#The localization also made Edelgard sound more extreme

[bowbowis]

How Much Difference Does the Translation of the "Reconquer" Line Make?

When he confronts Edelgard in Crimson Flower Dimitri asks her the following: "Must you continue to conquer? Continue to kill?" Edelgard's response has often been mocked for being ad hominem attack. Some insist her reply is mistranslated and that she makes a stronger argument in the original Japanese script, others contend that the line is basically the same in both versions. Who is right?

Here's her reply in the English localization:

Must you continue to reconquer? Continue to kill in retaliation?

Here's a version closer to the original Japanese:

So you'd feel better if you reconquered... if you killed in retaliation?

So there is a difference between the English and Japanese lines. The Japanese version puts an emphasis on Dimitri's motivation that is mostly absent in the English version. The significance of the change becomes more pronounced when you remember that Edelgard says more after that. Her complete reply is, in English:

Must you continue to reconquer? Continue to kill in retaliation? I will not stop. There is nothing I would not sacrifice to cut a path to Fódlan's new dawn!

In Japanse:

So you'd feel better if you reconquered... if you killed in retaliation? I will not stop. I am willing to sacrifice to pave the way for the future!

While you can still kind of get the original intent by reading between the lines of the English version the Japanese version is much clearer that Edelgard is not only calling out Dimitri for doing what he's accusing her of but also contrasting their reasons for doing it. She is going on the offensive to bring about a better future, he's doing it to indulge his own desire for vengeance (note that she never brings up his purely defensive actions, only his retaliatory ones).

It actually mirrors what Dimitri says when he's tormenting Randolph in Azure Moon:

Dimitri: You are a monster too, General. You have just yet to realize it. A monster who thinks he's a man... despicable. As a general, you must have killed countless souls without a shred of mercy. Do you still remember the sound of them begging, just as you're begging now? Or, now that your life is at its end, will you hold to the lie that your hands are not stained red with blood? Randolph: This...this is war. I did what I had to for the Empire...for the people...for my family! Dimitri: So, you are piling up corpses for the people and for your family. And I am doing the same for the salvation of the dead... After all is said and done, we are both murderers. Both stained. Both monsters.

The difference of course is that while Dimitri rejects the idea that why he and Randolph kill makes a difference, Edelgard highlights the fact that although they are both killing people she is doing it in service of the greater good, while Dimitri is just looking to satisfy his own desire for vengeance. It's a reflection of their deontological and consequentialist ethics respectively.

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

To be fair the localization wasn't too bad before Awakening, where it steadily got worse from there.

It's worth noting that even though Nohr's story is called Conquest, it's because Garon in particular is aiming for conquest, not the lead cast. His children don't agree with it and the main conflict is between Hoshido and Nohr, yes, but also between the kids and Garon, who makes the orders. Garon was clearly defined as a villain in Fates, so I don't think conquest (the term, not the route) itself is the issue.

Regarding Edelgard, from what I gathered (and none of this is joking), it's a combination of: straight men becoming too attached to her while writing her. Garon didn't have as much time in the writing room. He wasn't playable nor a main character. He was also male, to which the writers specifically highlighted that because they didn't have female (main) villains, that role went to a female [this time]. So now we have the fresh new female villain with lots of time with the writers... andddd a sex joke for Edelgard and only Edelgard (which was removed in the western version as I assume it wouldn't have gone over well here due to the teacher/student relationship and her being vulnerable at the time the joke is made by Byleth).

As for "enemies can only hate each other", that's a much more recent addition to FE. Like... Houses recent. In Awakening it wasn't there either. Mustafa is a perfect example, and Fates actually having a golden route as well.

When it comes to playable characters being your enemies, that was already done in FE10 and there was no outright hatred or filth spewing about each other. The characters were overall very respectful to their old friends (something rarely present in Houses, where it's usually "fuck you you're one the wrong side", with very few exceptions like Annette and Mercedes), as well as the enemies they had not met yet.

In RD none of the characters are seen as truly wrong. There's anger and confusion, but Micaiah finds it a shame that she and Soren have to fight despite both being Branded (their battle conversation in 3-7), but neither will back down for their own reasons and that's simply understood without actual hatred.

Later in 3-13, Ike (if in combat with Micaiah, who is the general of the Daein army) wants to understand why she's fighting when it clearly has no benefit for her. They're over here killing each other's soldiers, and for what? He wants to help, and it makes her realize everything Sothe said about Ike was correct and that her enemy was not even a bad person.

Characters who can be recruited also bear no ill will toward either army. Zihark for example, if recruited to Ike's army and thus leaves Micaiah's army, determines he wants nothing to do with Micaiah's army anymore because of them attacking the Laguz Alliance (and frankly many of the army soldiers i.e. the NPCs being bigots about it). However, it doesn't make him despise his old friends. He's just settled on his decision and thought about it for himself if a certain character (can be Lethe, Mordecai or Ilyana if Ilyana and Zihark had a PoR A support carried over) speaks to him and asks him why he's fighting with the enemy.

Overall that's the tone in RD. You fight friends and new enemies both, and Ike pretty regularly makes it extremely clear he won't stop or go easy on someone for being an old friend, but he's not cruel about it. He doesn't say cold things to them, like that he'd never want to associate with someone like that person (CF Ingrid to Sylvain, which was edited in loc to make her sound more disgusted with him instead of sad). There's also no villainizing any of these characters. Naesala comes closest to being outright villainized by other characters, but you're given the blatant truth of why he did what he did to cause people to react that way if you take him to the Tower of Guidance.

