[WIP - Full] Virgin's Protection Magic Translation (v 0.82 released 23/07/2017)

[kR1pt0n1t3]

Re: Virgin's Protection Magic Translation (v 0.82 released 23/07/2017)

I like the way Kuro sounds and that's why I'll translate it to Kuro for myself.
It's as simple as that.

I got this kind of thing to mess with other peoples translations to make it more to my liking. Unless I think it's a big improvement to the current state of the translation or there are quite a few people that also want some changes I don't even bother uploading it.

 

[Kitty Kat]

Re: Virgin's Protection Magic Translation (v 0.82 released 23/07/2017)

People call pets blacky/blackie/whatever is the diminutive of the color black.

Why translate names though should also be considered IMO.

Some people live with racism on their heads, more today yes. It's sad.

 

[habisain]

Re: Virgin's Protection Magic Translation (v 0.82 released 23/07/2017)

People call pets blacky/blackie/whatever is the diminutive of the color black.

Why translate names though should also be considered IMO.

Some people live with racism on their heads, more today yes. It's sad.

I've just done this. Multiple times. Here's one part, you can go and find the part where I've said that Blackie isn't commonly used nowadays yourself.

Well, everyone is entitled to their own opinions. I'm personally of the opinion that stirring up unnecessary trouble is unnecessary, and that means it's worth taking into account how you might cause offence.

And also I just went over this in great detail. This is a celtic world - it's not Japan. Kuro makes absolutely zero sense in this context, because there's no reason to believe the characters ever talk in Japanese. The fact that the original text is in Japanese is neither here nor there (i.e. if I read the English language version of The Count of Monte Cristo, what language are the characters speaking? It's French - the novel is set in France, with French characters; a similar principle applies here - the characters are most likely actually speaking some form of Gaelic, or one of the modern day languages that descended from Gaelic).

Let's put it another way for good measure: Brigit gives Felengel the name because she wants to give Felengel a cute name. It should be emphasised that Brigit has no knowledge of Japan or the Japanese language. How could Brigit arrive at the name Kuro?

I haven't altered any of the other names - it's just this one, and only because it simply doesn't make sense in English. And it's not like there's considerations like voice acting here. I am performing the roles of translator and editor; editing being a vital role for any good translation.

And regardless, this change was made more than a year ago! It came up, in the course of discussing editing, and I get that people have opinions but this matter is settled - especially considering that lately everyone seems to be just chiming in to say whatever without reading previous posts, meaning I'm just repeating myself over and over.

While I do enjoy discussing the process of translating, I think I have to ask that we end this discussion now. It's basically devolved to a shouting match and as I said pointless arguments are pointless. If you don't agree with my editing, please feel free to start your own translation project for this game.

 

[djunk101]

Re: Virgin's Protection Magic Translation (v 0.82 released 23/07/2017)

Also as a thought exercise, consider if when translating English to Japanese, would you not replace "Mr." with "-san"? I somehow doubt that would fly in Japanese. So (reversing the direction) translating honorifics to equivalent meaning English is probably the right thing to do in most circumstances.

"Mr." isn't really the best example for this given the places it's appropriate to use in English aren't necessarily the same places it's appropriate to use "-san" over other suffixes in Japanese. Character relationships, social standing, whether or not one character respects the other and how much, etc are something you need to consider in that situation. In fact, it may even be necessary to add suffixes where there wasn't anything in English. Suffixes/titles are something that you'd have to translate (or even add or remove) based on context and the cultural social structure more than what's actually being said.

 

[habisain]

Re: Virgin's Protection Magic Translation (v 0.82 released 23/07/2017)

"Mr." isn't really the best example for this given the places it's appropriate to use in English aren't necessarily the same places it's appropriate to use "-san" over other suffixes in Japanese. Character relationships, social standing, whether or not one character respects the other and how much, etc are something you need to consider in that situation. In fact, it may even be necessary to add suffixes where there wasn't anything in English. Suffixes/titles are something that you'd have to translate (or even add or remove) based on context and the cultural social structure more than what's actually being said.

It's a perfect example in that it has illustrated exactly what I wanted to illustrate - translation must be aware of the language pair it's translating between, and the impact of being too literal. I could have gone for "would you add -san as appropriate to English names when translating to Japanese", but I wanted to add Mr because it illustrates the point that in order to convey the original meaning, you may have to delete part of the original text and replace them with local equivalents. But you're correct - Mr. and -san aren't entirely equivalent, and there's a whole bunch of rules as to what would be appropriate in Japanse.

However, there are also a lot of similarities between Dr/Mr/Miss/Mrs/Ms/Others and the use of honorifics as well - most notably in the fact that these polite English forms of address typically use family names as well. The major difference in Japanese is that the default form of address is a more formal family name-based form, whereas in English we tend to be more comfortable about using in using our given names. But that aside is only more relevant in terms of broader cultural points - people in VPM are universally mononymous.

