#this is without getting into issues of just how paranoid fan translators are of over-localizing

[huntunderironskies]

Actually. Sorry, I know I said I don't like talking about joseimuke on this account because it makes me sound deranged, but I have to share this (esp since I try to keep my sideblog more positive because God knows we need it.)

So one of the projects I like to keep up with is Cordgem, which. God how do I explain this. Uh, okay, so Cordgem takes place in steampunk alternate history Japan while there's a zombie apocalypse going on, which is only focused on some of the time because we need to think about the REAL drama which is the idol stage battles sorry, I've received a note from the writers the word I'm supposed to use is 歌仙衆 and not idol group, which means.... oh goddamnit how the fuck am i supposed to read this-- oh wait, there's furigana. That means Kasenshuu, of course. What's a Kasenshuu?

Uh, well, that's a great question. I am definitely not stalling for time while frantically tabbing through a kanji dictionary to tell you the answer. In this case, 歌仙 (kasen) is a term used to refer to particularly legendary poets of classical Japanese literature. I think this has been translated into English as "Immortal Poets" (the 仙 in it is used in other phrases to refer to Daoist immortals!) Then the 衆 (shuu) part is a large group of people, so...Immortal Poet Gang Battles. That's what they're having. Not idol stage battles. Important distinction.

Hey, note to my editor, I'm highlighting this so I can come back later and come up with a translation that's not awful. Absolutely willing to bounce ideas off you. Thanks.

You are probably starting to see why translator burnout is an issue and why I don't usually do it in text-heavy mediums. In fact I am absolutely positive I've gotten something wrong here in my research but I've spent like half the day going down rabbit holes trying to work out the worldbuilding here because I don't know that much about Meiji era Japan. In fact this could be Taisho era, I'm getting really thrown off by the fact that one unit seems to be wearing uniforms closer to Taisho fashion and I can't tell if I'm just massively overthinking it.

A final bit of background information: joseimuke fandom in EN-speaking countries survives largely on unpaid fan translators. The number of projects that get ported over to the US and translated properly has only recently exceeded numbers that can be counted on one hand. There are a lot of reasons why that's the case and most of it can be explained as corporate bullshit. Either way, fandoms in EN remain very small, grassroots affairs.

So there's been...an attempt to translate it. I generally avoid trying to do my own work on a project that's already been "claimed" by another translator. One, to avoid burnout because there's way more than you'd think out there that either got orphaned by their translators or haven't been touched yet, two, out of respect for the work of other people who are passionate about the same very niche things I am. I'd considered trying to translate it, saw that someone on a formerly blue bird site was working on character bios, and dropped the idea to focus on Executioner instead. A quick look showed they weren't just manually copying from Google Translate so I decided to leave it be and work on my own stuff.

Anyways, back to steampunk zombie Meiji (possibly Taisho, results unclear) era Japan. One of the groups who's dealing with the zombie apocalypse front is a duo unit of offbrand Catholic priests. Here they are.

Badly cropped screenshot of the site because I refuse to spend any more effort on this than I already have and ripping art assets takes a while. All I will say is, yes, your eyes do not deceive you, Agito (the guy on the left) isn't wearing pants. At least he managed to put on half a shirt.

Now, I can hear you through the computer screen, because I'm psychic. You're saying, "Why does the one priest look like the sole reason he can walk around without flashing people is prayer and an extensive amount of body tape?" This is a valid question, one that has yet to be answered by the writers. I hope such critical information will be addressed in their drama track, it will be very important for cosplayers to know. While often underappreciated, cosplayers are a valuable part of our community. You may also wonder, "Can you back up and explain literally anything about the world, like the Catholic Church We Have at Home who seem perfectly fine with their priests going around only about two-thirds dressed or the zombie apocalypse or the steampunk tech that apparently exists?" Also valid questions. I could but it's funnier if I don't. Besides, you saw how long I took trying to explain one kanji reading.

Anyways, I was very interested in them so I kept an eye for the translated version of their bios. Now, the translation that OP made for their title in the church was "Auror."

Yes, like in Harry Potter.

I was reasonably certain that Auror wasn't a real word, so a friend of mine checked, and it is indeed something that Jowling Kowling Rowling made up. So, how did this happen?

Well, checking back over their JP bios, the term used for their title is 闇祓い (lit. yami-harai). This combines the kanji for yami/darkness with the kanji for harai/ritual purification. Not even close to "Auror." However, 闇祓い was the phrase that the official JP translation for Harry Potter used instead of Auror (I'm assuming because the closest you could get in JP as a literal translation is something like オーラル/ooraru and that sounds...weird? Maybe? I don't know.) This is the term that google will spit out at you if you plug in the two together.

But, you know. Exorcist. The word was supposed to be something close to exorcist in this context, just a lot fancier and using cooler phraseology. You could probably come up with a fun localization if you're smarter than me. But they aren't wizard cops. Free my boys, one of them is a trust fund kiddie and the other is a freak but they still don't deserve to be associated with Harry Potter.

Just. I get it. It uses so many rarely used/archaic kanji readings that a lot of the in-universe terms have to be written with furigana above them just so people know how it's supposed to be read despite being aimed at adults. I made a joke about it above. And translating is really hard. I'm not even opposed to people who are relative beginners to learning Japanese using translation as a way to improve their language skills, I think it's a good way to do it. Also I would be a huge hypocrite if I condemned it because I'm doing it.

But if you see kanji in a combination that you don't recognize or looks off when you throw it into a machine translator, please. Please just get a kanji dictionary. There's online ones to use. Jisho is incredibly detailed. There are even some where if you can't copy in a kanji, you can draw it in a little prompt box. You don't have to get the stroke order right. The detection is really sophisticated. I know it sucks because it slows down the translation process a lot and people can be incredibly entitled about getting translations ASAP at the cost of quality but a little wait is worth it for making something you're proud of and that shows the quality of the series you're working on.

And doesn't commit a plagarism on an extremely cantankerous transphobe too, which is also important.