Puns and Word Games:
An Analysis of the Localisation of Tales of Zestiria
Emmy van Duuren
A master thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the
degree of Master of Arts
in
Translation Studies
University of Amsterdam
Supervisor: Dhr. dr. E.R.G. (Eric) Metz
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Table of Contents
1.1 Video games ... 3
1.2 Research question ... 4
2. Theoretical framework... 6
2.1 Video games as a multimodal entertainment product ... 6
2.2 Localising (Japanese) video games ... 8
2.3 Transcreation ... 13
2.4 Translating Japanese ... 14
3. Methodology ... 18
3.1 Material: Tales of Zestiria ... 18
3.2 Data analysis method ... 20
4. Analysis ... 23
4.1 Story skits analysis ... 25
4.1.1 The fighting-style skit ... 25
4.1.2 Idioms ... 27
4.1.3 Change of personality ... 29
4.1.4 Clarification ... 30
4.1.5 Culture-bound translation ... 31
4.1.6 Language-bound translation ... 33
4.2 Discovery skit analysis ... 36
4.2.1 Culture-bound translation ... 37
4.2.2 Change of personality ... 38
4.2.3 Language-bound translation ... 38
4.3 Sub skit analysis ... 49
4.4 Etc. skit analysis ... 52
4.5 System skit analysis ... 56
5. Conclusion ... 59
Bibliography ... 61
Appendix: Glossing List ... 63
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1. Introduction
1.1 Video games
Video games have been around since the 1950s and have seen an exponential growth
in business in the last two decades. In 2016, there were a reported 1.8 billion gamers
worldwide and this number is expected to keep growing as the video game industry keeps
expanding. Hundreds of video games are released every year for PC, consoles, and mobiles,
and the value of the gaming industry adds up to 11.7 billion dollars in the US alone. This
growth of the industry is in part due to video game companies releasing their games in
multiple languages globally, maximizing the total worth earned per game. More companies
are releasing globally than ever before, American games are sold in Japan, Swedish games are
sold in the US and Japanese games are sold in Europe. The video game industry is a booming
business. Major title games, known as ‘AAA’ games, typically have over 100 people working
on the development and production (Egenfeldt Nielsen, Heide Smith & Pajares Tosca, 2008,
p. 15).
Video games are computer-based entertainment software, either textual or
image-based, using any electronic platform, such as personal computers or consoles, and involving
one or multiple players in a physical or networked environment (Hevian, 2007, p. 307). Video
games are multimedia products that combine elements such as spoken language, text, image,
sound and more to provide a gamer with a unique entertainment experience.
This multimodality has prompted research into video games as a new media product.
A product which combines many features of other media, such as literature, movies, and
series, whilst also incorporating uniquely new features, such as gameplay through different
types of controllers. Research done about video games has gone in depth about the
uniqueness of video games as a product and the need to further explore and research this to
better understand and develop the industry. One area of research that has had little exposure is
the research into video game localisation. Video game localisation is the process a video
game goes through when it is being translated and adapted to be released in a different
country (Mangiron & Hevian, 2007, p.307). Localisation of a video game includes not only
the translation of the written text throughout the game, but often also includes translating a
script to be used in voice-overs, changing the imagery to suit the target culture, changing the
music, and sometimes even includes changing parts of the story to better fit the target
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Video game localisation has become essential to the popularity of a video game, more
than ever before. Video games that are released globally can earn more money than video
games that are only released in the country they were developed in, as they are accessible to
more people. However, a bad localisation will damage a game’s popularity, not only in the
country the localisation was published in, but also decreases the popularity of a game in
countries it has not yet been released in. This is due to the internet being an important source
for reviews for many gamers. Video game localisation has undergone several changes over
the years, such as bigger video game companies changing from outsourcing, i.e. letting a
company they hired translate the video game, to establishing an in-house localisation team to
translate the game, often while still in development.
Localising video games is a difficult and complicated process, more so with certain
genres than others. One of the more complex genres of games to localise are Japanese
roleplaying games, or JRPGs, which is what they are called within the industry. These games
are dialogue-based games that more often than not take place in a fantasy world, with its own
creatures, plants, and terms. A popular JRPG series is the Tales franchise, spanning 16 main
titles and countless more spinoffs. Every title takes place in its own fictional fantasy-filled
world, with very little overlap between games, and follows a new protagonist on his/her
adventure to save their fictional world. Most modern JRPGs are either partially or fully
voiced and give the Western player the choice to play with the original Japanese audio or the
localised English audio. This poses a new challenge for translators of these games, as the
English script cannot stray too far from the original Japanese, as this would prompt negative
reactions by players that know Japanese and play with the Japanese audio on. JRPGs, like
most Japanese games, include a multitude of Japanese culture-specific elements, such as
jokes and wordplay, but also names of foods etcetera. Furthermore, most JRPGs include
many different types of texts, due to their elaborate and intricate stories. This can include text
eluding to the story, system settings/gameplay, humorous scenes to break up the seriousness
of the game, etc. These stories are so diverse that using just one translation strategy will not
give the best results. Localisers will benefit from using different strategies and techniques on
these varying text types, including sense-translation and transcreation.
1.2 Research question
Due to the multimodality of not only video games but JRPGs specifically, localisation
of these games is particularly difficult. In this paper I will analyse the translation of a JRPG
and how the multiple aspects of this game were localised. To do this I will look at Tales of
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Zestiria, which was released in 2015, and I will analyse how the different parts of the game
were translated, keeping in mind the added challenge for the translators that the Japanese
audio is still present in the localised version. This has resulted in the following research
question:
Do the different types of cutscenes in the Japanese Role-Playing Game Tales of Zestiria
determine its translation strategy and the use (or non-use) of transcreation?
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2. Theoretical framework
2.1 Video games as a multimodal entertainment product
As briefly mentioned above, video games are entertainment products that incorporate
many different media elements, including sound, text, image and touch (gameplay). One of
the first video games, Pong, was an arcade video game released in 1972 (Gillberg, 2012, p.
8). This game consisted of a black screen with two white lines on the sides that could be
controlled by the players and a white ball bouncing back and forth between the sides of the
screen. The aim was to not let the white ball touch your side of the screen and to make it
touch the opposing side. This fundamentally simple video game was released less than 50
years ago, yet the industry has progressed with leaps and bounds. Most typical video games
nowadays incorporate stunning graphics, elaborate soundtracks, complicated gameplay, be it
via a keyboard and mouse, a joy-stick controller, or a movement controller such as the Wii,
and a well-thought-out storyline to ensure an entertaining experience for the gamers. Video
games incorporate many elements from other media products to produce a unique genre of
entertainment products. The industry is still changing at a fast pace, with an increase in
incorporation of 3D in video games, and virtual reality becoming a new way of gaming.