Houses' loc made a very specific point to have characters in CF treat their enemies, even old friends, like absolute scum of the earth for the side they fight for. They push it hard that the characters you play as while playing CF absolutely despise anyone not on their side (again, with few exceptions, but only few). The worst part is that the recruited characters didn't even get lines saying they fight for Edelgard's vision, but that they just followed their professor and that's... their reason. Because Byleth is there. Literally.

The loc's problem is primarily that it caters completely to CF/Edelgard and goes well out of its way to justify her and insist that she's always right and can do no wrong at all costs. Hopes also did this (including her non-answer when Dimitri says he's taking responsibility for what he does, and she says she "likes to think she does", i.e. does not admit she is or isn't, because one is either a blatant lie (that she is), or paints her in a bad light (that she isn't)).

I mean plain and simple it doesn't matter if you like Edelgard or not - the loc very specifically re-crafted the narrative at every opportunity to force the idea that the Empire is always right and just and that any who oppose them are horrible, villainous creatures who don't deserve to live. As you might expect, it's especially bad toward the Kingdom and Church characters.

Part of why it infuriates me, aside from the loc changes being bullshit, is specifically because RD exists. We have warring factions that aren't resentful of each other and treat individuals they fight against with respect. There's no trash talking each other or acting like they're the dumbest people in the world. Ike gets exasperated, but he doesn't insist Micaiah should just die for leading the enemy forces.

Hell, he even tries to go out of his way to ensure she doesn't die, even when it's getting progressively more difficult because the Chaos is affecting the laguz and Ranulf even says it's at the point that his troops will rip her to threads if they find her (which isn't even out of hate, but because of the Chaos affecting them so strongly).

Based on previous FE, there's no reason for the loc to change Houses so badly. It was, imo, specifically because there's a church faction (which is usually deemed evil by default in the west), and a church opposing faction with a pretty lady at the top who keeps calm and doesn't emote enough to fly into a rage when her trauma is stepped on over and over again (which is a HUGE problem with so many Edegard fans, who treat her trauma oh so well because of how she handles it, but treat Rhea and Dimitri extremely poorly for how they handle their trauma, instead of just accepting that how you react to trauma doesn't define the kind of person you are).

The loc pushed a hard narrative and got what they wanted, evidently.

Considering that the English translation prettied up Caspar's endings for Flower (changing "often out of control to "sometimes reckless" and removing the text confirmed Caspar's career involves invading other countries), while vilifying his non-CF ending (saying he had victims), yeah. Same with turning Rhea restoring the Church to her rehabilitating it. There's definitely reason to side-eye the changes made by the translation team.

TBH,

(bcs i didn't enjoy FE14)

FE16 and Nopes (and all Fodlan content) seriously made me reconsider my stance on the localisation.

After FE Tellius I knew (I mean after FE10) that changes/omissions existed but never thought they were deliberately made to push one character by destroying others, the general feeling was the same at the end of the game (we are supposed to worship Ike, the localisation played it up to 11, but FE10 does it on its own).

Now, FE16 ?

I was pleasantly surprised with FE15's voice acting so I thought the dark eras of lolcalisation were behind us...

But then Rhage popped up.

And with Rhage, I started to notice all little tweaks here and there made in the localised (some at least) scripts, that added end up with the result that "maybe Supreme Leader isn't that bad" that is pretty different from the JP/og version.

When FE10's loc said "Ike is the most awesome dude ever" instead of the jp FE10 saying "Ike is the most awesome dude", the Fodlan lolcalisation tries to give a different meaning to the solution/story given by the game!

As you pointed out, Caspar doesn't invade countries and is "sometimes" reckless, instead of being "out of control while invading the rest of the known world", his non uwu endings are worsened, Rhea was swapped by Rhage, the church needs to be "rehabilited" instead of "restored"...

I don't want to be overly critical and dissect everything when I'm playing a game, I'm playing first and foremost to enjoy myself but when I listen to Leigh's voiced lines and see this :

or this :

even if you're not thinking about localisation too much, you can see there is an issue in voice direction, which leads to discovering issues in script localisation and then... you start to ask "why", and come up with sad answers.

So, because Fodlan verse really disappointed me lolcalisation wise, even if I made exceptions earlier for FE14 and FE15, I can't be assed to trust the lolcalisation at all, so if a game has audio but no dual audio, it will be a hard pass.

Even if a kind soul, like the ones who made the FE Datamine site, compile and upload the script with the different audios to compare, it's a big no-no.

I know jp audio will not solve everything (especially if i still don't understand the jp script lol) but at least when the localised script tries to sell me the apple that is orange in the original script is akshually purple I'd have some clues about something being wrong.

More power to you if you like purple apples, but if I was supposed to get an orange apple, I would like to get this orange apple (or maybe red or yellow if needed), and not another product.

[themoomoorn]

Random Thot #46,853

I had a health exam for my upcoming new job and put my two weeks in for my current one, so I’m rewarding my neurodivergent ass-brain with this.  Sit tight and enjoy.

46,853: I’m half-convinced that Edelgard is like the Soul Series’ Alexandra sisters and daughter when it comes to her combat ability - or rather, lack thereof.  Unlike Claude, Dimitri, and Byleth, who all explicitly received combat training as children, Edelgard likely did not.  The tools given to her are what likely allow for her to fight at all - heck, they may even do a bit of the fighting for her.  How else can a noodle-armed womanlet like her wear all that armor and heft that axe?  

