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[Hide] (234.1KB, 842x1200) Reverse >>249789
The DS translation does improve on Frog, making him less like a renaissance fair character in a setting where no one else is speaking like him in English, to being polite and courteous in his speech (probably was easier to fix the consistency issue by tweaking Frog's lines than everyone else's in 600AD). Though changes like that pissed off a fair amount of classic fans for "killing the charm", as if bad or rushed translation decisions are part of the intended experience that everyone should put up with. Have to wonder if that's part of why Square didn't even both to retranslate Secret of Mana when its remake was current, lest it piss off Woolsey fans again. Or they could have just been too cheap and lazy, or some combination thereof.
>>249797
>Mind sharing the source though? It looks interesting.
"Monster Collection - Majuutsukai no Shoujo" (モンスター・コレクション～魔獣使いの少女～) by Yasuda Hitoshi and Sei Itoh. It's a manga within the MonColle Trading Card and Tabletop RPG series. This one looks to take place after the PS1 card-battle RPG), though I don't think there's a requirement to have played that or even necessarily be familiar with the series, though it does seem to have a number of shoutouts to various characters and concepts from previous entries. Also seems to be a good bit of lore compiled on various Japanese websites like wikiwiki, as MonColle has apparently remained popular out there, so if you know Japanese, you shouldn't be too lost.
Itoh (who also adapted those novels to a manga) once mentioned in one of his omakes for Kouya ni Kemono that his wife (who learned proper English) had read a work of his that was brought into English prior, found it abysmally done, and informed him of such (likely the reason most of his work has never been licensed here before but especially after). My suspicion has been that it was Monster Collection, which actually did also see an official English release under DC Comics' "CMX" label, and as far as I've been able to tell, was the only one of his works to do so. Not that I have much hope for that version to be proper considering how CMX infamously handled Tenjo Tenge here, but it's hard to say as CMX died in 2010 and only the fifth of their six volumes is readily accessible on archive, while the out-of-print physicals range from about $15 to $60 depending on the volume. Having done some comparison between the Anime Waves old scanlation and the raw though, there's the chance the guy's wife might have read that instead, as the reception would likely have been the same. They couldn't even get the references to monsters from the card game right at times. Granted, I don't know how readily available they were to look up the names of twenty years ago, but I'd think it pretty clear that stuff like 太陽を睨む天使 should not come out to "Wrath's Angel", regardless of whether or not the card game ever came out here. Maybe their work gets better in later volumes or chapters, but I doubt it.
I have half a mind to frame and font the whole raw set out as preparation just in case any anons opt to retranslate it at some point to save some time then. That "Perfect Edition" label honestly pisses me off that much.
>That was the weirdest change of all. I'm not understanding their reasoning for this
Same. The English writing generally comes off more as a mixture of approximation of what was said and outright rewrite. Like they either knew enough Japanese to get the gist, but not the details, or did know Japanese but figured they could tell a more entertaining story even if it meant losing context in places. Have a few more page sets.
Anyway, you won't find the raws in any form on nyaa (I checked the other day while looking), but since you're interested, here's a link. I was going to make a personal backup of the raws regardless. Not the best scans, but definitely better than whatever set was around twenty years ago.
https://mega.nz/file/JBtSnCCK#sKk8BIqpg6-_k9YbYCSqIGrOBivrCXglU08Ajq-6oao
>>249829
Woolsey is a case where in some ways I can't fault entirely him on account of Square giving him way too little time, lack of things such as variable width fonts or ability to add more text boxes to reduce the trimming needed, and NoA's own policies for content here at the time. Most of the blatant rewrites really can't be justified as compensating for those legitimate issues though. There's making sure things at least don't read in a sterile way, or in a way that gets the point across without reaching character/line limits (I really want to look up the history of variable width fonts in games, and why it took so long to officially implement them when hackers seem to be readily able to add them to old games lacking them before), and then there's completely changing characters and plot and worldbuilding around, whether it's to make the work "theirs" or because the higher ups feel it'll sell more copies like that. In essence, not solely his fault, but he sure didn't help things either.
Nor does it help that he and some other "translators" have developed cult followings, with fans of their particular styles who then get into fan translation with a goal to emulate it. Woolsey Fan Group, the guy who's been trying to perfect a version of Phantasy Star IV's script so it feels like Working Design's produced it. Tangentially related, but I know there's also one group that intentionally puts NoA's classic content restrictions on the translation patches they make, so they feel authentic to the era the game was from, instead of utilizing the freedom fan translation gives to ideally aim to be as authentic as possible to the developers' visions.