Virtual reality places the player in the video game via virtual reality headsets and trackers to
track the player’s movements, which is then input into the game, making it seem as if the
player is actually in the game. These advances in the industry are constantly offering new
kinds of experiences to gamers.
Video games have a great range of possibilities, with countless genres, some
researchers enumerate as many as 42 different genres (Oxford, 2014, p. 3). For every person
there is a game-genre or games that incorporate multiple genres, that suits their interests.
From first-person shooters to multiplayer party games, from sports games to fantasy games,
the choices are endless. This variety is what makes video games such a diverse product,
compare two randomly picked games from different genres with each other and chances are
that they have very little to no overlap in terms of story, imagery, sound or even gameplay.
This diversity within the industry makes a standardization for localisation difficult to
establish, each video game needs its own individualised approach, as is often emphasized by
game localisers (O’Hagan, 2007, p. 5). Research has been done to establish if games within
the same genre are localised using the same translation strategies and techniques, but this
research ultimately concluded that due to most video games incorporating different elements
from different genres, it is impossible to even establish a standard approach within one genre
of games (Fernández Costales, 2012).
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Image, sound, and story are combined to offer the player a unique experience in which
they play the main role. Most video games nowadays have a story that the player will have to
follow, be it to fight in a war (first-person shooters), win a sports championship (sports
games), save a fantasy world (role-playing games), or solve a mystery (puzzle games). Video
games nowadays are typically not confined to one genre, but rather incorporate elements of
different genres. For example, Mass Effect, a well-known first-person shooter, also integrates
action, puzzle-solving and role-playing into its gameplay, thus putting the game in four
different genres. Super Mario Odyssey, the latest game in the Mario-franchise, is an action
and platformer game that incorporates puzzles, thus placing the game in three genres. Very
few modern video games fit perfectly within one genre, further complicating the
establishment of a standardization of video game localisation.
Japanese role-playing games, or JRPGs, the focus of this paper, are a genre of video
games that is distinct from other genres within video gaming. JRPGs are a genre that used to
not to be localised as often as other genres. This was due to the high costs of translation and
localisation that this genre requires, and the potentially marginal profitability of the title due
to these costs (Newman, 2008, p. 156). Popularity for this genre has gone up, thus prompting
more companies to localise their JRPGs. But this genre still typically requires the highest
amount of changes for localisation. Most JRPGs have little overlap with other genres, though
some JRPGs exist that do incorporate elements from other genres. Some of the key elements
of JRPGs are that they are heavily dialogue-based games that take place in a fantasy world in
which different types of fantasy monsters live as the setting of the game. The main character
sets out on a journey with a group of comrades to save the world from a threat. These games
have complicated storylines, with little to no similarity to any real-world elements. To defeat
the final boss at the end of the game and save the world, the main character will need to go
through many different sub-stories to grow stronger and wiser.
The gameplay typically involves strategic turn-based fighting, in which the player will
need to take advantage of each individual monster’s weaknesses and strengths, using the
correct equipment and elemental attacks to defeat the monster and earn experience points to
grow stronger. These games often include cutscenes at key points in the game, when the
player’s team has defeated an important monster or uncovered a new part of the story through
talking to different non-playable characters. These cutscenes are, in modern JRPGs, fully
voiced and subtitled, with the player being able to choose the original Japanese audio or the
localised English audio.
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Some well-known JRPGs are games in the Final Fantasy and the Tales series. Each of
these series have over 15 main titles, each taking place in its own new fantasy world, with
new characters and new enemies. Some staple monsters and items appear in all of the games,
but everything else is completely different from game to game. These video games have also
produced multiple movies, animated series, card-games, and countless spinoff games, both
console and mobile.
2.2 Localising (Japanese) video games
Video games are multimodal in the assets that are present in each video game that
need to be localised. Not only are there text and sound assets, but also art and printed assets.
Text assets in a video game include all in-game text-only messages, such as menus, system
messages, tutorials and dialogue messages that have no voice-over. Art assets are all the
images and graphics that make up the game, some of which may need to be changed to fit a
different culture, such as shop signs, maps, etc. Audio assets are all the sounds present in a
game, such as songs and voice-overs. When a game gets a full localisation, which means that
the text, voiceover, manual and packaging all get localised (Chandler, 2014, p. 288), these
voice-overs will need to be translated and recorded into a different language. The voice-overs
are often present during cutscenes, in which the characters are shown to be speaking, meaning
that the localised voice-over will need to match the lip movements of these characters. Printed
assets are all the elements on paper that accompany the game, such as the packaging and the
instruction manual (Hevian, 2006 p. 308).
There are two kinds of game localisation, in-house localisation, and outsourcing.
When a video game company outsources their localisation, the translation company that is
employed is sent a package of the game’s text files to be translated and sometimes, but not
always, some graphics of the characters and settings. Though the ideal localisation package
would include a working copy of the game and/or previous titles in the series and glossaries
(Jayemanne, 2009, p. 138), very rarely do the translators have access to the game to see what
their localisation looks like in the actual game (Hevian, 2007, p. 310). This, coupled with a
less direct communication between the translators and the developers, results in a less
creative and less accurate translation of the texts, because the translators were missing most
of the context for the scenes. These translators are also not always well-versed with video
game jargon. Outsourcing used to be the status quo of localisation, but due to bad reviews
specifically about the inaccurate translations of video games, many big video game
companies switched to an in-house localisation strategy. The company that developed the
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Final Fantasy series, Square Enix, had such bad reviews on the translation of Final Fantasy
VII, their highest grossing game in the series, that for the release of the next game in the
series, they established an in-house localisation team, to ensure better quality translation
(O’Hagan, 2009, p. 155). While most big companies no longer outsource their localisations,
smaller companies that are not producing games constantly are still outsourcing their
localisations. Establishing an in-house team is financially impossible for them, as smaller
companies tend to develop one game at a time, thus not always having a game ready to be
localised. This would result in their in-house localisation team not having work half of the
time, thus making it cheaper for the company to outsource the translation (Chandler, 2014, p.
195).