(Also, how the eff does this dress make clanking armor sounds when she walks in the game despite this dress having like no armor whatsoever)

To begin with, we have in-game factoids of her stat caps being the second highest in the game (390 when combined, with Cyril only beating her by 5 points due to his Aptitude skill), and she even has a magic cap that’s not only on-par with other magically-inclined units (72), but it’s actually better than some of them (Dorothea and Linhardt, who are both dedicated mage types, have caps of 61 and 66, respectively, while Manuela, who tends to get placed in Faith Magic-aligned classes despite being a hybrid unit, has a piddling cap 48).  She even has a quirky but feasible spell list for both magic types (Fire/Bolganone/Luna Lambda/Hades Omega for Reason, and Heal/Nosferatu/Recover/Seraphim for Faith, which is one of her banes, mind you).  I imagine this is the work of the experiments that gave her her version of the Crest of Flames - after all, the 2020 DREAM interview noted that the Hresvelg children were given a more “refined” version of the experiments the Ordelias had.  The refinement isn’t just reflected in-game with caps and magic too; Edelgard is also more robust in terms of health, whereas Lysithea is prone to bouts of weakness and illness.  In-game, she has poor Luck and Strength, and the single lowest HP cap of all the playable units at 48.  And while this one is admittedly conjecture, Edelgard doesn’t hint that her lifespan was drastically cut, as she gets to live a long life in all of her endings.  Even in her Crest-heavy ending with Hanneman or her healthcare-related ending with Manuela don’t mention that she had one or both of her Crests taken out.  Lysithea, on the other hand, is extensively motivated by the fact that she doesn’t have many years left, and it’s only in two endings (Lorenz, Balthus) where she’s able to live fairly long without removing her Crests; The rest either have her dying young or being able to live long only after her Crests are taken out.

Now what of her combat abilities?  Let’s turn to the source of where this silly thot came from.

For the uninitiated, Sophitia Alexandra, a fighter who’s been in the Soul Franchise since its very first game, did not grow up as a dedicated combatant like the other fighters - she was an ordinary baker living in Athens during the late 16th Century when Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire.  When she was bathing in a lake one day, she received a message from Hephaestus himself in that she has a divine destiny to destroy the cursed blade Soul Edge, and he gifts her with a divinely crafted short sword and shield in order to fulfill her mission.  While she does gain training in Athenian combat styles, a lot of her power and capabilities are tied to her weapon set, which are named the Omega Sword and Elk Shield.  Her younger sister Cassandra would follow suit in SoulCalibur II, actually going out of her way to steal the same holy armaments Sophitia used in Soul Edge and SoulCalibur I before getting her own specially empowered set.

(Sophitia Alexandra)

And Pyrrha, Sophitia’s daughter in SoulCalibur V, takes it to new heights.  Per a data book, the timid, mistreated Pyrrha has absolutely no combat experience, not even in self-defense.  While Sophitia and Cassandra were able to train themselves into formidable soldiers outside of their divine weapons’ influences, this is not true for Pyrrha.  If it were not for the sword and shield Pyrrha wielded (which is the same exact set Sophitia wielded before her passing), her clumsy attacks and timid guard stances would amount to ineffectual, useless flailing.  

(Info about Pyrrha’s fighting style from the SCV data book)

Back to the Egg.  Now it’s made abundantly clear that while Dimitri’s Jean Valjean-levels of raw strength heavily stem from his Crest, he’s also from the land where, in lieu of milk and honey, there’s extreme sports jock training in heavy armor in the dead of night with boulders for weights and weapon mastery.  Dimitri loves to train, and it’s a big aspect of his character.  The tritagonist of his route is also one of his combat trainers, and he’s done that job for three generations’ worth of Faerghus royalty, with his ending hinting that he keeps doing it for one more.  I imagine that even without the Crest of Blaiddyd, Dimitri would still be extremely strong and formidable, he’d just have to actually exert himself a little when saving some poor soul from a runaway cart.

(Just in case the savior imagery wasn’t clear enough with Dimitri, he even did lift a cart the way eventual saint Jean Valjean did in the book/musical)

Claude is far more in favor of covert combat, and his own Crest is more defensive than offensive, but he’s no slouch either, having had a renowned war general serve as his combat instructor since childhood.  He’s from a kingdom that, much like Faerghus, values the way of the warrior and prides itself on the strength of its people.  His hidden talent, tying to wyvern mastery, is in friggin axes, and he’s also shown to be adept enough with a sword at various points.  Plus there’s the fact that he was abused and mistreated by his Almyran family, complete with his father plopping him on a horse and making the horse ride off with him backwards with no safety net as a form of punishment - Claude tells Hilda that there was a “trick��� in how he survived that.  As any horse jockey can attest to, you need raw muscle in every part of your body in order to really ride one, and I imagine that’s doubly true for your local albino wyvern that’s decked out in Ottoman visual puns.  Plus learning how to be crafty and protecting oneself more covertly undoubtedly contributed to his combat abilities too.

(I mean you’d have to be shredded if you can pull off the Parthian shot on a fucking flying dragon.  61 Strength cap my ass.)

Byleth, as we know, grew up as a mercenary to the point of detriment.  There’s no need to go into extensive detail as to how Jeralt sacrificed almost everything else in exchange for contributing to Byleth’s combat abilities without being abusive and cruel, but even if you took away Byleth’s self-insert aspects, they’d likely bear a passing resemblance to Rei Ayanami in terms of behavior and attitude - An intended vessel/Avatar for a divine being from one end; Conditioned for little more than combat from another end.  Kind of a gloomy picture before she starts to express herself better and actually bond with other people meaningfully.  

