Mr Poltroon

Não faço outra coisa... Sempre tive o hábito de escrever tal como pronuncio, o que causa infelizes situações como esta, e ainda mais infeliz ortografia.

You can't convince me that what you're asking for isn't a philosophy of editing. From Japanese literature (although literature might be an overblown word for this) one would evidently expect Japanese expressions, speech patterns, traditions, odd sentence structure, unconventional comedic timing, cultural references, stupid tropes, and whatever other nonsense it brings with it. Adapting all of these for English audiences may be an editor's dream, but is not necessarily the reader's wish (See hamburgers in Ace Attorney and Ice Cream Machines in Doraemon). This why I believe translators should focus on what is written, and not on what is meant by what is written. This isn't an on or off button, though. It's a sliding scale. If every single Japanese term with no direct English equivalent remained untranslated, any English reader would be unable to follow what is going on. If you're looking to learn about Japanese culture, though, that might be just what you're looking for -- A literal translation filled with Translator Notes. I'm exaggerating. Even I don't believe anybody would read (the vast majority) of visual novels to learn about Japanese culture. They might read it looking for Japanese traits and tropes in its writing, like the good old "can't be helped" and such, but that gets into a matter of audiences. For an all-encompassing English Translation of most Visual Novels, I'll agree with you guys. Your methods may be better for the English audience. Not necessarily the "English Audience who has persisted and developed a taste for literal translations", but for the overall English audience. What I don't like, what I truly object to, is calling one method of translation inferior to the other. "Literal Translation's shouldn't be Official"; Like heck they shouldn't. I have no experience in translating from Japanese, but I sure know to translate from English into Portuguese, and it's most of the time easier to convey the meaning than just the words, which sometimes have no equivalent, without forming an incoherent sentence. Literal Translators are still professionals doing their best to make the sentences, odd as they may be, carry whatever meaning while keeping the Japanese structure, and I applaud them for that. It's sometimes easier to just change it and take liberties. I find it unfair and wrong to boo down the literal side of the sliding scale as wrong flat-out. Don't say the translation is "bad", say the translation is "overly" literal, as in, too literal for my acquired tastes and expectations of English structures and expressions in sentences. As a direct reply, and this is as personal as it gets, everything else aside: What's wrong with that? I don't mind asking for too little, so long as I get said too little. It's good that I got used to it.

I disagree. From my point of view, every single one of Fred's lines is fine. They convey what the Japanese was saying. I don't mind if they decide to edit it so it carries the same meaning in English as it was meant to carry to Japanese readers. That's totally fine, but not what I expect from the translator.

I certainly understand how that would be better, and I don't object to it, but I still believe it's too much to ask from a translator, and not something I expect from translators. Standards for translation have been changing as of late, so I'll concede that perhaps a simple translation of what's written does not pass for a proper translation anymore, but I'll remain in my personal belief that a literal translation is fine. It suits me just fine and I'll gladly make use of the fact that I read what's written without caring about what's unnusual or not.

Um monarquista? Ora esta! Não se sinta sozinho, indubitavelmente, eu partilho os seus ideais. O prazer é todo seu, tenho a certeza. Partilho também as suas esperiências relativamente à internet e à incapacidade the escrita. O português é-me pouco usual quado estou no computador. Por fim, concordo. Pouco me interessa o futebol, a cerveja, as pessoas (Deus me livre, tanta gente) e o samba. O que não me impede de vestir o meu melhor fato no dia de carnaval, claro.