With in-house localisation, the video game company has its own localisation team that
is in charge of localising the games. This form of localisation has become more popular over
the last decade or so and is the way most major companies localise their games, such as
Nintendo and Square Enix. When a game gets a global release, localisation often starts while
the game is still being developed. The localisation team has full access to the game’s contents
and can make suggestions to the developers to improve the game to better aid in a
high-quality localisation (Hevian, 2007, p. 311). These localisation teams are also more
well-versed with the basic jargon of video games and often know the franchise more thoroughly.
Because of this, the localisation ends up being of a better quality than when the game is
outsourced to an outside company.
Another aspect of localisation that much research has been done for is the different
advantages and disadvantages of just subtitling a game or of creating new voice-overs, known
as dubbing. Whilst merely subtitling a game costs less money than completely redoing the
voice-over, there are also multiple disadvantages to this. First, and foremost, when subtitling
a game, translators have less freedom with the translation, because the source text is always
present whilst playing the game in the form of the original voices. Because of this, translators
cannot stray too far from the original text, as gamers that understand both the original and the
subtitles will have negative responses to the changes. Another disadvantage is that subtitles
can typically hold less information than the spoken text, unless the game uses an unusually
high reading speed, which would then result in the gamers not being able to read all of the
text shown (Mangiron, 2013, p. 48). This may result in the gamer missing vital information
on what they need to do, negatively impacting the reviews of the game. There are no general
guidelines when it comes to subtitling a game, which sometimes results in too long subtitles,
a reading speed that is impossible to follow, or too small fonts used, making the text illegible
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(Mangiron, 2013, p. 48-51). Another disadvantage is that gamers will always know that they
are playing a localised game and not an original, due to the original text being present during
gameplay. Whilst some gamers prefer to have the original text present in the form of the
voice-overs, there is also a large group of gamers that wish to have the feeling that they are
playing the original version or do not enjoy reading subtitles when playing a game. These are
mostly gamers that come from ‘dubbing countries’, where all media is voiced-over into their
language (Mangiron & O’Hagan, 2006, p. 4). Some dubbing countries are the USA, Germany
and Italy, all of which have a big gaming industry.
Whilst dubbing has a greater financial cost, there are some advantages to fully
localising a game. Firstly, translators have more freedom when it comes to translating
difficult topics, such as word-puns or cultural references, because the source text is no longer
present. There are also more possibilities for explanations of concepts that are well-known in
the culture the game was developed in, which may not be as well-known in the target culture.
A fully localised game will also provide the gamer with a more immersive experience, as they
are not reminded that the game was not originally made in their language. There are also
certain disadvantages to fully dubbing a video game. Not only is it costly, voice-overs also
have to be synchronised to the lip movements of the characters, which are often seen clearly
during cutscenes (Mangiron & O’Hagan, 2006, p. 4-5).
Most Japanese games published nowadays have a full localisation into English, and
subtitles for 7-8 other major languages, such as Spanish, French and German. More games
from bigger franchises are also getting a full localisation into the major European languages
(O’Hagan & Chandler, 2016, p. 310). The most recent game in the Legend of Zelda series,
Breath of the Wild, got a full localisation into English, French (French and Canadian),
German, Spanish (Spanish and Latin American), Italian and Russian. This means that all the
text and the voices were localised into these languages. This game also got a partial
localisation in other languages, including Dutch, Polish and Korean, with only the text being
localised. Most JRPGs offer a full localisation into English, with the option to use the original
Japanese voices or the localised English voices, and partial localisation for major European
languages, such as German and French. The game analysed in this paper, Tales of Zestiria,
also got a full localisation into English and partial localisation into other major European
languages. Most Japanese games are first translated into English and then translated into other
languages via the English translation (Mangiron, 2013, p. 46), though in previous research I
did, it seems that games from big franchises, such as The Legend of Zelda, are translating
directly from Japanese, even into non-English languages (Van Duuren, 2018, p. 11).
Van Duuren, 11
When a game is localised from Japanese, a character-based language, into a Roman
language, such as English, problems with the space available for the text may arise. The
localisation of video games is on the intersection of technology and translation, which most of
the time forces the translator to maintain the fixed macrostructure of the game, aka the code
in which the text is written and that depicts how the text is shown on screen (Jiménez-Crespo,
2010, p. 187). Because Japanese is a character-based language, Japanese sentences can hold
more meaning than sentences in Roman Languages. For example, in Tales of Zestiria, the
main character always carries a book with him that contains information on ruins, murals and
other historically important things. This book is called the 天遺見聞録 (Tenikenbunroku),
which is written with the characters meaning ‘heaven, left behind, knowledge and record’. A
direct translation for this book would be ‘Record of knowledge left behind by the heavens’,
however, this is too long in English, and was thus translated as ‘Celestial Record’, omitting
the ‘knowledge’ and ‘left behind’ parts of the original Japanese name. This is a common
problem when translating from Japanese into a language using the Roman alphabet. Due to
space constriction in the text boxes, translators are forced to cut out information to make the
translation fit. This is due to most games’ codes being written static and non-changeable
(Czech, 2013, p. 18). Whilst some modern games by big companies are written with flexible
game codes that has the option to expand in order to fit a translation, most smaller company’s
video games do not have the resources to do this, as a flexible code is more complex to write
and will take more time, thus costing more.
Another aspect that localisers of video games need to deal with is the localisation of
image. Not all video games are developed with a global public in mind, and thus may contain
imagery that may be acceptable in the country it was developed in but is taboo in other
countries. An example for this is the use of swastika in Japanese games. In Japan the swastika
is a Buddhist symbol depicting good luck and is still used in some modern maps to depict
Buddhist temples. This symbol is also sometimes used in video games by Japanese
developers because they see the symbol as a Buddhist symbol. When localising, it is the
localiser’s job to point out the problems with any of these symbols, as American and
European gamers will link the symbol to Hitler and the Second World War. Localisers will
need to address this issue to the developers and new imagery will need to be produced for the
localised versions.
Symbols linked with hateful crimes are not the only localisation needed for imagery.
Localisers will also need to censor some video game imagery. Some Japanese video games’
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characters’ outfits will need to be changed to be deemed appropriate for an American
audience. This mostly revolves around giving underage characters less provocative outfits,
such as changing a crop top and miniskirt into a tank top and medium-length skirt. In Japan,
these outfits are seen as part of video game culture, not as something inherently sexual, but
America has stricter censorship laws when it comes to underage characters. Another type of
video game imagery that needs censoring due to strict censorship laws, is the toning down of
violence and gore in video games localised for Germany, and the removal of most blood,
even in horror games, in which blood and gore is a key element to the genre (Fernández
Costales, 2012, p. 391).