(At least she’s cute as a button.  Kinda like Rei.)

But where does that leave Edelgard?  It’s a big question mark.  There’s no mention of her growing up with any kind of combat training, unlike the other three.  Heck, if tea time, Crimson Flower, and Heroes quotes are anything to go by, Edelgard grew up living a carefree lifestyle prior to the Insurrection.  She got to stuff her face with sweets and play with teddy bears and both dote and be doted on by her siblings.  Being child number 9 in her current generation, combat training and political studies likely weren’t major priorities for her, and since it’s speculated that Ionius favored her mother, she was likely lavished and spoiled by him.  After all, he expresses grief for her specifically when she inherits the throne from him, not the rest of her siblings.    

(Even the official merchandise notes how childish Edelgard is)

(This is all after she literally kickstarts her war, by the way).

While there’s varying degrees of elaborate flair that the Lords all wield their weapons with, Edelgard’s regular strikes with an axe feel far less rigid and more informal, and she’ll spin around her axe like it’s some kind of prop.  Her default battle stance isn’t even remotely protective and quite impractical; Dimitri’s stance with a lance is both of these things, while Claude’s arrow-twirling is a real-life exercise that’s done to keep the wrist flexible.  While she does refine her axe skills come Part II, she’ll still do things like throw her massive shield ten feet in the air for a critical hit.

(Seriously what even is this why is your hand out like that)

There’s even some proof of this: In her study request for axes and heavy armor, Edelgard will even acknowledge that the only reason she can likely keep up and wear heavy armor at all is because of her Crests.  And unlike Dimitri and Claude, who can get lesson plans for their respective Hidden Talents once they’re mastered (Horse riding for Dimitri, axes for Claude), Edelgard doesn’t get a lesson plan for Reason Magic, which is her Hidden Talent, so she likely didn’t get any kind of formal education surrounding magic either.  

(She has a similar quote in Heroes that’s even more explicit about this.)

The closest hint we get in Edelgard maybe having a hint of training as a child is in her Supports with Ferdinand, and even then, there’s no clear cut hint noting that his failures in beating her were combat-based.  She’s able to one-hit KO him in their B Support, but it’s locked to Part II and at this point she’s been both riding on the power highs of her Crests along with actually taking combat seriously.  She even says that their difference in skill level isn’t that great.

(Should’ve used Swift Strikes, Ferdie)

What’s more, in addition to all of those enhancements, she not only spends a lot of Part I in a custom set of armor that only archaic technology from the Agarthans can make, but they also made her a custom Relic that’s tailor-made to her specifications.  The other Relics as well as the Sacred Weapons, being over a thousand years old, still require their wielders to train in order to wield them properly, and in the case of the Relics, their potential cannot be fully tapped into unless the wielder’s Crest matches the Relic they’re wielding.  There’s also that particular safety issue, per what happens with Sylvain’s brother Miklan.  But this is not the case with Aymr, which is brand new, has a mismatched Crest that doesn’t negatively affect Edelgard, and requires the Agarthan tech-compatible Agarthium to fix, not the Umbral Steel that’s used to fix both the Heroes’ Relics and other Crest Stone weapons like the Vajra-Mushti.  The Aymr’s specific Combat Art even emulates the oft-broken Galeforce skill from Awakening and Fates.  It feels like that Aymr in particular is the Edelgard what Hephaestus’ swords and shields are to the Alexandra family.  

Now I don’t really think that an Edelgard who’d be stripped of her Crest of Flames, the Amyr, or her special Flame Emperor armor, would be as hapless as Pyrrha would be without her mother’s sword and shield.  I imagine she likely started to do some kind of formal combat training once the experiments were done with, not just to kickstart her dreams of imperial conquest, but also to protect herself anyway after everything that happened; She’s also the only Hresvelg heiress of her generation left.  There’s also her natural Minor Crest of Seiros to consider.  But if you stripped all that away from her, then her ability to fight probably would come off as useless flailing to the other three more experienced combatants.  

All those cakes and that lack of muscle would at least catch up to her, anyway.

[houseaegir]

Thoughts on Ferdinand’s contrasting character arcs in CF vs other routes? 👀

Ah, jeeze, I’m not sure I have anything new to add? People more eloquent and thoughtful than me have already written about this, but I shall do my best

He’s certainly at his lowest in non CF routes, perfectly encapsulated by his unique dialogue with Hubert in Enbarr “It does not matter what I think, those are my orders.” But I also find the preceding line extremely interesting, where even now Ferdinand wants Edelgard to leave and live on rather than stay and fight a losing battle to the death. I find it hard to believe Ferdinand’s orders are anything but “take the capital and the palace and kill/capture the Emperor”, so in a way he’s defying orders by urging Hubert to take Edelgard and retreat. But then Billy Kametz does such a good job of making Ferdinand sound so dead inside for those two lines and it breaks my heart, especially when Hubert is still being his typical dramatic self. (I am curious about the original Japanese script for those lines, since the localization flubbed so much around Edelgard I can’t trust these lines to be a completely accurate translation :/)

As much as I dislike the Edelgard+Ferdinand support chain for being totally meh in execution, their B and A supports are, I think, integral to Ferdinand’s CF character arc. He needs Edelgard to kick his ass so he can finally focus on something other than trying to outdo her. And he needs her to acknowledge his contribution and also state plainly that she values him as a friend regardless of his usefulness. Because someone’s got to. I don’t think anyone else ever actually says to Ferdinand’s face that they care about him for him and not just what he can do for them. (Side note: I can’t bring myself to like Hilda/Ferdinand as presented in the game. They’re kind of terrible for each other, with Ferdinand giving in and doing things for her and enabling her laziness, and Hilda seeming to only like him because he’s so easy to convince to do her work for her. The Hilda+Ferdinand support chain is the antithesis of the Edelgard+Ferdinand chain, rather fittingly seeing as they can’t coexist on the same route.)

