You should rely andamaeruon us more.
Of course, says Sustrum, Kasuga isnt suggesting Kiryu act like a fussy baby and demand attention.
Hes saying its okay to ask for help when hes struggling.
So share the load… We got your back.
What I like to look at is flow, the natural progression of dialogue.
Accurate localisation, says Malone, needs as much context as possible.
He gives a simplified example of how the process might work from start to finish:
Japanese:……
Translation: If you’d have done your job right, I would’ve given you a generous tip.
Sorry, but now I’m paying you nothing… And give me back my envelope.
Edit:Y’know, if you just did your job, you’d have got a fat tip.
But now all you get is a fat lip.
Oh, and gimme my envelope.
This is right after Ichiban fights Tomizawa, a crooked cabbie who attempted to rob him at gunpoint.
Does the Japanese line mention a fat lip at all?
In Japanese, the officer says: I hear the word hentai comes from Japan.
I guess the birthplace of that word is on another level, huh?
We needed to massage this line a bit to make the joke work for our audience.
Like the anime porn, or the panty machines, huh?
Like those properties, LAD doesnt hold back with the pun-based enemy names.
Malone says a good example of this is the evolutionary line for the lubed-up enemies in Ijincho.
Playing the game in English, youll encounter these Sujimon as City Slicker, Grease Monk, and Pornogra-Pharoah.
Dark Santa/ becomes Krass Kringle.
The Needleraiser is a perfect example, says Malone, since needle in Japanese is hari.
This becomes especially interesting when slang terms are involved.
Malone gives the example of the opening scene of Lost Judgement.
Yagami overhears this, so without actually reading the kanji, the meaning remains ambiguous.
This literal translation, says Malone, is a bit unwieldy in English.
The final edit ended up as follows:
“Well, a betting man would say he’s gambling.
If it’s a members-only building with goons posted on every corner…
I’m telling you now, the tatami room ain’t no tea shop.
They settled on tatami room, which are still fairly ubiquitous in Japan.
The word might also conjure a tea ceremony, Another Japanese custom known worldwide.
On top of regular colloquialisms, there are also region specific, and even yakuza specific terms and dialects.
Sunstrum gives some examples: Katagi is someone who is not part of the yakuza; a civilian.
Of course, it doesnt end with the page.
Its something they were only able to pull off because of all the Dragon Quest references.
We ended up using the same localization in Kasugas karaoke song, The Future I Dreamed Of.
The chorus starts with nariagaru ze, which became Im gonna level up.
