last game-related spampost I promise
OSHI THE OCCURIA SPEAK IN IAMBIC PENTAMETER.
OH ALEXANDER O. SMITH, THAT IS SOME FINE SHAKESPEARIAN MOJO.
And, you know, about time a translator came along who does this. Makes the English version have these great tidbits that are in themselves as wonderful and as untranslatable as their foreign-language counterparts: BALANCE, see.
Remember when FF games had shitty or, at best, totally basic translations? Granted, FFVII was all the better for its own, "YOU'RE SO FUNNY CLOUD!" Same goes for manga, anime, or any other Japanese import pop genre. Bad translations, worse dubs. Exceptions to the norm stood out. The Bebop dub wasn't as glorious as you remember it, it was just DONE WELL for a change. For most other things (AHAHA EVA OH MAN) there was an arguably pleasant kitsch effect, I mean, how seriously can one really take such things, pop is pop is pop, and a lack of vocabulary isn't really to be deplored when you're reading, like. Ranma. And besides, we took what we could find and we liked it, WE EFFIN TOOK IT AND WE TOOK IT GOOD, because even five years ago, going to the trouble of a) obtaining Japanese originals and b) sitting over them with a dictionary was crazy, impossible, or both.
But now that all the above media are flooding our market in pretty alarming volumes, and Tokyopop and its ilk are on every crap manga like dingoes on a baby, translations have classied up considerably. Take for instance Fumi Yoshinaga's Antique Bakery: Sachiko Sato does a stand-up job of making the series totally, deliciously readable. And still there is something to be desired, a STYLE, some personal input from a translator that, as in the aforementioned Bebop translation, demonstrates real LOVE for the work. Or, you know, total over-the-top egoism. Either will do. NICHE. NICHE NICHE NICHE.
I'll venture that Smith is among the first to REALLY EMBRACE his job. He does research. Like any self-respecting writer, he's got a passion for perfect words. And, in this way, he makes the English text his own. He's clearly all about the extra-hot Olde English with a side of MUMMERS' FARCE, but he's also got the versatility to winningly adapt something as modern as Phoenix Wright. Admit it's kinda nice to know that what we get is just as good or even better than the Japanese original. I mean, that's what true literary translation is MEANT to accomplish, it is a craft of ADAPTATION, it is about trading slang for slang and accent for accent in such a way that its product is not some coldly correct, technical duplicate of its foreign-language original, but something that aims to transcend J-dictionary. Hell, I can do J-dictionary. But I can't swing effin IAMBIC PENTAMETER.