There’s also the fact that Ferdinand is never abandoned in CF. When recruited, he spends the five years of the war on his own, with no one from the academy around to help. While in CF he’s always part of the BESF, he has a place among his friends for the whole five years and is never left adrift without a support network. (side note #2: When the heck is the BESF even formed? Edelgard comes up with the name in a cutscene shortly before the invasion of Garreg Mach at the end of WC, but then in the CF war phase everyone’s personal history says “1185: Reassigned to Garreg Mach when the Black Eagle Strike Force is formed.” So did Edelgard wait 5 years to actually put the name to use or??? This isn’t super relevant to Ferdinand’s character development, but I was referencing FEDataMine bc my memory is shit and getting confused.)

This is a rambly mess and I think I made about 0.5 of the points I was trying to make. I’m gonna refine this tomorrow and make the Edelgard vs Hilda supports thing my thesis

[natsspammityspamspamham]

Fire Emblem Three Houses (ENG vs JPN) - Opinion

This is just an opinion post for which I prefer. I have 650 hours and counting on the game, so I’ve had time to listen to a bit of both. These are the voices I prefer. I can’t say for sure which voice or dub is better. Overall, they’re both pretty solid. 

Byleth (Male): Yūsuke Kobayashi | Zach Aguilar I feel like Kobayashi’s voice fits better. I just didn’t like Zach’s interpretation for Byleth or Tanjiro. 

Byleth (Female) Shizuka Ito | Jeannie Tirado This one is more of a preference. 

Edelgard: Ai Kakuma | Tara Platt Again, I feel like this is more of a preference. I just feel like Tara Platt doesn’t sound like a teenager either. Ai Kakuma gives her more of a softer and more “girly” vibe if that makes sense?

Dimitri Kaito Ishikawa | Chris Hackney Chris is funny with Dimitri’s character. He goes from the whole “don’t eat the weeds” to the emotional scenes that are great, and as much as I really, really, really like Ishikawa’s dialogue as well, I didn’t get the nuance from the script of the Japanese version. 

Claude Toshiyuki Toyonaga | Joe Zieja This one is a tie. I couldn’t choose. I know everyone prefers Joe because he’s very involved with the fandom, but Toshi is really good too. If it makes sense, he gives Claude more of a romantic vibe? He seems a lot more flirtatious and suave in Japanese, but I will admit that there’s more nuance in the English script. Regardless, the confession scene feels way better in Japanese (Toshi does a lot of otome games so maybe it’s from that)

Hubert Katsuyuki Konishi | Robbie Daymond I don’t really like Hubert all that much, to begin with. Katsuyuki makes him sound less like a cartoon villain and more like an actual potential good guy to S-Support.

Dorothea Juri Nagatsuma | Allegra Clark When you have Dorothea and Mercedes on your team, you can only take so much “ara ara”. Allegra (not the allergy medication) also makes her sound a lot more natural. I personally didn’t notice the first time I played through that she was double-casted, but after a couple of times, I got tired of the whole “let’s hire one actor/actress to play more than one character!” 

Ferdinand Taito Ban | Billy Kametz Billy Kametz just won a Crunchyroll Award for his dubbing of Shield Hero, and I can definitely see that he’s really talented. He’s pretty prolific with his roles in other anime too like Cells at Work and Demon Slayer. Both of Ferdinand's voices are a good fit, but nothing beats the FE meme of “I am Ferdinand Von Aegir” 

Bernadetta Ayumi Tsuji | Erica Mendez I don’t really like either. You can open any dub out of a can, and Erica Mendez has a 50/50 shot of being there. Bernie’s JP voice is like a broken squeaky toy though, so Mendez just automatically wins. 

Caspar Satoru Murakami | Ben Diskin Besides double-casting (which I’m not a fan of), Ben just made Caspar sound like too much of a child even with the time skip. 

Petra Shizuka Ishigami | Faye Mata Petra’s English is probably a contributing factor. Localization does wonders.

Linhardt Shun Horie | Chris Patton You can also find Patton in a lot of other dubs. However, I just preferred Patton’s a bit more because it made him sound a bit more grown-up. Not to mention, some of his lines just fair better in English.

Dedue Hidenori Takahashi | Ben Lepley There’s such thing as making a voice a little too low, and after playing Crimson Flower, hearing the pain in Dedue’s voice after he loses his best friend is quite something.

Felix Yuichi Jose | Lucien Dodge Felix is a whiny brat, but I feel like Yuichi makes him feel like less of a whiny brat. 

Mercedes Yumiri Hanamori | Dorothy Elias-Fahn There was no competition. Yumiri’s voice is the absolute perfect fit for Mercedes. Elias-Fahn’s voice made her sound like a cartoon dinosaur.

Ashe Yūki Inoue | Shannon Mckain There’s a lot more character in Mckain’s voice. 

Annette Takako Tanaka | Abby Trott This is purely personal preference.

Sylvain Makoto Furukawa | Joe Brogie This one is a tie. I couldn’t choose. Joe Brogie does bring that “f-boi” vibe, but Sylvain’s confession scene in Japanese was really sweet while his English version was... passable. Furukawa’s got too much experience with those kinds of things. 