 

[bigtotoro]

Re: Virgin's Protection Magic Translation (v 0.82 released 23/07/2017)

I for one really liked that you changed Kuro-chan to Sooty, it fits a world of witches much better.

 

[Kitty Kat]

Re: Virgin's Protection Magic Translation (v 0.82 released 23/07/2017)

I didn't say you said anything. I've said in general, mostly agreeing with the thread, I guess?
It's my perception though (about not translating names), with my limited english knowledge.

But I'm not changing anything like other person said. I'll consider whatever name that shows up just a name. No matter the language.
In fact I was just curious about the translate progression hehehehe
Dont get offended by small things. It's bad for the body.

 

[habisain]

Re: Virgin's Protection Magic Translation (v 0.82 released 23/07/2017)

I didn't say you said anything. I've said in general, mostly agreeing with the thread, I guess?
It's my perception though (about not translating names), with my limited english knowledge.

But I'm not changing anything like other person said. I'll consider whatever name that shows up just a name. No matter the language.
In fact I was just curious about the translate progression hehehehe
Dont get offended by small things. It's bad for the body.

Seems I need to clarify a few things: Whether or not you intended it, your post stated 1) You felt Blackie, as the diminutive of the the colour black, was an acceptable name for a pet 2) That names should not be translated. And as I said, I'd just done that entire bit, in depth.

I'm not offended by it - just frustrated that a change made over a year ago is suddenly attracting so much attention. The time for comment on it has been and gone, people! Now can we please stop bumping the thread with it. Let's set a target of the next post in this thread being an actual progress report from me, rather than picking over a decision that's a year old - it's totally fine if you disagree with what I did, but it's already happened, and it isn't changing.

 

[Shiri garu]

Re: Virgin's Protection Magic Translation (v 0.82 released 23/07/2017)

I'm pretty much laughing at this. My grandpa's generation fought a world war and live through depression while making America great and passed that on to the next generation. My parents generation live through hard times as well and made our generation live conformable lives. Our generation lives with a silver spoon in our mouths and now calls every thing racist and fascism and we are leftist liberals who are sensitive about everything..... Our generation is going to hell. Honestly if anyone thinks the word "blackie" is racist or thinking it would offend someone is clearly racist themselves. Honestly stop with the sjw BS it's fucking porn. XD

 

[Darkstrain]

Re: Virgin's Protection Magic Translation (v 0.82 released 23/07/2017)

even if it were racist, so fucking what?

its not like blacks are mistreated in porn.
They are sold as hung man... (that sentence sounds racist if you twist the words xD)

 

[Cerneu]

Re: Virgin's Protection Magic Translation (v 0.82 released 23/07/2017)

Our generation lives with a silver spoon in our mouths and now calls every thing racist and fascism and we are leftist liberals who are sensitive about everything..... Our generation is going to hell.

This is the most sheltered thing I've ever read on this forum.

Honestly if anyone thinks the word "blackie" is racist or thinking it would offend someone is clearly racist themselves.

Sooty is a much, much better name. Getting mad about this change and insisting on using "blacke" is starting to appear racist, even if the word alone isn't racist.

Honestly stop with the sjw BS it's fucking porn. XD

If you think naming a cat Sootie is SJW, then holy shit you've completely lost your mind.

 

[habisain]

Re: Virgin's Protection Magic Translation (v 0.82 released 23/07/2017)

You know what? I think I'm done here.

I've explained my decisions countless times. In the original post I stated that Blackie would be a fallback if I couldn't come up with something better. I stated that I liked Sooty as a name better. It was only much later that the racial aspect of Blackie was pointed out to me. And I flat out admitted that I did not catch the racial usage of Blackie, and so it couldn't have been part of my decision to use Sooty instead. It seems just because I've followed up with statements where I've said that because of the racial element that Blackie has nowadays, whereas the original Kuro-chan has no racial element, and therefore Blackie is not a good translation of Kuro-chan, I'm labelled a SJW. Despite me translating a porn game. I've said it before, I'll say it again: real SJWs would not have me. And this is a change that happened a year ago, and people still want to go over it?

Move on people. Everyone is entitled to whatever views you want, and that includes encouraging casual racism. I'm not trying to take any of your views from you, no matter what I may think of them. But I am the person translating this game, and I will make the decisions I want to regarding my translation.

I will no longer post any progress updates here until the patch is released. Seeing this kind of thing is genuinely upsetting, and making me question why the hell I'm wasting my time translating an H-game. If I continue to be attacked or criticised for not endorsing, or perhaps actively encouraging, casual racism, I'll request this thread be locked so I can actually focus on getting the damn translation done.

Thanks go to the people who have been sticking up for the decisions I've made.

 

[Malvezzi]

Re: Virgin's Protection Magic Translation (v 0.82 released 23/07/2017)

I am sorry that this has to happen to you Habisain. I believe a lot of people still support whatever you decide and are thankful for whatever translation you've made for the game so please don't be upset. Feel free to focus on the translation and ignore the discussion as I believe you've clearly made your point. Once again, thank you very much for your hard work.

