Legion's Localization

[Jotari]

Fire Emblem's localizations have gotten better. They hunt down the most obscure piece of lore that somehow these people in Japan have researched about ancient Europe and match them to incredibly butchered Katakana renditions of their names. The whole industry has moved away from localizers just making shit up because they didn't think their audience could prouncunce anything more complicated than Steve. Or just because idk they feel like it? Like, did you the Radiant Dawn character Aran is named Brad in Japan. Why change that! It's already an English name. There's already an Arran in the series! Did the localizer just know someone called Brad they didn't like?

Anyway, yeah, today's translation is good. Almost too good. They're very fond of throwing Nodric characters I don't know how to proununce around in Heroes. But in this long developing spectrum of higher standards of translation for Japanese media, we have a mid point. Sometimes things do need to be localized, and sometimes the localizers actually do make smarter and better changes. One of these is the New Mystery character Legion. Ya see this guy's gimmick is that there's just a whole bunch of him everywhere. Not because of any magic or anything, just fucked up cultish physiological programming. Legion's a good name for him. It harkens to the Biblical Legion, a demonic representation of multiple personality disorder, which in turn was (I assume) named after the Roman concept of a Legion of soldiers. Good name for fun crazy character. A+ localizers. And I say localizers because it was entirely the choice of the localizers. For you see his original name was Roro. Which sounds kind of silly and like some sort of Japanese onomatopoeia. At least that's how everyone including the early fantranslators rendered his Japanese name. I'm pretty sure it's meant to be Rollo, like John Cleese's character in Fierce Creatures (great movie). It only took me a few minutes to find a wikipedia article about a historic figure with the same name using the same katakan rendering, albeit without the vowel extender (which Rollo probably should have as it's not pronounced the same way as the Rolo chocolates).

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ロロ

So how did we get Legion? The localizers just chose a more fitting name because that was practice was still in vogue, right? No, it can't be that, because there was no localizers. New Mystery of the Emblem has never been localized. Legion only showed up in Awakening as an Einherjar. And Awakening's Einherjar did not give you any information about who the characters were. It was just recycled artwork and a single line with basically nothing else outside a few select lords. There were some fun gameplay references, like all of the enemies you fight alongside Legion being identical Berserkers. And if you were a localizer you would not rename a character based purely on something like that. Hell the script translator probably wouldn't even see such a gameplay detail. So what gives? Why did they name the guy Legion? I can think of three possibilities. 1)There was an abandoned New Mystery localization we weren't privy too, said staff then went to work on Awakening. 2)The Awakening localization staff asked Nintendo for details of all these characters, a bit unlikely given there were a bunch of Einherjar from every game. 3)...The localizers were actually fans of the series and played Japanese New Mystery even with the region lock. So yeah, that's what this thread is about. The people localizing these games are genuine fans of these games and would go to the effort importing it to play them even if it's not their job to translate them.

Doesn't explain freaking Brad->Aran though.

[Acacia Sgt]

Eh, Option 2 is realistically the most likely. Legion's Spotpass team is even a full set of Berserker with, I think, identical stats as well. So Awakening devs definitely knew of Legion's gimmick and why would localizators not be privy to it? Then again, this is the same team who gave us Raquesis...

By the way, the Katakana is ローロー, not ロロ. Looking that up only gives about Roll-On Roll-Off Cargo vessels.

[Jotari]

2 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Eh, Option 2 is realistically the most likely. Legion's Spotpass team is even a full set of Berserker with, I think, identical stats as well. So Awakening devs definitely knew of Legion's gimmick and why would localizators not be privy to it? Then again, this is the same team who gave us Raquesis...

The Awakening devs would obviously know who Legion are as they're the ones developing the game and making the fan service. And likely most of them worked on New Mystery directly. While none of the people on the localization team worked on New Mystery (to our knowledge). Legion is also one of 120 different Einherjar, about half of which were never localized before and it was a very minor aspect of the game. It just seems strange that they'd be so into the job as to get background info on dozens of characters that have a single solitary line of dialogue attached to them and aren't even part of the main story. I get the reference in Legion's team composition, but I wouldn't expect anyone who has never heard of the character to understand the reference let alone name the entire character around it.