Lastly, some of the most difficult imagery that sometimes needs to be changed for
localisation, is the depiction of cultural specific elements, such as Japanese food or holidays.
Within the industry practice of game localisation, it is important to erase traces of the original
product, so they are not visible to the target audience of the localised version (Mandiberg,
2015, p. 229). If the localisation of a game confuses players, due to cultural elements of the
original game being present, the localisation is considered a failure (Mandiberg, 2015, p.
224). For example, in the visual novel adventure game Ace Attorney, in which the main
character is a defense lawyer, many changes needed to be made due to the overwhelming
amount of Japanese-specific cultural elements. Not only was the obsession of one of the
characters with ramen, a Japanese noodle dish, changed to an obsession with hamburgers,
some of the other imagery also needed to be changed. Colours of passports were changed,
time zones were changed and some of the evidence received slight modifications to better suit
localised version of the game taking place in the United States, as opposed to Japan. The
localisation team of this game chose to use a domesticating approach, due to Japanese culture
not being very well-known in America in 2001, when the first game of the series was released
in the West. Due to this choice, newer titles in the series also needed to follow this approach,
even though Japanese culture in video games is now more accepted and sometimes the
preservation of these elements is even preferred and used as a selling point (Jayemanne, 2009,
p. 143). However, while some players might desire these Japanese traces, localizers rarely
intend to leave traces of the original country’s culture that do not fit with the target country’s
culture. Some traces being left in the game are often due to a lack of funding that is needed to
localise the game’s imagery or storyline (Mandiberg, 2015, p. 243).
Van Duuren, 13
2.3 Transcreation
Localisers not only need knowledge of the language and the conventions, but also an
understanding of game mechanics, game jargon, genre conventions, etcetera. They also need
the ability to interpret the effect that the original game intended to produce and to make a
functional equivalent (Di Marco, 2007, p. 7). Video games are a multimodal product and in
game localisation fidelity to the original product does not mean that the translators have to
convey the original story, but rather the overall game experience (Mangiron & O’Hagan,
2006, p. 6). Due to this, the translation and localisation of video games differ greatly from
that of other multimedia products (O’Hagan, 2009, p. 148). As shown above, localisers of
video games have to deal with many different elements and some of these elements need a
creative solution. This is not seen as a bad translation, even if the resulting translation
contains little of the original product. This freedom to creatively change the story and
imagery to better suit the target audience and utilizing this creativity, is known as
transcreation. Transcreation is a concept originally used by Mangiron and O’Hagan in 2006
to refer to the clean slate translators have in order to meet the skopos of preserving the game
experience in the target audience. Transcreation is used to localise the game experience,
sometimes having to change the story or parts of the story to do so. Researchers of the use of
transcreation in localisation note that some video game genres require more transcreation than
others (Fernández Costales, 2012, p. 398). Video games that are dialogue-based, such as
JRPGs, are more likely to need transcreation than action-based games, such as first-person
shooters. Transcreation is especially useful for JRPG games due to their complex and
intricate storylines. Researchers also note that, as far as transcreation is concerned, the
transfer between European languages does not require as much creativity and thus has less
use for transcreation. As opposed to translating games from a less related language like
Japanese, due to Japanese being a character-based language, as explained earlier in this paper.
Transcreation does not mean that localisers can completely ignore the original game, but it
means that localisers have the freedom to choose the best alternative in order to preserve the
game experience, as this is the most important (Fernández Costales, 2012, p. 399).
Some elements in video games that may call for transcreation, are elements that are
difficult to translate between two different cultures, especially cultures as different as Asian
and Western culture. This can include dialects, which evoke a certain stereotype about the
character speaking in dialect. For this the localiser will need to either find a suitable
alternative that also evokes that stereotype, create a new dialect, or remove the dialect
completely (Czech, 2013, p. 12). Too big of a change will result in the character being
Van Duuren, 14
different, something which in JRPGs, in which the source text can be present if the gamer
wishes it to be, is a risky change due to possible negative reactions. Slang and profanity are
another element that may need to be transcreated, as it is rarely possible to directly translate
these words into the target locale (Czech, 2013, p. 12). Japanese is a language that is less
outspoken when it comes to insults, so calling someone an idiot (バカ baka in Japanese) has
more impact than in America. Localisers will need to find profanity that elicits the same
impact as the original did. The same is true for slang, which can rarely be translated
word-for-word, as they are very culture-specific and sometimes even within the culture they are
specific to a certain group of people. However, the most problematic terms that need
transcreation to be localised are single lexical items that cannot be omitted or compensated
for in another part of the text, such as neologisms (Czech, 2013, p. 13). These words will
need to be replaced with a suitable word from the target culture, or the rest of the sentence
needs to be changed to no longer need the word. Lastly, a translation problem many
encounter, is the translation of jokes, which are, more often than not, culture- and/or
language-specific (Mandiberg, 2009, p. 5). In gaming, jokes that are tropes to the gaming or
media culture in the original language are abundant. One joke that is often used in Japan is
‘それはこっちのセリフ’ (Sore wa kocchi no serifu), meaning ‘That is my line.’ This is a
line often used in games and animation in Japan when, for humorous effect, a character says
something someone else would usually say, to which that someone else replies with this line.
This is a well-established trope within Japanese media, and whilst its meaning is translatable,
the trope behind it is lost in translation. Therefore, some localisers choose to transcreate such
tropes into tropes from the target locale. This will result in a loss of meaning, but also in a
translation of effect, which is often the skopos of video game localisation.
2.4 Translating Japanese
Translating between languages has its difficulties, but when a product is translated
between two languages of the same language family, such as English and Dutch, the
difficulties present are typically due to a difference in culture and less due to a difference in
language-structure. Most research done into translation has been focused on the translation
between Indo-European languages, resulting in ‘universal’ translation theories that are not
applicable when translating outside of this language group (Wakabayashi, 1991, p. 414-415).
When translating from an Asian language to a European language, not only are there
Van Duuren, 15
language to translate into a Western language, due to its major differences with Western
languages. I will talk about some of the main difficulties when it comes to translating
Japanese into English, as that is the focus of this paper.