And to all the people out there. I believe it's, of course, totally fine to give suggestions or discuss about certain translation parts but when the translator has decided on something, can we please just leave it at that and try to be grateful that there's a translation to the game at all? Thank you in advance

 

[thebreadgod]

Re: Virgin's Protection Magic Translation (v 0.82 released 23/07/2017)

If we attack a translator because we don't like their translations, then maybe we don't deserve them. Whether you approve of their translations or not, you can't deny that the fact that their work allows us to understand and enjoy something we otherwise wouldn't be able to. And the fact that they are a part of this community and do it for free? There's a saying about gift horses and mouths that comes to mind.

After reading through everything to understand the arguments, I feel like the entire discussion is about conflicting philosophies of story interpretation and word connotation. No one is objectively correct or incorrect in that discussion, but no one wins from bickering and accusations that spawned from it. If you feel so strongly about it still, you can always translate or reinterpret the work yourself.

Let's agree to be civil, drop the arguments, and focus on what we're all here for: the translation we're all oh so waiting patiently for.

Habisain, between the badgering about patching issues (patch worked flawlessly for me thanks to the instructions) and left-field accusations of racist translations, you have endured quite a bit of needless flak. But by god, you have made one of the best and most engaging translations of a game I've come across thus far. Please don't be discouraged or dissuaded from your efforts.
In the end, no one will know or care about the drama and disagreements; they will only care that Virgin's Protection Magic is a fantastic game that is paired with a fantastic story, made available to English readers by your translation.

 

[iamnuff]

Re: Virgin's Protection Magic Translation (v 0.82 released 23/07/2017)

Are people still making drama about this blackie thing?

I complained when the change first happened, but it was becasue i didn't like how it sounded.
There's an argument to be made that names (Like Kuro) shouldn't be translated, but it barely matters at all.

Sooty is an acceptable compromise.

 

[Tenchi757]

Re: Virgin's Protection Magic Translation (v 0.82 released 23/07/2017)

The name is fine. Let's stop making mountains out of mole hills. Translations are always opinionated and you can't please everyone.

Thanks for the hard work Habisain and can't wait to finish the game fully translated. Ignore the haters

 

[Kynshin]

Earlier when i was playing i came across some issue where the choice box stretches all the way to the other side of the screen and goes behind the character dialogue textbox.

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I tried to re patch the game just in case it was me that messed something up but its still there.

I'm not sure if you are aware of this so i decided to post a screenshot.

Either way thanks for translating this game.

 

[habisain]

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Maouhime That is odd and something that should not happen. OK, I've got a good idea of why it did happen (very likely a combination of bugs where my text editor sometimes suffers from sticky keys and RPGMaker Trans not stripping trailing spaces off of choices). In any case, it should get fixed with the new version which is doing all kinds of odd stuff to layout. However, if possible, could you PM me a save so I can put it into my "test these things" folder?

On that new version: it might not make it out for my target of the 20th. Every time I've set a target I've missed it, so this should be no surprise. The reasons are partly because the work on JapeTrans (

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) has taken longer than I thought it would, and also partly that new techniques have let me do far more than I thought I'd be able to, and I'm evaluating how far I should take this. For example, whether or not I should use different fonts in different circumstances, and where (e.g. comic style fonts for sound-effects/moans, or a simpler looking font for monsters which speak in Katakana).

As compensation for this vague delay, a WIP screenshot of the status menu.


EDIT: Link as I can't seem to get a linked image to work for some reason:

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I've more or less fixed the menus now (which includes other places, like battle, although I still don't understand how RPGMaker VX Ace decides whether or not to shrink text), and gotten some way to finalising some of the strings in the menus (not sure on "Sexuality" as a term though, but I'm still working through things - which also includes the flavour text at the bottom; I know about the missing apostrophe). In the end, I decided to shrink the font size down by 2pt, which saves a bit of space and makes it look substantially less heavy.

I will also confirm that I'm working on a vague un-announced mystery project. But that'll come later.

Now resuming the "fewer updates/discussion" strategy previously announced.

 

[Deleted member 25079]

I recently started playing VPM and i have a few questions:

1. Why dont you focus on the VPM translation and finish it? Then do fancy font changes and other minor things after it has been translated. Finish base and then just release "updates"
2. Why was the guide book not translated? Its an item and it shouldve normally been translated. Litteraly the most important item is not translated. Normally when a translation is done first items/ui are finished.
3. Why do you keep taking multiple projects at once? VPM is already taking ~2.5 years.
4. If you are worried about copyright name you do know that JapeTrans is also copyrighted?

 

[kR1pt0n1t3]

Let me shorten the post above:

^
Bla bla bla...
4. If you are worried about copyright name you do know that JapeTrans is also copyrighted?