The original intentions of the script, the characters’ personalities, the music, video, graphics, the integrity of the code, and now even the typography. Nothing is safe! I’ve been studying and practicing typography lately, so this is a topic dear to my heart.

Here’s a frame from the introduction to the game’s parody Cosmosphere:

And here’s the same screen from the localization:

Okay, we already knew that names were getting changed, so Tougasaki Miu becomes Miwa Togasaki (this screen capture was taken before the entirety of the name had appeared on screen).

But setting aside the names, the typography is criminal! These frames are presented quickly to introduce the cast of characters in an alternate parody version of the Ar tonelico 2 world. They should be stylish and cool, to get the player into the mood of the alternate world, and they should be readable, to inform the player of these characters’ alter egos in that world.

Instead, the weak, weak monospaced computer typeface chosen is just about the worst possible. It’s not substantial enough to be read quickly (regular weight versus the original’s probably W8), especially with the red border. Its shape is already ugly, but especially so when the borders exaggerate the discrepancy between the weight of different parts of the letterforms, most obviously in the M. It’s monospaced, which is a kind of font that exists for the purposes of reproducing the idiosyncracies of very old computer systems, and has almost no place in graphic design.

All of the typographical character of the original design is lost. Here’s a version I threw together very quickly; it uses in-game sprites whose resolution isn’t as high as it should be for this job, but the point for now is the typography.

When you can’t immediately tell what a line means, please don’t guess.

Cloche(1) :5:5:
JP::ふふ、自信ない…か。<LINE>
そうよね。そんな根拠のない自信、<LINE>
こっちから願い下げよ。
EN::Hehehe! No confidence...huh?
Well, I don't want you to lie to me.
NEW:Heh, you have no confidence?
All right, then I'll withdraw my baseless allegation.

Also, I’m starting to resent how any use of rude speech registers in the original text is represented in the English localization by random insertion of the phrase “You fools!”

Update: Embarrassingly enough, I was wrong here. Please see the comments.

Some scenes of the localization are actually just fine. I scroll through them checking the lines against the original Japanese, finding everything carefully and astutely translated. Then I come across something senseless like this.

(150) :18:4294967295:
JP::だって、早くしないとステージイベントが<LINE>
始まっちゃうよっ！
EN::It might start soon, if we don't hurry!
NEW:If we don't hurry, it'll start without us!

Bonus problem: Today Deciare and some other team members verified that the opening credit sequence of the game was heavily edited in the localization. This was probably to remove the original game logo, which contained Japanese text. For whatever technical or resource-availability reasons, NISA didn’t insert a localized version of the logo in its place; instead they shifted the video eight seconds forward, disrupting the synchronization between the music and the video. Of course, the team is already investigating how to restore this sequence!

One of the fun parts of working on a project like this is pulling apart and analyzing the game resources on the disc. Of course, it’s fun to have all of the individual character sprites and environment backgrounds and everything. But there are also some interesting artifacts of the development process.

For instance, there’s a huge directory full of early character portraits with the names of facial expressions pasted over them, presumably for testing purposes. Before Nagi-san had all of the various characters’ expressions drawn, they’d just drop in these bogus expression images to make sure the correct ones were showing up at the right time. Here’s Cynthia being shy.

There are lots and lots of homophone spelling errors in this game. Here’s a specimen of two in one line!

(25) :91:91:
JP::貴方の及ぼした、その小さな影響が、彼女にとってはこれほどまでに大きな事だったのよ。
EN::You're　small　influence　lead　to　this　big　result.
NEW:Your　small　influence　led　to　this　significant　result.

Here’s a case of a line that, even if you could understand it through the poor grammar, still wouldn’t make sense. Its meaning is actually exactly opposite to that of the original Japanese line. To enjoy such a story-centric game, you need to be able to trust the text!

JP::ここはクローシェの精神世界。
クローシェが貴方を本気で殺そうと思っていなければ、彼女の人格の誰かが助けるわ。
EN::This　is　Cloche's　spiritual　world.
If　she　tried　to　kill　you,　her　other　personality　will　save　you.
NEW:This　is　Cloche's　spiritual　world.
If　she　really　hadn't　wanted　to kill you,
she　would've　sent one of her personae to your rescue.

Edit: Here’s another good one.

Cloche(1) :85:85:
JP::もう無理よ！
どうせルカの店に勝ち目は無いんだから！
とんだ無駄骨だったわ！
EN::It's　impossible!
There's　no　way　that　Luca　is　gonna　beat　us,　anyway.
This　is　just　a　waste　of　time!
NEW:It's　impossible!
There's　no　way　we　can　beat　Luca's　restaurant anyway!
What　a　waste　of　time!

Edit: And another; “Jean” Ishikawa is getting in on the exact-opposite-meaning lines.

(142) :29:29:
JP::今回は、つまらなくない物を沢山斬りました。久しぶりに作り甲斐がありましたよ。
EN::I　sliced　many　stupid　things　today.<LINE>
It　was　well　worth　the　effort.
NEW:I　sliced　quite　a　lot　of　compelling　things.
It'd　been　a　while　since　I　was　put　to　good　use.

OH MY!!

I just learned about the “Jean Ishikawa” problem. In Ar tonelico 2 there is a character in Cloche’s cosmosphere by the name of イシカワジャンヌ (Jeanne Ishikawa), a female, sword-wielding chef. Jeanne is a common French woman’s name and has a common Katakana transliteration.

NISA localized her as Jean Ishikawa, and assigned her a male voice actor!!

If there was any doubt about Jeanne’s sex, one only needs to watch the gag that occurs during her song magic: she appears and swings her sword, accidentally cutting off her own clothing and exposing her obviously female body.

This is a remarkable error, or an inexplicable decision. There’s some footage of Jean on YouTube, if you care to meet her new male persona.

So, the Ar tonelico 2 English localization has problems. I don’t presume to have a diagnosis for what went wrong, but I can scrutinize the symptoms. Most importantly, I want to help make things better. The real goal of this project is not to accuse anyone for what’s happened; it’s to fix what we can and give fans the best experience that can be had.

My current assignment is relocalizing Cloche’s Cosmosphere. I have found that almost all of the decorum of Croix’s interactions with Cloche has been lost. I’m working pretty hard to restore as much of Cloche’s prim haughtiness and Croix’s respectful humility as possible. Here’s a sample from a scene where Croix has switched to hyper-formal register because he is upset (with himself or with Cloche; it’s up to the player to guess):

Croix(3) :26:26:
JP::いや、そんな無理なさらなくてもいいですよ。
EN::Thanks,　but　no　thanks.
NEW:No,　you　need　not　trouble　yourself　further.

While the English “thanks but no thanks” is certainly understandable in this case, it is distant from the original meaning and, more importantly, terribly rude. It’s what a modern American might say to a stranger when miffed, but it’s not what a Knight of Pastalia would ever say to the Lady Cloche under any circumstance.

Edit: I found another fine example of this later in the day. Actually, the scene that this comes from is quite accurately translated; the localizer clearly had a good grasp of both languages. But they gave Cloche such an unbecoming voice. (This is also the scene that contains the whopping misspellings “intension” and “brake a promise”.) It’s getting clearer that the more important scenes were translated by someone more senior, and others were rushed through by someone else.

Cloche(1) :81:81:
JP::きれい事を…
EN::You're so full of it...
NEW:How eloquent...

As above, the, uh, intension of the line can stay essentially the same while the voice is reversed.