One of the most obvious differences between Japanese and English, and one learners
of Japanese encounter immediately, is the difference in sentence structure. Whereas English,
and many other European languages, are subject-verb-object (SVO) languages, Japanese is a
subject-object-verb (SOV) language. The part that shapes the sentence, the verb, is placed at
the very end in Japanese sentences. Whilst this may not be a problem when translating a
Japanese novel, this becomes a problem when translating Japanese media, such as films and
games. In games, during cutscenes, if the player chooses to use the Japanese audio, there is a
possibility that the subtitles do not match what is being said, due to the sentence structure
being different. This occurs when characters use long sentences, with multiple subordinate
clauses. The translator will need to make the choice to either translate the whole sentence and
have the part of the sentence in the subtitles not match the part of the sentence in the audio, or
to cut the sentence into multiple smaller sentences to be able to match the dialogue better.
It is also not obligatory in Japanese to say the subject of the sentence if this can be
derived from context. Therefore, Japanese sentences can leave out pronouns completely, if
the context makes it clear who is being talked about. This is sometimes used in games to keep
the gender of a character ambiguous. In English, the subject is an obligatory part of the
sentence and cannot be omitted, this would result in a grammatically incorrect sentence. Due
to this difference, translators will sometimes be forced to reveal the gender, or perceived
gender, of a character, even if it was intentionally ambiguous in the original Japanese text.
There is also a difference in the use of verb-forms in Japanese and English. Whilst
English tends to use more transitive verbs, and only intransitive when necessary, Japanese
uses intransitive even when not necessary. Some linguistic researchers thus call English a
DO-language and Japanese a BECOME-language (Luk, 2014, p. 753). This is in part due to
the subject not being obligatory in Japanese, which results in more Japanese sentences using
intransitive verbs. Translators will thus be forced to shift the focus of sentences to make them
more natural in English. Japanese also has intransitive verbs that denote actions that must
involve an agent, such as the verb ‘to be found’, for which there is no English equivalent
intransitive verb, thus forcing translators to change the verb-form (Luk, 2014, p. 757).
In Japanese, there is the concept of yakuwarigo. This term was coined by Japanese
linguist Satoshi Kinsui in 2000 and means ‘role language’. He explains that this term refers to
the ability to imagine a specific profile via specific language use, such as vocabulary,
Van Duuren, 16
expression, and intonation. One can derive someone’s gender, age, and nationality from this
language use. This principle can also be used vice versa, to imagine how a person would act
and speak based on their gender, age, and nationality. Many aspects of a person’s speech can
be categorised under yakuwarigo, from the tone of their voice, to how a person laughs, to
what words they use (Chiang, 2016, p. 12). For example, a person that uses a high tone of
voice, laughs quietly, uses the formal neutral pronoun 私 (watashi) and uses the formal
verb-endings, is likely a polite adolescent female. Whereas a person that has a high tone of voice,
laughs loudly, uses the male pronoun 僕 (boku) and uses informal verb-endings, is likely a
young pre-pubescent boy. These keywords and tones can thus be used to determine the
gender and age of people (Gillberg, 2013, p. 19). This use of role-language to convey certain
stereotypes is often used in video games to give characters more depth and to individualise
characters from one another. A brash young man with an abundance of self-confidence will
be more likely to use the arrogant male pronoun 俺 (ore) as opposed to the more neutral male
pronoun 僕 (boku). A very polite female will also be more likely to use the formal neutral
pronoun 私 (watashi) as opposed to the more informal female pronoun あたし (atashi).
English does not have these role languages, thus making it difficult to accurately translate
characters with as much depth as is present in the Japanese original. Localisers typically try to
compensate for this by having young boys speak with ‘wanna’ and ‘gonna’ to convey the
informal nature, though this still has less depth and less of a stereotypical image for the
gamers than the Japanese original does.
Japanese also has three different writing systems: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Kanji
are originally Chinese characters adapted by Japan, in which each character has its own
meaning. Most, if not all, nouns and verbs have one or multiple kanji, though commonly used
nouns and verbs are rarely written with kanji. Hiragana is one of the phonetic systems, of
which each hiragana represents a sound. Hiragana is used for particles and sentence endings,
and some common nouns and verbs are typically written using hiragana, such as the verb い
る (iru, to be). Katakana is the other phonetic system, in which each katakana represents a
sound. Katakana is typically used for foreign words, such as loanwords, or the names of
foreigners. In video games however, these three systems are also used to define characters’
personalities and traits. Characters that are known for their wisdom will typically use more
Van Duuren, 17
kanji, even for words that are typically not written in kanji in modern life. Young children
will speak with less kanji and more hiragana, to convey their innocence and lack of
knowledge of the world. Characters that are perceived as ‘cool’ may use more katakana, even
for pronouns and sometimes even verb-endings. This use of these three systems once again
adds depth to the characters, similar to the use of yakuwarigo mentioned above. This is once
again an aspect that is impossible to translate into English, thus forcing the localiser to
compensate with other traits, such as young children mispronouncing words to show their
innocence, or wise characters using archaic and uncommon words.
As can be seen in this chapter, translators of Japanese, and thus also localisers of
Japanese video games, are forced to take liberty when translating to produce a grammatically
correct and non-confusing product for the target audience. This would normally be seen as the
translator taking too many liberties and not staying loyal to the source text. However,
translators must take these liberties to change word order, verb form, paragraph structure and
sometimes even characters’ personalities if they want to produce a grammatically correct text
that is coherent for the target audience whilst achieving a similar effect as the original game
did.
Van Duuren, 18
3. Methodology
3.1 Material: Tales of Zestiria
The main goal of this paper is to analyse the Japanese Role-Playing Game, Tales of
Zestiria. This video game is part of the Tales franchise mentioned earlier in this paper and has
its own unique story and characters. This game was chosen for multiple reasons, as I will
explain in this chapter.
First and foremost, this game was chosen because it is a JRPG. As explained earlier in
this paper, this genre of gaming is particularly difficult to localise into different cultures, and
thus most of the earlier JRPGs were never localised. Due to the complexity that is innate to
this genre, with its complex storylines, well-developed characters and unique monsters that
change with each new game, this genre is interesting to analyse for its translation and
localisation.
Another reason this game was chosen is because this game is fairly new at the time of
research. Tales of Zestiria was released in Japan in January 2015 for the PlayStation 3, and
later for the PlayStation 4 as well, and got a Western release in October 2015 for the
PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PC. The game got a full localisation into English, with all
text and sound being localised, and a partial localisation into French, German, Spanish,
Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Chinese, with only the game’s interface and subtitles being
localised. The players have the option to choose between the Japanese and English audio,
allowing the gamers to hear the original text as well as the localised text. As mentioned
earlier, this poses an extra challenge for the localisers.