Ingrid Manaka Iwami | Brittany Cox She makes Ingrid sound so sweet, and her voice has so much more emotion and character compared to Cox’s version which sounds so flat at times. Also, her death line is infinitely better post-time skip in Japanese. 

Lorenz Hiroshi Watanabe | Ben Diskin Nobody likes Lorenz. 

Hilda Yūki Kuwahara | Salli Saffioti Again, there’s more nuance in the localized version. 

Raphael Takaki Otomari | Zachary Rice The amount of “himbo” energy stuffed into that dub is legendary. 

Lysithea Aoi Yūki | Janice Roman Roku Aoi Yuuki is a symbol in the seiyuu fandom because she does a lot of voices for little girls. 

Ignatz Shougo Yano | Christian La Monte They tried to do something with the JPN dub that didn’t quite work. They tried to make him sound much higher pre-time skip then made his voice hit puberty, and while I appreciate the authenticity and efforts put in, they couldn’t make it consistent so his voice was constantly going from high to low when exploring the monastery post-time skip. 

Marianne Sawako Hata | Xanthe Huynh I just prefer her more soft-toned voice. 

Leonie Sakura Nogawa | Ratana I don’t like Leonie that much really. 

Jeralt Akio Ōtsuka | David Lodge I like both, but Lodge is a better fit for the narrator too. 

Rhea Kikuko Inoue | Cherami Leigh I really like Cherami as a voice actress, but this feels like a great miscast. Her singing voice for Rhea isn’t great either, and her screams felt subpar at best. Kikuko Inoue really gave her that “wise old lady” vibe. 

Sothis Tomoyo Kurosawa | Cassandra Lee Morris I don’t really like Sothis. I still say that they could’ve made a better character than that. Her child voice is offputting too. 

Manuela Sachiko Kojima | Veronica Taylor No preference here because I never cared for her or ever really put her in combat. 

Hanneman Kenji Hamada | W. T. Falke Hamada’s voice was a bit too deep. Besides that, the same as Manuela. 

Catherine Chie Matsuura | Laura Post No preference here. 

Alois Manabu Sakamaki | Dave B. Mitchell His character is based on puns, so of course, English dubbing will prevail here. 

Seteth Takehito Koyasu | Mark P. Whitten Mark dubbed some fan lines, and his voice is much more distinctive and isn’t associated with any big-time characters yet (cough Dio). 

Flayn Yuko Ono | Deva Marie Gregory Yuko Ono’s voice is way too high. It rivals Bernadetta.

Jeritza Atsushi Imaruoka | Patrick Seitz Patrick did a great job directing this dub, but Jeritza sounds like he’s constantly about to yawn in the English version. 

Shamir Yurina Watanabe | Allegra Clark Their voices are extremely similar in quality. I just have a bit of bias, and I don’t like double-casting. 

Cyril Kengo Kawanishi | Griffin Burns I don’t like Cyril. Yuri Junya Enoki | Alejandro Saab Junya provides a really good voice for Yuri. It makes him sound even more like his character if that’s even possible. Junya gave much more of that trickster “Claude” kind of vibe. It’s hard to decipher, but despite being kind of similar, Junya wins by a landslide despite Saab providing a stellar dub. 

Balthus Subaru Kimura | Aaron Hedrick I think it’s because of the localized script. His voice is also a perfect fit for the character. 

Constance Sarah Emi Bridcutt | Kirsten Day I can’t take all the “OHOHOHOHO” laughing all the time. 

Hapi Sachika Misawa | Christine Marie Cabanos Hapi’s localized script is really down-to-earth and adds to her character more. 

[supergenial]

Cindered Shadows was pretty decent

I recently finished the Cindered Shadows DLC and decided to once again write about my impressions, don't worry though, this one isn't as long as the previous ones. Spoilers: I think this is as good as fire emblem is gonna get for a while.

1) No Agarthans, thank GOD

A story as old as fire emblem: There's an interesting human villain with down to earth motivations or obsessions, but in the large scale of the story they're overshadowed by a supernatural being who wants to destroy the world for no reason other than "they're just evil". This is Edelgard and the Agarthans, Arvis and Manfroy/Loptous, Rudolph and Duma, Ashnard and Ashera, Walhart and Grima... you get it. This shit sucks to put it bluntly. Having these stereotypically evil bad guys who are clearly evil is one of the main things that brings down the plot of any fire emblem game. I'm of the belief that they should kick out these supernatural villains and just leave us against the human villains, the one's with actual ideals and beliefs other than "hurr durr, destroy the world".

And then there’s our villain for this DLC. Now yes, it feels like they recycled a certain professor from the Harry Potter series, but I like that he is "The" bad guy for the DLC, he's not being controlled by anyone. He's obsessed with Byleth's mom and in-game this makes a lot of sense. If Byleth, who is incapable of communication, can drive people crazy for them just by existing then just imagine a Byleth who can actually talk. Her "waifu" charms must be off the charts, so I can't blame this guy for being obsessed. More importantly he's not being controlled by the Agarthans, he's not being played by anyone. He's a man who's lived a righteous life, he took care of a lot of people who all love him but ultimately decided to use them for his own gain and his own obsessions. As far as FE villains go... He's good, honestly, great job Intelligent Systems, I expected a lot less.