2 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

By the way, the Katakana is ローロー, not ロロ. Looking that up only gives about Roll-On Roll-Off Cargo vessels.

That's the vowel extenders and the reference to Rolo chocolate I was referring to.

[Acacia Sgt]

3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

The Awakening devs would obviously know who Legion are as they're the ones developing the game and making the fan service. And likely most of them worked on New Mystery directly. While none of the people on the localization team worked on New Mystery (to our knowledge). Legion is also one of 120 different Einherjar, about half of which were never localized before and it was a very minor aspect of the game. It just seems strange that they'd be so into the job as to get background info on dozens of characters that have a single solitary line of dialogue attached to them and aren't even part of the main story. I get the reference in Legion's team composition, but I wouldn't expect anyone who has never heard of the character to understand the reference let alone name the entire character around it.

So? It's their job to go over every single text string, and I doubt they aren't imposed rules/guidelines over translating certain things in certain ways. So yes, they might have received a stack of notes. Just because it might be a lot to go through doesn't mean they won't do it. It's their job, after all. There's an almost year long gap between the Japanese release and the US one. Maybe localizing took that long precisely because they had a lot of material to go through.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

So? It's their job to go over every single text string, and I doubt they aren't imposed rules/guidelines over translating certain things in certain ways. So yes, they might have received a stack of notes. Just because it might be a lot to go through doesn't mean they won't do it. It's their job, after all. There's an almost year long gap between the Japanese release and the US one. Maybe localizing took that long precisely because they had a lot of material to go through.

Maybe, it just seems like an incredibly small part of the game to get such attention compared to something like translation the DLC episodes we didn't get which could be sold directly for actual money.

[Acacia Sgt]

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

Maybe, it just seems like an incredibly small part of the game to get such attention compared to something like translation the DLC episodes we didn't get which could be sold directly for actual money.

Perhaps, but it's still something that's not optional. Spotpass was in the base game, even if it stil required connecting to the internet to unlock. Well, for Awakening at least we got all DLC. Why the Festival DLC's of Fates weren't translated I don't know, but I would think it was more a higher-up decision than localizators deciding not to. That would be a unproffesional to their craft.

Edited January 23 by Acacia Sgt

[Jotari]

51 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Perhaps, but it's still something that's not optional. Spotpass was in the base game, even if it stil required connecting to the internet to unlock. Well, for Awakening at least we got all DLC. Why the Festival DLC's of Fates weren't translated I don't know, but I would think it was more a higher-up decision than localizators deciding not to. That would be a unproffesional to their craft.

Oh did we get all Awakening? I thought there was one set missing, but I guess I was conflating things with Fates.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

10 hours ago, Jotari said:

The Awakening devs would obviously know who Legion are as they're the ones developing the game and making the fan service. And likely most of them worked on New Mystery directly. While none of the people on the localization team worked on New Mystery (to our knowledge). Legion is also one of 120 different Einherjar, about half of which were never localized before and it was a very minor aspect of the game. It just seems strange that they'd be so into the job as to get background info on dozens of characters that have a single solitary line of dialogue attached to them and aren't even part of the main story. I get the reference in Legion's team composition, but I wouldn't expect anyone who has never heard of the character to understand the reference let alone name the entire character around it.

This brings up option 4: something of a "happy accident".

See, the localizers didn't design ローロー's Einherjar team composition. That was done in Japan. When the localizers got it, they saw a man in a mask leading a bunch of identical Berserkers. A "legion" of them, if you will. It's not totally clear what to make of ローロー as a name, and the character hadn't been localized yet, so it was at their own liberty. They decided to call him "Legion", which fit with his function in the chapter they were aware of.

Do I think this is how it went down? Not necessarily. But I think it's a more-than-remote possibility. We'll probably never know for sure, outside of notes or interviews with the localization team.

11 hours ago, Jotari said:

Doesn't explain freaking Brad->Aran though.

"I wish Aran's localization was truer to the original Japanese!"

finger on Monkey's Paw curls

"Alright, time to make sure Laura is in position to recruit Buladdo."