DISCLAIMER: I've rewritten this about 6 times and I still haven't managed to convey my thoughts as intended. As such, I'll give up and just post the latest draft up and go cry. I see, I see. First, I'll clarify that I was exaggerating when it came to "expecting good prose", but I was entirely serious in that becoming an editor gives you a new perspective that will have you bashing a translation where many other Visual Novel readers would not. Then I'll have to ask. What do you mean by "the translation is bad"? Does it mean the translator wasn't very good? Or does it mean the overall work of the translator+editor+quality checker+whoever else worked on it was bad? Because the translator did his job. He interpreted the Japanese sentences and chose the equivalent English words that would make for a coherent sentence. Because Japanese=/=English, this often means that the word choice will be unusual, or that the onomatopoeia and the analogies carry the wrong meaning to an English speaker. To choose to alter the sentences to convey this lost meaning is an editing philosophy and would fall on the editor, not on the translator. Therefore, saying "the translation is bad" can be misunderstood. A bad translation is one where the interpretation of the translator leads to an incoherent English sentence, with no (sensible) meaning whatsoever. "the boots lick the socks" Google Translate can't interpret, only translate, and translate it does. It picks a Japanese word or group of words, attributes one possible meaning it could have, and looks for an English equivalent, then moves on to the next one. A proper translator makes sure the meaning, and therefore English equivalent, remains coherent with the rest of the sentence. "move my body" makes sense. It means exactly what's written. That English people would never in their dreams use this expression (in the given context) is irrelevant, because Japanese people would. "read the mood" makes sense. If you check the dictionary, one of the meanings of read is to "interpret", and one of the meanings of "mood" is atmosphere/tone. It means exactly what's written, regardless of whether English people would ever word it that way or not. The analogy also makes sense, and yet it doesn't. The words carry their meaning through, but the meaning doesn't convey anything specific to an English speaker, as an English speaker doesn't find anything characteristic in an old man eating a dried squid. The vast majority hasn't even seen such a sight. Clearly, it's easier for a non-native to read this sort of thing. They rely on the meanings of the words, and care about little else. Me too. So I understand that you might find the Editing department rather lacklustre, and about that, I won't stop you from complaining. What would worry me is if you expected the translator to simultaneously be an editor and be expected to know how to best convey the meaning instead of merely translating the sentences. I'll conclude by saying that from my point of view, a literal translation is only bad if it outputs incoherent sentences as a result of using the wrong English equivalents. Of course, in an ideal environment the literal translation would then be edited so as to best relay the meaning the sentences are meant to convey, and this would be the joint effort of the translator and editor. To surmise, I have no issue with the overall translation, although I see why you might, especially being an editor, but I think you shouldn't be criticising the translator, but the editor.

Allow me to offer some conjecture on the matter. It's a difference in standards. Fred is now an editor on the VN scene and, from what little I've seen, a fairly liberal one. This basically means he's an enemy of 90% of existing translations and has set out on an unfortunate path of suffering for himself, the path of expecting good prose from Visual Novels. I myself am on a similar, if happier, path. As a proofreader, typos come naturally to me and I can't help but be more annoyed by them than your average Joe and Joette. As I tend to play very, very long Visual Novels, typos are to be expected, yet my tolerance is low. Additionally, I feel compelled to note that sentences missing a full stop are the worst offenders.

"With just barely over 1200 posts!" With some quite generous rounding, indeed.

I have now finished Kirara's route in Yumina the Ethereal Somebody tell me, why do I keep on playing gameplay VNs if in the end I just cheat my way through? EDIT: I forgot to mention something highly important. Best moment in the VN:

Said undesirable anti-market effects really go over my head. I simply don't understand. What I can address is the issue of charging for amount of content. Basing pricing on a comparison between the amount of content in the core game and the amount of content added by the 18+ version does not solve the issue of value being attributed to amount content. If such will be the case regardless, I find it fairer that the content be judged by itself, and not by being compared to the core game. In what other way would one intend to evaluate the price of any kind of content? Quality? I feel I am missing or incapable of understanding many pieces of the puzzle on this matter, including what exactly you find objectionable.

I wouldn't want to write down a reply that would entirely miss the point, so I'm afraid you'll have to explain what reasons exactly lead to your disagreement.

Well, don't take it as a binary yes/no. I was more trying to make a point in that "fairness" is wrongly associated to a comparison between the length of the extra content we pay for and the length of the core game itself. In my eyes, it should be associated to the extra content only, no strings attached. If we go by terms of length, let's say users found 10 dollars acceptable for three H-Scenes. The same should hold true regardless of whether the game is 2 hours long or 20.