2) Reduced avatar wanking

Shots fucking fired

Sure, Byleth's mom is a main focus of the plot, and Byleth is the one who sets the plot in motion, but rarely does it feel like the game is going "gee Player, you're so great, you're our god, we all love you and want to marry you". Byleth still plays a large role sure (unfortunately) but it still feels like this is the story of Yuri and his gang with Byleth being their strategist which is, idk, way better than the idea behind the main game? The one where Byleth turns into a literal god, gets every achievement of the army attributed to them only, has every other conversation remind us how glorious Byleth is, etc.

In fact the dlc goes as far as having Hapi constantly belittle Byleth and even make fun of their communication skills by calling him Chatterbox (good job to the localizers, she doesn’t say this in the japanese audio). Get that teacher’s ass girl, destroy them. (Obviously I would hate this behavior if it was directed to someone else, but in this case I'm willing to make a concession).

3) Yuri's backstory

Ashe: I admire and love this man who is my only parental figure but Rhea said he's kind of bad so I killed him Yuri: Church ordered me to kill a bunch of thieves and delinquents and I refused

You have no idea who much I love the fact that Yuri is someone who protested his orders and got kicked out of the church for refusing to kill civillians. This instantly sends him very high in my rankings. Playing through the first half of the game all I wanted was to stop and say "No, Lady Rhea, fuck you. I don't think it's very cash money for the most powerful military force in the continent to eradicate a lightly armed militia of farmers (with popular support in their locality!)" this is what true imperialism is all about! But there is sadly no option for that.

Just by telling us that Yuri is someone who was punished for saying "No, these orders are inhumane, I refuse to carry them out" that is enough for me, the game is saying "yes, we know, have your compensation price". In the end Yuri is extremely loyal to Rhea which is unfortunate but hey, at least they lampshaded one of the most glaring issues I have with the main game, so that's at least something.

4) "You've obtained all information. Proceed with the story, NOW"

Rather than wasting time forever thinking up which activity I should carry out, abyss is simply a place where you talk to the abyssal denizens to get some plot information or speculation, and boom, you're done. No running around forever, no quests, no doors that take ages to load. You can perfectly skip the abyss parts and at most you'll miss out on Edelgard's conversation with Dimiri (which is fucking hilarious) and a few rusted weapons that can be forged but that's it. Upon talking to every resident of the abyss the game will actually say you’ve acquired all information and will prompt you to go into combat rather than assume you want to dilly dally for a while.

I actually rather like this and would not be opposed to it being the philosophy behind future in-between segments between chapters. I can understand IntSys wanting to load in a ton of features like a sauna and fishing to rack up excitement for the game, I know I was excited for fishing, but when these activities have rewards tied to them, replaying becomes kind of a chore, "aw geez, I have to fish 69 fish to reach professor rank A+ AGAIN" (I actually had to when trying to get the piss screen from clearing maddening). Getting only some conversations and a bit of context for the story, that's... pretty good honestly, I liked this better than the monastery and better than My Castle. Throw in some skits with multiple characters at once and I’m gold

(seriously how come there’s no scenes with the three of the bros, Dimitri, Sylvain and Felix all hanging out together, the fact that a third character never shows up in support conversations is fucking bad)

5) Sometimes less is more

I've extensively complained about three houses already but bear with me. Yet another thing that infuriates me about the game is the extensive amount of work it required. I truly do think that if they had released only the blue lions route and left everything else in the plot as mysterious and unexplained loose ends left entirely up to speculation, that'd be a great game on it's own. Instead I have to see all the hard work that went into making the other routes only so that, in the end, they just had me going "well it was ok I guess". Every scene in the game requires work, many hours of coding, writing, voice acting, sound editing, making sure the models don't look too messed up, bug testing, etc. The amount of work that went into three houses was brutal regardless of what you think of the final product, yet a lot of people didn't even bother playing through all of that. So yes, I honestly wanted less, give me a more concise game rather than spreading too wide and ending up thin.

Cindered Shadows on the other hand is concise to a fault to make up for that. The story is pretty straightforward and leaves no loose ends to itself, there's no anime cutscenes, no supports (within abyss, you can support them all in the main game). There's even that very awkward sacrifice scene where some characters are having their life and blood drained from them yet the visual representation we see is just them standing around like normal, with Yuri even doing that hand pose he does all the time instead of squirming in pain or something. It's very awkward looking, objectively not good, but it gets the point across and doesn't make me go "wow you put in all this effort for nothing" because the whole thing is also fairly short (5 to 10 hours in hard mode).

I know, it sounds like I'm shitting on the dlc, but the point is I'd much rather get something short that leaves me satisfied than something like the main game that makes me go "this could've been so hecking gooood if they changed X" for the rest of my life.

6) The gameplay

Chapter 4 is my favorite mission in the whole game

They made Hard Mode good. I previously said maddening was the one difficulty where this game made sense, but this one achieves perfection with just hard mode. This is because the team actually knows what you have. In the main game there's all sorts of variables to account for due to the large amount of player expression that is possible, you can reclass anyone into anything and throughout many lucky or unlucky level ups, maps can be entirely different based on that rng and choices. Here though, your characters already have solid bases starting at lvl 20, and you can't reclass too much so the devs know exactly what you're working with and can plan accordingly. Beating the maps feels incredibly satisfying not just because the objectives have more variety now, but also because you feel like you found the right way to use the tools you were given. This is why the first few chapters of any fire emblem game often feel so good, because the devs know exactly what you have.