Oh, just discovered this from the wiki:

Spoiler

On a related note, as a result of being depicted with a helmet in all of his promotion tiers, he is also the only playable character that does not get a distinctly unique character model; Aran's character models as a soldier and halberdier are the same ones that are used by the generic non-player units in the game, with the only distinction being the blue color of his attire; his character model as a Sentinel is completely identical to Levail, albeit with a red color scheme for the latter.

Aran stays losing.

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

This brings up option 4: something of a "happy accident".

See, the localizers didn't design ローロー's Einherjar team composition. That was done in Japan. When the localizers got it, they saw a man in a mask leading a bunch of identical Berserkers. A "legion" of them, if you will. It's not totally clear what to make of ローロー as a name, and the character hadn't been localized yet, so it was at their own liberty. They decided to call him "Legion", which fit with his function in the chapter they were aware of.

Do I think this is how it went down? Not necessarily. But I think it's a more-than-remote possibility. We'll probably never know for sure, outside of notes or interviews with the localization team.

"I wish Aran's localization was truer to the original Japanese!"

finger on Monkey's Paw curls

"Alright, time to make sure Laura is in position to recruit Buladdo."

Oh, just discovered this from the wiki:

  Hide contents

On a related note, as a result of being depicted with a helmet in all of his promotion tiers, he is also the only playable character that does not get a distinctly unique character model; Aran's character models as a soldier and halberdier are the same ones that are used by the generic non-player units in the game, with the only distinction being the blue color of his attire; his character model as a Sentinel is completely identical to Levail, albeit with a red color scheme for the latter.

Aran stays losing.

I also find myself forgetting to use him until the end of player phase a lot because his palette makes him look like a greyed out already moved character.

[AnonymousSpeed]

18 hours ago, Jotari said:

Anyway, yeah, today's translation is good. Almost too good. They're very fond of throwing Nodric characters I don't know how to proununce around in Heroes.

There's no such thing as "too good". The "too" implies it would be better if it was less good, but you can't be more good if your less good.

18 hours ago, Jotari said:

Not because of any magic or anything, just fucked up cultish physiological programming. Legion's a good name for him. It harkens to the Biblical Legion, a demonic representation of multiple personality disorder, which in turn was (I assume) named after the Roman concept of a Legion of soldiers.

I don't understand the connection between Legion and multiple personality / dissociated identity disorder. The demons don't have separate personalities, they act as a collective. This actually makes the reference more sensible, since the Roros act as one.

To confirm your suspicions, the name Legion is because there is a literal legion (large number) of demons afflicting the Gadarene.

15 hours ago, Jotari said:

Maybe, it just seems like an incredibly small part of the game to get such attention compared to something like translation the DLC episodes we didn't get which could be sold directly for actual money.

"Hey, this guy's gimmick is that there's a lot of him. He's Rolo or something?"
"Like the caramel candy? That's stupid. Just call him Legion."
"Oh yeah, that's way better."

7 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

"Alright, time to make sure Laura is in position to recruit Buladdo."

Heck yeah. Buladdo is the kind of guy I'd want with me and the boys.

[Jotari]

Another curious aspect to this is Legion's fellow assassin Clareese, who was known as Klein in the earliest fan translations, クライネ, Kuraine in romanji. Is it coincidence that the two new characters introduced in New Mystery are the only(?) new translations to get significant name changes? Of course, there was reason to change Klein's name to distinguish her from fellow Sniper Klein in Binding Blade. Only boy Klein wasn't an Einherjar, so that would not have been a priority for an Awakening translator, unless they were aware of Binding Blade in a more direct way.

[Acacia Sgt]

51 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Another curious aspect to this is Legion's fellow assassin Clareese, who was known as Klein in the earliest fan translations, クライネ, Kuraine in romanji. Is it coincidence that the two new characters introduced in New Mystery are the only(?) new translations to get significant name changes? Of course, there was reason to change Klein's name to distinguish her from fellow Sniper Klein in Binding Blade. Only boy Klein wasn't an Einherjar, so that would not have been a priority for an Awakening translator, unless they were aware of Binding Blade in a more direct way.