Herein lies the issue. Sekai Project has no guarantees this will hold true. We're in a world of hypotheticals when it comes to pricing. Maybe you're right. Maybe the adult gamers would compensate the steam ones lost from the higher price. Then again, maybe they won't. The only way to know is test it out, and, even then, every game is different. Sekai Project isn't all that motivated to "test it out" because their sales figures are working out for them at the moment. Simply complaining doesn't seem to make Sekai believe any option other that 1) is sound, for these shorter games. And for longer games the landscape changes completely. Making the 18+ patch 10 dollars when the main game is 30 dollars will be perceived as fair, after all. In all likelihood, Sekai Project will just price all their 18+ patches at around 10 dollars, regardless of the length of the core game. Sekai Project has shown no aversion from any kind of title. I won't say they'll stop providing 18+ content at all, but I wouldn't be surprised if they gave up on nukiges and made securing an 18+ version in their business dealings even less of a priority.

The reason is sadly not a rational one. Think of it this way: a) 10 is a portion of 30. 18+ is a portion of the full game. b) 10 is half of 20. 18+ does not represent half the game. a) is Kira Kira; the 18+ version has a small increase in price to represent the small amount of content that the 18+ version brings. b) is KARAKARA; the 18+ version costs the same as the core game, but the 18+ version does not represent half the content in the game. In KARAKARA's case, the amount of 18+ content is probably lesser than the 18+ content in Kira Kira, but even if we assume the content itself was the same, people would be fine with the pricing in case a), while they would not in case b).

Uwaa-- Wonderful precedent that sets... Either way, this basically means that, for the moment, redrawing CG's is not expected from localisation companies. Calling them [the ones in charge of ChuSingura] lazy on those grounds is not exactly fair. You may freely call them lazy for just about any other reason, though.

You misunderstand me; I was asking if you know of any other localisation project where redrawing has taken place on the behalf of the localisation company. I'll admit that I'm curious whether sheer incompetence of the localisers or external factors connected to the developer of the console version are to blame for the missing CG.

Does redrawing CG's during localisation have a precedent? As far as I know, the closest we've been to that has been the porting of the console version as opposed to the 18+ one.

Putting aside the discussion on fairness for the moment, Sekai Project's main audience and costumers are undoubtedly the Steam users and, regrettably, it is more sound of a business decision to provide a cheaper Steam game. Essentially, the cheaper the VN on Steam, the more sales it gets (18+ or otherwise). Let's say they do indeed charge those 15 dollars for the game.* If the drop in sales is too steep, it simply does not compensate. 1) Currently, they get the many Steam buyers (10 dollars) plus the few willing to buy the 18+ patch (10 dollars). 2) If they were to raise the core game to 15 and lower the patch to 5, less Steam users would buy the game, but more would buy both the game and the 18+ patch. 3) Finally, they could raise the price of the main game to 20, and make the 18+ patch free. This would guarantee the adult audience, but scare away the Steam audience due to high prices. Reality isn't quite so simple that maths would solve this issue. It's not directly proportional and there's no ideal option. There is, however, one guarantee: The Steam audience is larger, if less willing with their wallets, than the adult audience. Here's the issue. Sekai Project believes the sound business decision is option one, for it has worked out for them thus far (In this assessment, I'm ignoring any potential views on wanting to spread the visual novel genre to as many new costumers as possible). They have no evidence to the contrary and therefore, I completely understand that they will continue to damn the adult consumers with higher prices. Somebody on this thread brought up the interesting point that Sekai Project is, for the first time, localising a Nukige. That game will be crucial for Sekai Project, as it'll permit them to gauge their adult audience and compare sales between Steam and non-steam games. After said title, they may consider that the adult audience may be worth more effort cultivating... or perhaps, just the opposite.** *I'm unsure of the actual values so I'll just start on the assumption that the main game costs 10 dollars right now, and so does the H-Content. **I do see two issues with this, however. One is the Steam version for that game. If we assume the same strategy will take place and that the Steam version will be cheaper; how much will the 18+ patch cost? It's the majority of the content, after all. And how many pirates will the Steam version bring with it? It's just "patching a game I already bought", after all. The second is that due to the disdain Sekai Project has received from the adult community as of late, due to allegedly unfair pricing and disregard toward adult consumers, said adult consumers may actively sabotage the sales of Sekai Project's Nukige, ending Sekai Project's venture into the adult scene once and for all (or at least, putting the few willing adult buyers in an even worse position).

