Localization is NOT Translation (and that's OK)
74Patreon- https://www.patreon.com/JP2427
Twitter/X- https://x.com/JP_2427
Ko-fi- https://ko-fi.com/jp2427
Over the last few decades, Japanese media has slowly become more and more popular in the west. Whether it's Japanese Video Games, anime, or anything in between, it's hard to deny that the west has slowly become more and more accepting of works from other cultures. And rightfully so. Cultural and societal differences can go a long way to creating fresh and unique takes on various ideas and stories, so being able to share those around the world is great for the innovation of media as a whole. Over the past few years however, there’s been more and more discussion on how these works are adapted into the English language. A lot of people feel the way these works are being brought over is butchering the source material, or that they're inserting western ideologies where they don’t belong. As someone who consumes a lot of Japanese media, this discussion has caught my eyes more than a few times, and now more than ever it seems there’s a lot of confusion around what constitutes as “meddling in someone else’s work”, vs faithfully adapting it for another culture. So out of personal curiosity, I decided to do some research on the topic, and I found the results to be pretty interesting