Final Fantasy VIII - Localisation Review (6)

This is an entry in a series of posts looking at the localisation of the beginning segment of the game, Final Fantasy VIII. You can find the first post here. Thanks for reading!

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	Japanese	English
Seifer	おまえ、本物の戦場は初めてだろ？怖いか？	This must be your first real battle. You scared?
Squall 1	……わからない。でも……考えると怖くなりそうだ。	...I don't know. I try not to think about it.

1. The translation of the second sentence here is interesting because I think it has the potential to slightly alter the chartericasion of Squall. The full dialogue Japanese literally reads, "...I don't know. But... I'd likely get scared if I were to think about it." The English does not clearly show that Squall doesn't want to think about being scared or not because that he thinks that would probably make him scared! I think this gives him a greater degree of humanity than the English, which paints him with a much cooler attitude. As an alternative, I'd offer, "...I don't know. But... I probably would be if I stopped to think about it."

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	Japanese	English
Seifer 2	その他大勢は引っ込んでろ	Mind your own business.
Zell 3	許せねえ……	Frickin' hell...

2. This is one of the few remarks in the game that I asked a Japanese person to explain to me. It is a remark used when one doesn't want another person getting involved. For example, if two master samurai were facing off with each other and some of the samurai's followers comes running to offer to help, the samurai would say what Seifer said to express that he doesn't need any help or interference. In other words, the game's translation perfectly captures the meaning of the Japanese. However, let me break down the sentence into its four chunks for the sake of clarity. First, sonohoka (その他) means "additional." Next, oozei (大勢) means "a great number of people." Incidentally, the Japanese person I asked about this line said it was a little strange to use this term as Seifer is referring to just one person. Finally, hikkondero (引っ込んでろ) is the imperative form of a verb that means, "to stay out (something)",  "to be set back (e.g. from a road)" and, "to sink/to cave in." In this case, the first mentioned meaning of the verb is being used. I wonder if other nonnative speakers of Japanese would pause over this sentence?

3. Zell's remark in Japanese is one that often pops up in heated situations that would be strange if translated literally into English as, "I can't permit that." Still, I don't love the translation as "Frickin' hell..." in this context as I feel this remark (coupled with the ellipses too) conveys exasperation rather than anger at Seifer. I think a simple, "Fuck you," would do a better job in this situation at naturally conveying the feeling Zell expresses in the Japanese.

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	Japanese	English
Selphie 4	キミたち……Ｂ班？あれ？君って、たしか……案内してくれた人だよね～！ありがと～。おかげで少し迷わなくなったよ～。そだ、名前言ってなかったよね～。あたし……伝令。Ａ班のセルフィ。	Are you... Squad B? Wait a minute... You're the guy who showed me around, right!? Thanks! I don't get so lost anymore. Oh yeah, I haven't told you my name yet. I'm... a messenger. Name's Selphie, from Squad A.

4. If you look at the Japanese, you will notice a lot of tilde (~) marks. It is commonly used in Japanese text to give dialogue a degree of airy lightheartedness. However, it is not generally seen in English writing and is indeed not present in the English translation. I suppose the translator has to understand the manner of speech that these tilde represent, and then convey it through the character's words. In this case, I think the use of exclamation and question marks, and words such as "right" or "oh yeah" at the start and end of sentences fulfill this purpose in the translation.

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	Japanese	English
Selphie 5	伝令ってつらいね～。はんちょ～まてぇ～……。	(sigh) This sure is tough... Captain! Wait up...!!!

5. The Japanese doesn't contain any explicit text containing a sigh from Selphie, but this could be another case of the tilde at the end of her sentence being translated as such. Another slight difference is that the Japanese makes it clear that she thinks that being messenger is what is tough. Finally, I think that although the English inclusion ellipses is appropriate for the first sentence because it is a remark that trails off, they are inappropriate for the last sentence because the prior dialogue is the character yelling out loud. I previously discussed this matter in a post about Phoenix Wright's localisation, a game that (in my opinion makes the correct choice in) largely ignores these marks. For this line, I offer an alternative translation of, "Awwww, being a messenger is tough work... Heyyy Captain! Wait up!"

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Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts on the above points or Final Fantasy VIII's localisation as a whole, so please comment if you've got something to say. 

If you enjoyed this post, I bet you'll like the next post in this series: 
http://www.localireview.com/2015/04/final-fantasy-viii-localisation-review-7.html