Just like all other JRPGs, Tales of Zestiria takes place in a fantasy world that shares
little to no features with the real world and has its own unique creatures. In this game, the
main character is Sorey, a male human interested in ruins that lives in a mountain village with
Seraphim, also called seraphs. Seraphs are magical beings that look like humans, but each
have an elemental property that falls under their control. All seraphs can control an element
and in the game seraphs using fire, water, wind, earth, thunder and void are seen. Seraphs can
only be seen by humans that have a high resonance, which the main character, Sorey, does.
The game begins with Sorey and his male seraph friend Mikleo investigating a ruin close to
their home when they find a female human, Alisha, passed out in the ruins. Sorey takes her to
the village and helps her get back on her feet. Because Alisha has low resonance, she cannot
see the seraphs living in the village and believes Sorey lives by himself. Once she is back on
her feet, she goes back to her hometown, forgetting to bring her dagger with her. Sorey and
Van Duuren, 19
Mikleo encounter a beast, called a hellion, that seems to be after Alisha, and they decide to go
after her to give her back her dagger and protect her from the hellion.
Once they go to the world below the mountain, where other humans live, they learn
that the world has been thrown into chaos because of an increase in malevolence, a dark
energy that humans produce when they are in peril, and that can turn humans and animals into
hellions when they are inflicted by it. They learn that the legend of the Shepherd that they
learned whilst growing up is true, and that the Shepherd is a human that uses the powers of
seraphim to purify the world of malevolence. Due to humans losing their resonance over the
years, less and less people believe in the existence of seraphim and the legend of the
Shepherd. Sorey decides to become the Shepherd due to his ability to see seraphim and his
will for humans and seraphs to live together once again. To purify the world of malevolence,
he needs to employ a seraph of each of the four main elements and defeat the root of the
increase in malevolence: The Lord of Calamity. He is a hellion that was once a human who
was cursed to never die whilst losing everything and everyone he loves. Sorey goes on a
journey with his friend Mikleo, a water seraph, the fire seraph Lailah, the earth seraph Edna
and the wind seraph Dezel. Another human also joins the team, Rose, to share Sorey’s burden
of being the Shepherd and to help him purify the world. Dezel joined Sorey on the condition
that Sorey would help him execute his revenge on the seraph that killed his friend, which ends
up in him being killed himself. To replace him Zaveid, a different wind seraph that the team
has encountered multiple times at that point in the game, takes his place in the team. The
group goes on many quests to grow stronger in order to defeat the Lord of Calamity. At the
end of the game, the Lord of Calamity is defeated and Sorey goes into a century-long sleep so
that the ground can be purified of malevolence via his sleeping body.
Video games from the Tales franchise have their own unique feature that is not innate
to JRPGs, which are skits. In each game, there are 2D cutscenes in which the main character
and his/her team discusses a multitude of events. These cutscenes are called skits. In these
skits, the characters are drawn in 2D and have very little variation in their facial expressions
and body language. The character speaking is shown by having him/her lit up and in the
foreground, whilst the rest are in darker colours and are behind them.
Van Duuren, 20
Figure 1 Tales of Zestiria skit example
These skits will be the focus of the analysis. The skits can be about many different
aspects of the game. In most skits the team discuss the main storyline, but there are also skits
about the way the game works, side-quests the team can go on, interesting buildings or
artefacts the team discovers, and sometimes about nonsensical things, such as the food at an
inn or the stay at a spa. Each skit is its own small, separated conversation. These different
types of skits have different skopos within the game. System skits are meant to explain a part
of the gameplay to the player, whilst nonsensical skits are there to make the gamer laugh and
to give them a break from the seriousness of the main storyline. This is the main reason that
this game was chosen for this analysis over other JRPGs, and why the analysis will focus only
on these skits. This difference in skopos may lead to a difference in translation strategy.
3.2 Data analysis method
For the analysis of this paper I want to look at the different types of skits present in
Tales of Zestiria and how they are translated. To do this, I employ Juliane House’s technique
for translation quality assessment, first introduced in 1977 and revised multiple times
thereafter. The goal of this paper is to analyse the translation and localisation, not to judge if
the translation is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. House’s register analysis, based on the Hallidayan register
analysis model, analyses not the formal and syntactical aspects of linguistic items in two
different languages, but rather focuses on the functional and pragmatic equivalence between
an original text and its translation (House, 2001, p. 247). Due to Japanese and English being
Van Duuren, 21
languages that have little to nothing in common linguistically speaking, this type of analysis
is preferred to linguistic analysis.
In the data analysis, I will use House’s concepts of field, tenor and mode to assess the
translation strategy. In her theory using field-tenor-mode, field refers to the subject matter and
includes lexical items. Tenor refers to the nature of the participants, in this case the game and
the gamer, and also includes social attitude, namely formal and informal style in this game.
Mode refers to the channel in which the dialogue is delivered, aka written or spoken, complex
or simple, written to be read or written to be spoken. This also includes the degree of
participation between the addresser and the addressee, in this case the game and the gamer
(House, 2001, p. 248).
The localisation of video games can be seen as, in House’s terms, a covert translation,
in which the translation serves as a new original and its function is to reproduce the function
of the original in a different culture (House, 2001, p. 250). Whilst gamers of Tales of Zestiria
are constantly reminded that the game was originally Japanese, due to the option to choose
Japanese or English dialogue each time the player starts the game, the function of the
localisation of Tales of Zestiria is to entertain and engage the players as a new game, more so
than it is to offer a direct translation of the original.
For this analysis, the skits have been divided into multiple categories: story,
discovery, sub, etc. and system. Story skits are cutscenes that occur within the main story and
they pertain to the main storyline. Discovery skits occur when the team finds an interesting
mural, building, animal or otherwise, and they discuss this discovery. Sub skits occur when
the player decides to pursue side-quests that are not necessary for completing the main story,
and thus pertain to these side-quests. Etc. skits are cutscenes that have no relation to the main
storyline or side-quests and are there as comedic relief, such as the team eating food at an inn
or going to a sauna. System skits are cutscenes in which features of the game are explained,
such as how the battling system works and how to get the best weapons. There are 333 skits
in total, of which 111 are story, 63 are discovery, 80 are sub, 51 are etc. and 28 are system
skits.
