Moogle Translate

Kain: The Shooting Star (Credit: Yoshitaka Amano) Now I’m going to have to head this post off with a disclaimer: I love Kain. He’s the best. Kain > Cecil every day of the week. So yes, there may be some bias towards how awesome he is in this post but, interestingly, that does actually have a lot to do with the writing and translation. Let’s take a look, shall we? Shooting stars are full of passion and spirit and energy…. and then they fall as lumps of cold, hard stone. Kain, in a similar vein, is full of passion and emotion in the Japanese translation…. and is cold and often emotionless in the English version. I should say, there’s nothing inherently wrong with either: they’re two very legitimate styles of writing. But when we compare the two versions, it’s interesting to note the differences it builds up in his character - right from the start to the end. In the very early stages of the story, Kain and Cecil are ordered to go to Mist and, upon seeing the l...

Final Fantasy VII Remake - A Brief Look at the Translation Credit: Square Enix Given the recent release of Final Fantasy VII - Remake-, I thought it was only natural that I’d start this blog off again with a small appraisal of the translation job in this game! Now it’s no secret that the original game had some… interesting translations. (‘you are sick!’, anyone?). But now isn’t the time for going into that. And I’m not trying to cast aspersions onto the original translators either - Final Fantasy VII is text-heavy, even by today’s standards, and I don’t know who those translators were and what the circumstances they were working in were like. Although, given the industry’s reputation back then, I’d expect it was probably with little resources and an even littler amount of time. So, I think it’s high-time that Final Fantasy VII got a new, polish translation and, my main take-away is: it's great! Of course, it’s time for a few disclaimers here. I don’t have full ...

Cecil: A Knight's Tale   (Picture: Sqaure Enix) Cecil, I’ve always thought, is one of those characters who simply… is. If I had to pin down his personality, I might compare him to a knight - but what else? It’s probably just me more than anything else, but his personality has quite often felt a little bit hard to exactly define. But now, after analysing his character in the Japanese and English versions of the game script, I understand why. ‘My Lord, do you know the name of the knight who won the tournament at Winchester, the one with red arms who wore the Sleeve on his helmet?’ ‘Why do you ask?’ Said the king. ‘Because,’ replied Sir Gawain, ‘I do not think you know who it was’             …. ‘And who was he?’ Asked the king. ‘I shall soon know if you are telling the truth.’ ‘My Lord,’ he said, ‘it was Sir Lancelot del Lac.’ ( Le Mort D’Arthur , 30). ‘Sir knight, you are certainly we...