the giving form of to forgive, 許してくれる yurushitekureru, which has connotations more like “So you’re doing me the favor of forgiving me?” The localized English is fine and more natural, but like I said, the point of this is to note down these things!
> Again, really minor: Dirk says “You’re my son, regardless of blood” and instead of 俺の息子 ore no musoko, he says 俺の子供 ore no kodomo, which means he says “you’re my child,” and not son, but. Again, it doesn’t matter, I’m just having fun pointing things like this out.
> Lloyd calls both Marble and Phiadra Marble-obachan, Phiadra-obachan, which like Dirk-ojisan is an honorific that happens to point out they are, grandmas. It’s probably considered polite even though it’s strange in English, though it’s definitely a little more cheeky than just Marble-san, (which is what Genis calls her).
> Colette’s letter is written in polite speech! From what I know about letters in Japanese, this is definitely not a surprise (they tend to be more formal than spoken Japanese). Also, considering Lloyd’s comment that it “reads like a will”, and the fact it kind of is one, Colette may have also used polite speech for that reason as well.
> Forcystus shows up and says 我の名は ware no na wa, which 1) 我 ware is the most pretentious first-person pronoun you can use for yourself (see my notes about Remiel) and 2) that’s not even the proper grammar for it??? I mean I guess it’s obviously allowed, but up until this point I have only encountered 我が名 waga na, (the waga being what’s important) because 我 is special and has its own conjugation for being possessive, 我が, except here Forcystus just uses the regular old possessive formula, pronoun+の, and I’m?? Kind of reeling?? I can’t make any assumptions on what this means, I’m just in shock over it being a thing I just heard.
update: In the OVA he uses “waga na wa” like a normal person so I????
> Rando Desian dude uses 我々wareware, for his ‘we’, which actually as a first-person plural pronoun is less pretentious than a first-person singular pronoun. You see company presidents and members use it to refer to their company as a whole, so it’s more common than singular ware. Granted, since it’s coming from a Desian, maybe the intent is still to be pretentious. Either way it’s a much different flavor than 俺たち ore-tachi.
> When addressing Forcystus directly, the Desians use polite speech, though they used casual when addressing Lloyd. Not that I would have expected anything else. (More detailed nuances of this here.)
> Marble also uses the verb stem + nasai command form, or at least she does here. As I said when I first brought it up with Raine, it’s often used by parents/teachers, which makes sense for Marble.
> Genis says “What was that voice? It sounded like Marble!” But in Japanese, instead of It sounded like Marble, he says It can’t be! Marble!? まさか！マーブルさん？！
> In English, Marble says “Thank you, goodbye” but in Japanese it’s just “I was so happy…” (Or maybe “you made me so happy”) and then she dies.
> Lloyd apologizes to the mayor with a gomen-nasai, instead of just gomen, which shows just how bad he really does feel about this.
> Lloyd also uses polite speech when he agrees to leave (14:22). He’s taking this situation seriously.
> I learned that 悪い warui means not just ‘bad’, but can also mean ‘at fault’. Genis uses it constantly and the English translates it as “at fault”, which jisho.org then confirms.
> At 15:20 Lloyd uses sumanai to apologize, which doesn’t have any ~deep meaning~, it’s just a different way of apologizing vs gomen. Mainly I’m just marking down every time it shows up. The only thing to say about sumanai is that it’s more likely to be used by guys, according to this, and based on the fact I’ve yet to hear it said by a female character. I’ll update if that changes.
Since the scene in the village is the final one with voices (other than some skits I don’t have interesting notes on,) that concludes this episode! If you want to keep an eye out for more posts like this, check out the tag for this series!
I’m currently recording a playthrough of Tales of Symphonia with the Japanese voices, which was at least partly done so I could take notes of the differences between the Japanese and English in this game. The following is a list of differences and other interesting things I noticed from Episode 2 of the playthrough.
Episode 2 is shorter than Episode 1, and also has a lot less interesting facts. I could have combined Episodes 2 and 3 into a single post, but I’ve already been procrastinating on posting this for two weeks now, so...
Watch Episode 2 here!
If you’d rather read this on google docs, head over here!
Notes on Episode 1 (and in the future, other episodes) can be found here!
> When Genis gives Colette her birthday present, in ENG she just says “No it’s fine I love your cookies!!” But Japanese has an added “your cookies are delicious and so I love them”.
> I accidentally skipped the text box before Colette could finish thanking Genis, oops. My bets are on it was just “domo arigatou” but did she add a gozaimasu at the end? We’ll never know!
> I forgot to mention it earlier, but Lloyd has a post-battle line that’s literally just “All right!” in English. (You can see it at 8:50.)
> Marble uses more honorific leaning speech, “sochira” to refer to Lloyd. (It’s a politer version of “sore”/ ‘that (person) over there’). And I thiiink I heard her add the honorific o- to tomodachi. (However, adding the o- prefix to words is also just called “beautification”, something which female speakers tend to do.)
> Marble ends a lot of her sentences with “wa”, which as far as end-of-sentence particles go, carries a feminine vibe.
> Genis and Colette call Dirk ダイクおじさん which is really kind of just “old man Dirk”. ダイク being Dirk’s name in Japanese.
> 16:20, Genis says “What? Aren’t we gonna get in trouble?!” which is still, basically what it says in Japanese, the Japanese is just more literally “Are you sure that’s okay?” “そのことをしていいの？”
> Lloyd says “Hey, that’s what friends are for, right?” In Japanese he says “バカ、いいんだよ” lit. “Idiot, it’s fine.”
> Upon examining the jump Lloyd made down a cliff, Forcystus says “How did a mere human make that kind of jump?” but in Japanese it’s something more like “What happened just now… Is that really just the power of a human?” I probably would have localized it the same way, but noticing even the little differences is all part of my practice, so.
> The scene where Colette and Lloyd say goodbye (starting at 31:00 exactly) is like… It’s translated literally in English and still has the same feel, but knowing that saying “sayonara” in Japan is a loooot less common than saying “goodbye” in English (sayonara being reserved for more permanent goodbyes) the transition from Colette’s “ja ne” (see you later) to Lloyd’s “ashita na” (see you tomorrow) back to Colette with a final, seemingly unnecessary “sayonara” (goodbye) punches just a Lil Bit more.