Not that I think player expression is bad! It's very satisfying to warp skip chapters and to use broken units like battalion vantage+wrath Dimitri as these things make you feel like you've truly subjugated the game, but it takes some time for those things to really take off. There's a time to reap and a time to sow, and the sowing time can get pretty dull sometimes but that's what makes the payoff feel worth it. Still, for a short experience like cindered shadows is, this style just fits perfectly, plus chapter 4 has quickly become one of my favorite chapters in the whole game, along with chapter 6.

7) In The End

Idk folks, I just like it. If you just want more adventures with the three lords, this is it.

If you’re looking for any excuses to avoid this I'd say the better ones are: maps are reused from the main game (they work much better here though), it's 10 hours at most so it's price-to-cash ratio isn't very good with the expansion pass being $30, and also the Abysskeeper feels a bit TOO winkwink nudgenudge to me, especially since Gatekeeper was popular enough to make it into Super Smash Brothers. Like yeah bro, we get it, we all love Gatekeeper, you didn't have to do this.

I also like that they finally gave Dimitri a semi-problematic quote where he says he kinda likes the idea of poor people living underground out of sight, I think it’s a very rich-white-boy flaw to have and not entirely awful given his life experience up to that point. And yes I do think he has no flaws and is entirely unproblematic in the main game, “feral” as he may look it doesn’t seem like he goes around killing civilians or doing anything other than busting up imperial troops which is kind of justified since they started the invasion, on top that he’s the strongest unit in the game and the most chill and honest ruler once he calms down, so little dent in his record that’s irrelevant in the large picture is indeed welcome.

Overall though, after being so massively disappointed by the Fates DLC, so much I didn't even bother with the ones for Echoes, I certainly like what I'm seeing here and that's a good sign, bravo Intsys.

[themoomoorn]

Let's throw in some more to this disaster stew:

- While a localization can't do a 1:1 smooth translation of working around specific Japanese pronouns nd tics, there are ways of making it work, with Awakening's Vaike being one example. In 3H, the Flame Emperor uses the very old fashioned and pompous, arrogant masculine pronoun "wagahai" (我輩). Combine this with dialogue changes like "making the world what it once was," in tandem with Edelgard's dialogue when not dressed as the Flame Emperor, and it becomes clear that, whether or not one believes that Agartha truly has a leg up on her, Edelgard is arrogant and truly believes in both the supremacy of her Empire and her ideals.

- Another gendered language example: Ingrid isn't meant to be tomboyish at all in Japanese, but rather extremely feminine. Her inflictions, pronouns, and grammar structure are all very polite and feminine, and in Japan, dutifulness combined with prim and serious behavior pins one as feminine by default. She just happens to not care about hyper-feminine things like makeup and sewing, which is kinda justified when you consider that despite her noble title, her family is poor.

- Certain same-sex A-Supports that had romantic connotations were toned down, despite this game allegedly being a bastion of LGBT+ representation. The two most pointed examples are Felix/Sylvain and Catherine/Shamir, the latter being one that explicitly mentions the idea of the two of them getting married.

- More church demonizing: In an early Explore phase of Cindered Shadows, a resident of Abyss (or Linhardt, I can't remember who) will say about the surface-world library that "the church's library is...well curated" with derision, implying more censorship outside of Seteth banning content that fits one of two categories: Anything that would out the Nabateans...or smut. The original JP line instead states that a lot of the library's books were destroyed, citing the fire that took place around the time Byleth was born, and in a more neutral tone.

- Poor, poor Claude. tl;dr: The "sneaky schemer" bit was so overplayed in the localization that it borders on character assassination. There's also how they damn-near erased how his life experiences made him deeply cynical towards others; When it pops up in the localization (Azure Moon 19 being a good example), it feels weirdly disconnected.

- While Heroes does a better job (it's half-assed but better) in displaying how Edelgard is meant to be a villain, many of her alts still have more flattering dialogue, specifically her Fallen alt. There's also how the vocal direction for Byleth, for some damned reason, makes them sound like robots instead of emotionally stunted. Finally, the localized rendition of Brave!Claude has a weird aversion to not bring up Byleth, unlike in JP where he fondly does several times.

- To further hit home that she's part of the Red Emperor family of archetypes, Edelgard wears the term "hegemon" like it's going out of style in Japanese. The track used for her and the Eagles (localized as "The Leader's Path") is "The Hegemon's Path" in JP, and her personal Battalion (localized as the "Supreme Armored Co.") was originally the "Hegemony Armored Corps" (覇鎧隊). In Heroes, her Fallen Alt will have her boastfully mention hegemony in one of her lines, which the localization excises.

In general, what are the differences between the English and Japanese scripts?

I might not be the best person to ask this to, since I don’t speak Japanese. The most general answer I can give, from all I’ve seen translators talk about, is that Edelgard was toned down a good bit in the English version. She was localized to be someone who:

wasn’t as much in control as she was in the Japanese version (I believe Cornelia’s death scene - in CF? - has her saying that Edelgard had them dancing to her tune, for example. The English version implies basically the opposite),

wasn’t doing as many of the bad things she does (no information campaigns and in VW she was there to destroy the Crest Stones in the Holy Tomb; there were information campaigns and she was explicitly there to take the Crest Stones in the Japanese version),

somehow wasn’t as blatant in her want to kill all the Nabateans (this line is more clearly about obliterating the Nabateans specifically in the Japanese version, where this is far more vague)

There are also more things that tend to lean in favor towards Edelgard in the Eng version than in the Jpn version, along with more changes outside of Edelgard specifically. If you want a better answer I’d suggest going to someone who can properly translate the Jpn version, like (and sorry if you find this annoying bud lol) @garlandgerard who’s answered a lot of questions going over the differences between the two versions