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Visual Novels Translation Status [11/02/2014]


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So in the end I did buy eden* for 9,99€, or rather said pre-ordered considering there's no way to install it, but suddenly I can't find eden* in the shop anymore. So right now I'm not sure if I'm a lucky bastard who took advantage of MG's mistake and only payed half the prize or if the game will be removed from my libary, I'll get the money back and have to buy eden* for the full prize again. Time will show I guess.

 

The Steam page is just no longer public, you still own the game and won't have to rebuy it.

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CLANNAD Official English Release | Prefundia Looks like Sekai's at it again. Considering they're already running this and will be running Grisaia 'sometime in November' (ie this month), I hope they don't burn themselves out. The VN market is only so large (currently at least), and having too many projects too soon might make it so there's not enough money to go around. Also, the fact they're retranslating the entire clannad game means it'll be months before it's out even once they run the project.
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^

Did they just "leave out" Doki from the whole thing or what? I can't see any mention of Doki anywhere. Doki claims that Sekai will be assisting them (Clannad Visual Novel Getting Official Localization « Doki Fansubs), yet Sekai is doing the whole project thing. Sekai wrote this on the project page - "The team of translators we have hired to work on CLANNAD are industry veterans who have worked on many titles such as the hit series Attack on Titan's manga and light novel." I don't think they're talking about people from doki, also https://twitter.com/koestl/status/530120183760056321. From that I would assume that they hired someone else. *shrugs*

If it's true, Doki will be a slightly butthurt. Funny.

 

Edit: Just a theory, but maybe this is related to the sudden surge of LB EX/ME progress. Maybe there is a plan to do a similar project for LB and Doki decided to focus on getting that done instead of splitting the work between a (partial) re-TL of Clannad and finishing LB EX/ME. It would make sense, LB would get going again and actually be finished before the end of time (Mashiro takes over the univerze) and Clannad would get a complete re-TL. It could be just wishful thinking on my part.

Edited by killerinsidee
Fuuko stole my cake.
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I am almost certain that they've abandoned doki completely. Whatever deal they may have had is no longer in effect due to the massive backlash against Doki's involvement. Sekai Project probably decided it would be best to turn around and hire a team to do a new translation from scratch.

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I never really saw the big deal with Clannad's TL - I can't read Japanese, so I don;t know the details - but I understand the spoken word fairly well, and it came across as fairly accurate. (And it certainly didn't lack feeling or context). Unless it's a Nasu-style problem where people cried about it not being pretentious enough. :p

 

Thing is, some things just can't be translated well into english without sounding like well... Shikkoku no Sharnoth (Good VN, but heavy on the "artsy" speak - over-convoluted too much of the dialoge in my personal opinion).

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I never really saw the big deal with Clannad's TL - I can't read Japanese, so I don;t know the details - but I understand the spoken word fairly well, and it came across as fairly accurate. (And it certainly didn't lack feeling or context). Unless it's a Nasu-style problem where people cried about it not being pretentious enough. :p

 

Thing is, some things just can't be translated well into english without sounding like well... Shikkoku no Sharnoth (Good VN, but heavy on the "artsy" speak - over-convoluted too much of the dialoge in my personal opinion).

 

Parts of it are machine translated. Afterstory has some really disastrous sections. It's one thing for it to be readable enough for desperate fans, but when you're charging money for an officially localized product, there are standards.

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Parts of it are machine translated. Afterstory has some really disastrous sections. It's one thing for it to be readable enough for desperate fans, but when you're charging money for an officially localized product, there are standards.

 

Wha? seriously? Did I stumble across a different copy from anyone else? lol I honestly swear I did not notice any machine TL in it - I'm abit absentminded at times - but I pride myself on my literacy - I can't think of any MT'd parts tbh, unless it was the bad ends or the "extra" routes (such as the softball thing) in which I ignored/avoided. Mind you I got my copy pre-patched with the voiceovers included, so maybe some random anon that seeded it made adjustments? idk.