Which would then explain why they are porting the console port... I see now. That was wholly informative, thank you. EDIT: That CG, huh? Doesn't seem particularly harder to censor than any others, so I don't see what the issue was... Considering the organisation and structure behind this, I wouldn't even be surprised if they simply forgot it existed.

If anything, I'd praise them for conducting censorship in this fashion. Taking for granted that censorship will take place regardless, it's nice to see they're putting effort into redrawing CG's where necessary as opposed to picking up their favourite scissors and just cutting out everything inappropriate. I don't get what's going on with this release. So many things done right, so many things done wrong...

Reached Chapter 6 of Yumina the Ethereal. I already knew the biggest twist beforehand, but I can definitely say I'm liking how everything's turning out. Entering Kirara's route now. I was really worried about the Chapter 4 boss fight, but it was easy enough to just destroy all her audience and make her fumble around like an idiot.

Playing Yumina the Ethereal. I am, quite surprisingly (or perhaps just the opposite) enjoying the combat a great deal. Reminds me to an extent of Phoenix Wright, I suppose... Haha. The style of humour is actually very compatible with me, so I can say I'm enjoying everything thus far. Furthermore, I should add that complicated as they may seem, I've mostly grasped the battle systems without any real messing up or struggle, so there's that, @Eclipsed.

As everyone else is sharing their impressions as they go through, I shall do the same. General Impressions: The UI is incredibly slick. In fact, everything about the presentation is top notch. The options menu has everything I could want. The Translation, however, is not quite everything, although close. I don't mind the translation choices and, considering this was a free translation by a team of people who dedicated hours of their time toward this project, I welcome them. They certainly spice up the typical tropes the VN would otherwise be littered with. Furthermore, the translation itself is otherwise excellent. Everything that needs be conveyed is properly conveyed; everything makes sense as I read it, accuracy aside. If I ignore the typos, of which I've spotted close to a couple dozen over the course of the Common Route (and at least two lines without full stops!), then it leaves nothing to be desired. The choice system is interesting: There's typically three choices, and I can't always tell what they do. Coupled with the occasional binary (uh, fournary?) choice where we clearly select our heroine of choice's name, I wonder if the rest of the choices are merely there for flavour? Character-wise, I've already elaborated on the main heroines. Yuzu seems all around average, although I've come to notice she's awfully confident in her childhood friend status. Touko is not the perfect Kuudere, but she was close for most of the common route, and her current personality seems decent too. Akane seems samurai-like (mostly the way she sounds), which I enjoy, and when she's flustered she's also very cute, which I also highly value. Not a fan of what they were going for with mimicking animal ears with her uniform. Finally, I've come to a conclusion on Yves' personality. Her common sense is detached from a normal person's, and, harsh as she sounds, she mostly scolds other people for their sake or to vent her anger or sadness or disappointment. Otherwise, we have the gap between her usual confident and stereotypical rich-girl persona and her embarrassed or worried self; which I really like as well. People also mentioned the protagonist had no personality or that he served only to move the story along; clearly, I couldn't care less. The protagonist is entirely fine with me. Speaking of which, also very much a fan of the supporting cast -- especially Jin, the Teacher, Chiyoda and Oota. I like how Jin is so excitable, but gets sick from everything. Anything from the common cold, to low blood pressure, to extreme headaches after exercising minimal effort goes. The idea is hilarious and the character itself gets to play the straight man oftentimes. Chiyoda's laziness and minimal effort necessary policies, in addition to her "friendship" with Minato make her a wonderful character for me. Our views seems aligned. Oota seems respectable, if prideful, through and through. From a character I expected the worst out of, it was nice to see him be reasonable most of the time. As for the teacher, I wouldn't actually be interested in a route with her, though. To be frank, this teacher is more like an alternate reality version of Momoyo for me, where she grew up to be not quite as lecherous. The impressions thus far may seem positive, but there's one major flaw I have with it. Further explanation below. Common Route: Yves' Route (Up till first H-Scene):

Reportedly, it is essentially the same version (although with a much, much improved translation) except the H-Scenes themselves were removed. No mentions of them were removed, no heavy rewriting: It's as if they take place off-screen.