A certain video is making the rounds, now of all times. I felt the urge to comment on some of the choices they made therein, how they differ from mine (many of which spread to Commie’s release of the Dawn of the Shepherd movie), and theories on the reasons. I don’t wish to speculate on how official the subtitles in the video are or how much they’ll reflect the localization of the game itself, nor to encourage rejecting the official localization whether it is or isn’t the same. Support your publishers. Except Hearts R, jesus christ.
Glenwood (Greenwood)
“Glenwood” also showed up on Facebook a while ago. In my defense, “Greenwood” is what the substitution cipher works out to on the guidebook that ships with the Famitsu Deluxe Pack, and I saw that way before the former started showing up. That said, Tales cipher runes are historically extremely iffy; Eternia has “Klamel” and “Merdi,” and Graces has “Greatstone of Light” on a diagram of a Valkines Cryas.
Shepherd (Shepherd)
This is just a chance for me to point out, again, that I independently came up with “Shepherd” in November of 2013. Eat it.
I’m pretty sure Namco is not actually stealing my translations, because then this entire post wouldn’t have to exist, but obviously, I approve of “Shepherd” for specific reasons I find defensible. In short, it’s a solid balance between the idea of a moral and spiritual leader and that of a brave champion whose strength defends the masses from evil.
Seraphim (Devas)
I’ve been through a lot of cycles on the translation of 天族, but one thing I’ve always thought is that any variant on “angel” should be out. My thesis is that the creatures are more natural and elemental than divine, even with “heaven” in the name. I chose “deva” because I believed it struck an ideal balance; devas are indeed spirits of hills and rivers and valleys, of rain and sun and wind and fire. They’re sacred, but not angelic; worshipped, but not ineffable; powerful, but beholden to hierarchy and ancient law.
Overall, the “seraphim” echo more the great spirits in past Tales (though a bit less special and mystical, individually), especially Eternia and Xillia, than theistic angels. And don’t tell me spirits are angels because of Rem.
Celestial Record (Records of Devic Artifacts)
If you’re taking “Seraphim” as read, “Celestial Record” isn’t such a bad translation, but I think it sounds too much like an artifact or an absolute (compare to “Akashic Record”). But the Record is simply the memoirs of a mundane explorer of olden times who compiled findings from his own explorations of ruins depicting the Golden Age. It’s a textbook, any prophecies found within told secondhand, and in the world of Zestiria, it’s been published and distributed worldwide. Even the word “Record” in the name means something more like “Observations.”
Hyland/Rolance (Highland/Lowlands)
I’m still convinced that that’s the angle and it’ll take something serious to make me believe otherwise.
Elysia (Izuchi)
I have no beef with this one, though. It’s good. Fansubbers usually don’t change names like this (says the translator for the team that localized “Ladylake” to Dame du Lac), so it was never even on my radar.
Malevolence (Defilement)
This is an odd case because I don’t think “Malevolence” is a proposed translation for 穢れ at all. In fact, the subtitles on the trailer don’t betray a realization that it wasn’t just a common noun in the first place. The level and type of research failure on display actually makes me think the other translations came from an official term sheet; after all, how would a scriptwriter who does that make the other ones up on his own?
But then, wouldn’t 穢れ also have been on that sheet?
“Malevolence” isn’t a particularly good (meaning straightforward) translation for 穢れ in itself. Strangely, it’s of the more defensible things on this list from a contextual perspective; it’s the stuff of darkness formed from evil thoughts. But nothing else in the trailer is this particularly context-aware, except “Shepherd,” so why start now? Besides, it’s still not supposed to be the evil itself, but a particular kind of magical phenomenon associated with it. Most likely answer: fluke.
Anyway, “defilement” is in the code on the official website. And while HTML document names aren’t great evidence, there’s really nothing suggesting I should reject it yet.
Hellion (Tainted)
A hellion is actually just a bad child. I looked it up and I don’t even think it goes back to “hell” etymologically. It sounds like it was picked on shallow phonetics. Though, to be “fair”, we got “Chromatus” just last year and no one knows what that means.
Anyway, a 憑魔 is a monster (魔) whose nature is being subject to an spooky or evil influence (憑), and this is implicitly Defilement. It’s well-known that it’s what they call a creature (or person!) that has been warped or mutated by Defilement exposure. “Defiled” is a good start; since the original word doesn’t reference Defilement directly, though, we riffed on synonyms until arriving at “Tainted.” Our main concern was to maintain the suggestion that Tainted is a condition rather than a fundamentally “monster” creature.
“Hellion” doesn’t just mean not that, it doesn’t mean anything relevant. “Seraph” may be arguable, so this is probably the only thing on this particular list I have a plain, unqualified objection to.
Calamity, Age of Chaos, Lord of Calamity
The world of Zestiria is subject to a series of Biblical-style disasters known collectively as 災厄, or “calamities.” The time period it takes place in is the 災厄の時代, or “Age of Calamities”. The great evil that besets the world with them is known as the 災厄の賢主, or “Lord of Calamity.”
Calamity alone does not feature in the trailer, but bafflingly, the Lord is of a different 災厄 than the Age is. As with all the other decisions here I don’t personally see eye-to-eye with, I could not tell you if this is deliberate and based on a difference of interpretation, or simply an oversight. (In our case, the Lord did not make an appearance in the movie, though we did stick to “calamity.”)