 

 

EDIT: If someone can point me to a scene as an example - I'd actually like to compare it to my copy, I'm geuninely curious about my version, becuase it didnt ever feel "bad". It's been 2 or 3 years since i've read it - but I recall walking away satisfied. (but now that has me abit concerned, lol)

Edited by Some guy
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I haven't read Clannad raw, but I'm pretty sure that it's so easy that it can be translated with a MT like that, i.e., MT won't make a lot of epic failures in the TL. It's possible that someone just MT'd it and edited a bit, but it's definitely readable from what I remember.

Edited by killerinsidee
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Most of it is readable, but there are a lot of really inaccurately translated parts, and some of it comes off as nonsensical. There were a bunch of examples posted at various places when the initial SP announcement was made, like the infamous feather line. I wish I could easily find them. It's the kind of thing where every so often you scratch your head and wonder wtf someone is actually trying to say or whatever. Even when you can make sense of it in your mind, it's usually pretty far off from the original text.

 

Baka-tsuki does open wiki projects and a lot of people touched the Clannad translation which can make the text inconsistent, as well. Basically, it's just extremely unpolished and littered with accuracy problems. It's best to start over from scratch.

 

edit: I found the "feather line" at least:

\{HR Teacher} "Until then, feel free to do whatever you'd like. The students who forgot to take the exams should bring a feather."*

// do they bring feathers to exams? for ink or something?

// It certainly says feather, but it doesn't seem like calligraphy to me. The feather might be the evidence that denotes a retake, but that's a wild guess. -Amoirsp

// I tried looking up various uses for a feather. The only one remotely close is the writing use for it. Must be cultural or conditional. So Tomoya ... never missed any. -Amoirsp

// \{担任}「それまでは各自自由。今日一日は受験のことを忘れて羽根をのばしなさい」

 

This is the kind of thing that I'm talking about, it reads okay in english, it just happens to make no actual sense and is incorrectly translated. This one was made infamous because of the comments showing the ridiculous train of thought that lead to them justifying the line. They almost saw this one, think about all of the ones they missed completely.

Edited by Decay
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I'll have to consider giving Clannad a second read-through, now have a sharper eye for those kinds of things, having had more experience with various translation styles. COuld be I waved it off back then as just humorous mumbojumbo, that was often scattered throughout~

 

Still, "Are you pretty dog? I am pretty dog too." still cracks me up~

 

EDIT: Though, my final thought - even if it turns out it was a bad TL (and I discover such when I re-read it), I cried when it wanted you to cry, and I laughed when it wanted you to laugh - I consider that at least a partial success, if nothing else.

Edited by Some guy
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Well, if they're charging $40 for it, "partially successful" isn't really good enough. Anyways, while I don't know Japanese so I can't translate that line myself, I know that the "bring a feather" bit is an incorrect translation of a japanese expression that is basically "stretch your wings". The second sentence is basically telling the students to forget about the exams for the day and relax. As you can see, completely different meaning. Ultimately yeah, the story is powerful enough that even with bad translation it can be emotionally effective, but think about how much better it can be with a great translation instead.

Edited by Decay
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For a moment I hesitated again to start reading Clannad probably maybe soonish, because of "think about how much better it can be with a great translation instead."

 

 

But then I remembered that it's going to take a loooooong time until it's finished anyway, since it's going to be a translation from scratch. It just can't be that fast, not for something so lengthy like Clannad.

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Clannad retranslation eh? Nah since I'm not native english speaker maybe i should use current translation since if this available here that mean I should be at least could be understand all the text incorrect translation aside. Well, since I could read Soukoku no Arterial quite well(using wiki, voice and incoherent translation) maybe Clannad is better in english text. Of course that depend on the people and no I don't advice to rely on machine translation but well it depend on people once again.

 

By the way that was quite nice Yoake portrait killerinside

of course i know it was the princess from Aiyoku no Eustia game that Yandere apparently forgot to translate because of internal problem. Dammit. And the OP is very awesome too

 

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So in the end, what happened to Seinarukana? I thought I read somewhere that translation was finished last year...

 

The short answer is Jast.

 

The long answer is the engine is a pain to deal with and

And no, I have no idea on release date. I think the only absolutely necessary thing left to do are the credits, which will be a spectacular pain (they’re over a bunch of faux photographs with Japanese all over them), but I haven’t done any meaningful work on it myself for a rather long time.

 

Maybe sometime next year, looks like little witch has priority over it for now.

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