For my analysis, I will analyse the skits using House’s assessment for translation
quality to analyse the amount of overlap between the original and the localised version. I will
then categorize them into three different types of translation: direct, indirect and transcreation.
A skit will be labelled as direct if field, tenor, and mode are all the same in the localised
version, focusing on the important lexical items within the skit. A skit will be labelled as
indirect if field, tenor, and mode are mostly maintained, but within field some of the lexical
Van Duuren, 22
items are different, whilst the subject matter stays the same. A skit will be labelled as
transcreation if the field is not maintained and the subject matter and lexical items are both
changed. I will also label any individual sentences that are transcreated as transcreation, even
if the overall skit is labelled as direct or indirect. This is because not many skits will need to
be fully changed, or transcreated, but there are multiple instances in which one or two words
or sentences are changed completely. In my analysis I will not look at changes in grammar,
due to Japanese and English being such linguistically different languages.
In the course of the story, one of the characters, Dezel, dies and is replaced by a
different character, Zaveid. However, because the storyline is not static and the player can
choose to do certain side-quests before or after the death of this character, some skits have
two versions, one with Dezel, and one with Zaveid. Most of these skits are completely the
same aside from the one or two sentences these characters say. For the quantitative analysis, I
will count these two versions as one, unless the versions do not get the same label, i.e. one is
labelled direct and the other is labelled indirect.
In my analysis, I will look at the most interesting cases of translation to assess how the
localisers translated text that is difficult to translate, with a focus on language-bound text,
such as word puns, and culture-specific text. To analyse the word puns, I will use Peter Low’s
2011 theory on how to translate jokes between two languages. In this theory, Low analyses
the translation of jokes and how many leaps the translation is away from the original joke. He
then assigns a mathematical figure to these jokes, such as a square, pentagon, or circle, based
on how many leaps the translation is away from the original (Low, 2011, p. 63-64). This
method can show the possible steps the localisers took to translate the joke and their
thought-process, though there is no way of establishing if this truly is the process that was used. This
method will only be applicable in some of the examples, as a lot of the translations of the
jokes have no connections with the original joke anymore, thus making Low’s method
unusable in those cases.
For the analysis of the translation of the culture-specific elements, I will use Diederik
Grit’s 1997 methods of translating realia where applicable. I will explain these in the analysis
with the examples, as not all methods were used in the translation of Tales of Zestiria.
Van Duuren, 23
4. Analysis
After taking out the double skits that were not labelled differently, a total of 313 skits
were analysed. 105 skits were labelled as story, 62 as discovery, 67 as sub, 51 as etc. and 28
as system skits. Overall, over 100,000 words were analysed. In this chapter I will discuss the
results of the overall analysis and the analysis per skit type, accompanied by examples. The
analysis of all the skits resulted in the following data, placed side by side:
Figure 2 Results all skit categories
As can be seen in this graph, a common theme can be found in the type of translation
strategy used between different types of skits. Both in the sub skit category, which deals with
information about side-quests, and in the etc. skit category, which deals with nonsensical
things such as food or playing a game, the majority of the skits were translated indirectly, i.e.
the sense of the skit was maintained, but the actual words used were different. The story skits,
discovery skits and system skits all share a similar split of direct vs indirect translation,
almost 50-50, with system skits having a slightly larger amount of direct translations. Also
interesting to note is the fact that there were no transcreated skits in the system category, as
was expected, due to the importance of these skits being translated according to their
meaning.
During my analysis I also kept track of the instances where transcreation took place,
which is when a few words or a complete sentence was completely changed during
translation. Most of these transcreations happened with sentences that had a play of words in
them, something which is impossible to translate using lexical items with the same meanings
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Story Discovery Sub Etc. System
All skits Tales of Zestiria translation strategy
Van Duuren, 24
whilst maintaining the humour, or were sentences that contained idioms, which is once again
impossible to translate using lexical items with the same meaning. In this analysis, there were
87 skits that had instances of transcreation in them, though the skit in its whole was translated
directly or indirectly. Of these skits, 30 were story skits, 22 were discovery skits, 19 were sub
skits, 8 were etc. skits, and 8 were system skits. Later in this chapter I will show some of
these transcreations as examples, as those sentences were the most difficult to translate within
this game. This will give us a look at what decisions the localisers made regarding
untranslatable elements. For all of the examples, the Japanese original (JA), the Japanese
pronunciation in Roman alphabet (R), the gloss (G), the author’s translation which will stay
as close to the original as possible (AT), and the official English translation (EN) will be
shown. In the author’s translation, the official localised names for the game-specific
characters, creatures and objects were used, as the scope of this paper does not include
analysing the translation of these.
In my analysis of the larger categories of skits, I divided the skits according to what
was encountered regularly during the analysis, i.e. idioms, word play, etc. However, as all
skits deal with a specific event, item, etcetera, I kept examples that came from the same skit
together, even if it contained different types of examples.
Van Duuren, 25
4.1 Story skits analysis
There were 105 story skits in total, of which 53 were translated directly, 50 were
translated indirectly and 2 were transcreated. This resulted in the following data:
Figure 3 Results of story skits
As can be seen in this chart, a slight majority of the skits were translated directly. I
will not show any examples of direct translation in this analysis, as they were fairly
straightforward and show very little interesting data. Instead, I will analyse some of the
indirect translations and mostly the transcreations, as these may show some of the difficulties
the localisers of this game had to deal with and how these were solved.
4.1.1 The fighting-style skit
In the first example, Sorey, the main protagonist, and Alisha, the human he is helping
get back on her feet, are talking about Sorey’s fighting style. Alisha asks what the name of his
fighting style is, to which Sorey replies with confusion. Alisha answers to his confusion with
the following:
Alisha:
JA: あるだ-ろう？師匠やその系統を表す名前が
R: aru da-rou? shishou ya sono keitou o arawasu namae ga
G: to.be COP-EMP? Master or that lineage ACC represent name NOM
AT: There is, right? The name of your master or that represents that lineage
EN: Yes. Isn’t there a name signifying the style? Your swordmaster’s name, perhaps.
50% 48%
2%
Story skits
Van Duuren, 26
This skit was labelled as indirect and contained several similar sentences, in which the
English conveyed the Japanese information but in a different order and with different words.