Too bad it disrupts the Eine kleine Nachtmusik reference she makes with Eine/Katarina. Since her name in Japan is closer to Kleine, since the E at the end isn't silent.

In fact, doesn't Heroes changed Eine to Reese? Double reference disruption.

[Jotari]

9 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Too bad it disrupts the Eine kleine Nachtmusik reference she makes with Eine/Katarina. Since her name in Japan is closer to Kleine, since the E at the end isn't silent.

In fact, doesn't Heroes changed Eine to Reese? Double reference disruption.

Wow. I'd completely forgotten Katarina's original name was Eine. I'm pretty sure my first playthrough of New Mystery she was called that, but Reese completely supplemented it. Any way we can distort Roro into Nachtmusik by way of translation to complete the set XD and Ereimiya should be Amadeus as the overseer. Though she does indirectly serve a Medeus.

 

[Acacia Sgt]

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Wow. I'd completely forgotten Katarina's original name was Eine. I'm pretty sure my first playthrough of New Mystery she was called that, but Reese completely supplemented it. Any way we can distort Roro into Nachtmusik by way of translation to complete the set XD and Ereimiya should be Amadeus as the overseer. Though she does indirectly serve a Medeus.

Patch must've been updated. Since that's what they do when we get official names. Some of them at least.

I think only those two are meant to be part of the reference, haha. Eremiya seems to be some variation/change of Jeremiah.

https://www.proz.com/kudoz/english-to-japanese/names-personal-company/7023169-jeremiah.html#:~:text=エレミア(èrəmɪə) or エレミヤ(,) or ジェレマイヤ(dʒèrəmάɪyə).

 

[Jotari]

19 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Too bad it disrupts the Eine kleine Nachtmusik reference she makes with Eine/Katarina. Since her name in Japan is closer to Kleine, since the E at the end isn't silent.

In fact, doesn't Heroes changed Eine to Reese? Double reference disruption.

Now that I think a little further, it wasn't Awakening the changed the Reese name. It's back to the culprit Awakening. Since, while Katarina's Einherjar had the perfectly transliteral name, the item Reese's Confectionary or something, one of those useless random pick ups, used the name. I assume that was initially Eine's [thing]. So all three Assassins had their names changed. That's too bizarre to be pure chance.

[Acacia Sgt]

4 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Now that I think a little further, it wasn't Awakening the changed the Reese name. It's back to the culprit Awakening. Since, while Katarina's Einherjar had the perfectly transliteral name, the item Reese's Confectionary or something, one of those useless random pick ups, used the name. I assume that was initially Eine's [thing]. So all three Assassins had their names changed. That's too bizarre to be pure chance.

Eh, no. We have Gaius' Confect and Kris' Confect. There is a Katarina's Bolt, but that was with, well, the Katarina name. New Mystery had a Katarina's Book (a fire tome, not thunder as the Awakening one) that would get renamed to Reese's Book in Heroes, though.

Awakening only ever used Katarina, best I know.

Edited January 24 by Acacia Sgt

[Jotari]

29 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Eh, no. We have Gaius' Confect and Kris' Confect. There is a Katarina's Bolt, but that was with, well, the Katarina name. New Mystery had a Katarina's Book (a fire tome, not thunder as the Awakening one) that would get renamed to Reese's Book in Heroes, though.

Awakening only ever used Katarina, best I know.

Ah. I should have verified it before I got so excited.

[Acacia Sgt]

3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Ah. I should have verified it before I got so excited.

Also as a fun fact. Reese's Book is still named Katarina's Book in Japanese. Which begs the question. Will it still be Reese's Book when we finally get an official localization of New Mystery? Or they'll go back to Katarina's Book...

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

25 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Ah. I should have verified it before I got so excited.

Presumably, they didn't want to get sued by Hershey's.

3 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Heck yeah. Buladdo is the kind of guy I'd want with me and the boys.

Me and the boys, on our way to kick Jarod out of our country.

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

I also find myself forgetting to use him until the end of player phase a lot because his palette makes him look like a greyed out already moved character.

Best innovation that Tellius never seems to get credit for? Colored circles around units. So I can remember to move even "dull bluish-gray generic Soldier dude".