In the English translation the word lineage was omitted, and Alisha clarified that what she
wants to know is the name of Sorey’s fighting style. This clarification may have been added
because the Western target audience may not know much about sword fighting styles and that
they tend to be named after the master or a lineage in Japan. Due to Japan’s prominent
samurai history, Japanese people are more aware of this than most of the Western public, that
do not have this history. Thus, the localisers chose to clarify by adding the first sentence, so
as not to confuse the new target audience.
Further on in this same skit, Sorey talks about how the prickleboars, boar-like
creatures that live close to his village and that he used to hunt, are the ones that taught him
how to fight.
Sorey:
JA: その毎日がオレに戦い方を教えてくれただからウリボアがオレの師匠で恩人 R: sono mainichi ga ore ni tatakai hou o oshiete
kureta dakara uriboa ga ore no shishou de onjin
G: That every.day NOM I DAT fight way.of ACC teach-GER be.given-PST because prickleboar NOM I GEN master as contributor
AT: Because that everyday taught me the way of fighting, the prickleboar is a contributor as my master.
EN: But it was those days that taught me how to fight. There’s no better teacher—no more exacting taskmaster—than the humble prickleboar!
In this example, the English localisation split the sentence in two shorter sentences, instead of
one long sentence like the Japanese. Contributor was changed into taskmaster, as a setup for a
play on words later in the skit, and the second sentence has a completely different feeling
behind it than the original. In the original, Sorey simply states that the prickleboars are his
masters, because they taught him how to fight. This was changed in the localisation into
Sorey saying that the prickleboar are the best teachers for learning how to fight. This change
was most likely made as a setup for the play on words present later in the skit, for which the
English localisation chose to use taskmaster, thus having to incorporate this into the skit. The
following example is this play on words, an instance of transcreation within a skit not labelled
as transcreation:
Van Duuren, 27
Sorey:
JA: あ。恩人じゃなくて、恩ウリボアだな
R: A. onjin ja-naku-te, on-uriboa da na G: EXP. contributor COP-NEG-LK, favour-prickleboar COP SFP AT: Ah. It’s not contributor, it is favour-prickleboar
EN: But I guess I should say „tuskmaster“.
As can be seen, the original Japanese play on words would not work in English if translated
directly, as it would not make any sense. The Japanese word for contributor,
恩人(onjin), is
composed with the kanji for favour and human. In the Japanese play on words, the kanji for
human is replaced with prickleboar. This is possible due to the use of kanji in Japanese and
their combining of kanji to create new words. This is not present in English, in which very
few words are combinations of words, and every word has its own meaning. Therefore, the
localiser compensates by changing taskmaster into tuskmaster, eluding to the tusks of the
prickleboar. As will be seen in further examples, a play on words is often transcreated, thus
losing the exact meaning of the sentence, but maintaining the humour.
4.1.2 Idioms
Idioms are culture-specific sentences, or parts of sentences, that translators often
cannot translate directly into another language. In the next example, Sorey and Mikleo have
set out towards the human world and are leaving their village for the first time in their lives.
On their way they stop at a cliff that overlooks the human world below and they discuss the
adventures that may await them.
Mikleo:
JA: 見た目じゃ計れないものだろうな。。。今はこの景色を楽しむのも悪くない R: mitame ja haka-re-nai mono da-rou na... ima wa
kono keshiki wo tanoshimu no mo waruku-nai
G: Appearance only measure-able.to-NEG EMP COP-EMP SFP... Now TOP this scenery ACC enjoy GEN also bad-NEG
AT: You can’t measure just on appearance. Enjoying this scenery now it also not bad.
EN: Well, don’t judge a book by its cover, as they say. But for now, at least we get a nice view.
In this example the meaning of the Japanese is conveyed in the English, but in a modified
way. The first sentence was translated into an idiom, even though the Japanese sentence is not
an idiom. The use of idioms makes the speech more natural, especially considering the
Van Duuren, 28
English translation is also the script for the English voice-over. The localisers thus had to not
only translate the meaning of the original, but also make it into natural-sounding speech when
spoken. The second sentence was also translated by maintaining the meaning, not the literal
words. In the Japanese version, Mikleo states that it is not so bad to enjoy the scenery, whilst
in the English version he says that at least they have a nice view. Whilst the base meaning,
the field, of these sentences are the same, aka enjoying the scenery, the lexical items used
differ slightly, thus marking this as an indirect translation.
Later in the same skit, Sorey asks if Mikleo is excited, or pumped in the English
translation, to go to the human world for the first time, to which Mikleo reacts with the
following.
Mikleo
JA: いいよ。そういうことにしても
R: ii yo. souiu kotonishi-te mo G: Good SFP. such decide-LK also AT: Okay. Also if you decide to do as such.
EN: Pumped? Well, mildly inflated, at least.
In this example, the Japanese version and English version differ greatly. In the Japanese
version, Mikleo does not react to Sorey’s question, but rather comments further on something
they discussed earlier in the skit. In the English version, Mikleo reacts to Sorey’s question
and a joke was added into it by him saying he is ‘mildly inflated’ instead of ‘pumped’. This
change may be due to the difference in Japanese and English culture and their way of
speaking. In the Japanese version, it is clear what Mikleo is referring to when he says: ‘if you
decide to do as such’, in which the such refers to an earlier part of the skit. In English, the
localisers would have to add in the subject again, because it would not be clear what Mikleo
is referring to if he just says ‘such’. This would result in a much longer sentence in the
localisation. Whilst the localisers did have the possibility to extend the time a character is
speaking, as will be seen in a later example, the localisation team was most likely told to keep
these to a minimum due to production costs. This sentence in Japanese does not carry any
important meaning, so omitting it completely and substituting something else does not alter
the story. The localisation team most likely chose to add a word pun here to compensate for
the instances where they were unable to replicate a word pun, and to keep the overall humour
of the game, which includes a significant amount of play on words.
Van Duuren, 29
In the following example the team are in the lair of slime hellions, who are known to
be picky eaters. Rose comments that slimes would probably love to eat Zaveid, as he wears
very few clothes and the hellions would have less to spit back out. Zaveid answers with the
following:
Zaveid:
JA: そうそう、よく言われるんだ 「食わせ者だ」ってな
R: sou sou, yoku iwa-reru n da [kuwasemono da] tte na
G: that’s.right that’s.right, often say-PAS GEN COP [hypocrite COP] QUOT SFP
AT: That’s right, that is said often. “You are a hypocrite”
EN: I get that a lot! „Zaveid you’re only an egg or two away from being a delicious omelette! “
