Great article!
I am a huge fan of all the niche titles published by the above companies. I think the market for these titles is often under estimated, and would like to see more. I think fans of such titles would be happy with quicker/dirtier localizations, no-english voiceover; etc. This would bring publishing costs down significantly, and give western fans more of the truly niche games. Also, there is a big scene of homebrew and independently published PC games in Japan that never make it here. I would love to be able to download these games with nothing more than a text translation, or maybe buy a collection of the "best of" some of these niche titles that make Atlus games look mainstream.

Companies like these are the only thing stopping me from importing games and modding the console to play them.

I would agree. It was shortly after falling in love with Secret of Mana that I realized perhaps I had an affinity for anything Japanese. I was mostly right (I can't really stomach eel and squid sushi, though I have never had a taste for seafood to begin with) and have since been borderline obsessed with Japanese culture.

I love Atlus. Never before have I had such fun emulating the life of a Japanese high school kid during the day who shoots himself in the head time and time again to summon a demon to cast spells during the night.

@Tom Newman, I think Japanese developers would have a problem with that.

Many Japanese developers I know really care about their craft and would be horrified to have their creations given the "quicker/dirtier" localization treatment.

How would you like it if you were the TV commercial director in that scene from the film "Lost in Translation" and your impassioned directions were being butchered by the "interpreter" and your actor (Bob) didn't understand the subtle nuances demanded in the acting?

It might have been comical in the context of the film, but Japanese creators can be really that intense, even in something that might seem trivial like TV commercials, or in the case of games, localizations.

@Yasuhiro Noguchi
By quicker/dirtier I really meant keeping the game true to the original. Often times even a decent localization can degrade the game, especially with overdubbed english voices. Also, sometimes elements of the game can change to make it more friendly to western gamers. All of this can take away from the game.
I am also a huge fan of Japanese films, and would rather see the original film as it was produced for Japanese audiences, with subtitles of course, than to see a re-edited version with cheesy english dubbing. The re-edits and dubbing is very expensive and takes away from the original vision. The same is true for many games. I fully understand your point, and really believe we are on exactly the same page :)

Tom, I'm not really sure that's an entirely fair statement. There are quite a few games and movies where I would much rather listen to an English track than the Japanese track (some Korean movies where this is true as well). To say that it takes away comes with the assumption that the new tracks cannot be better than the originals and suffice to say, this just isn't true.

In particular, I found the voice acting in Persona 4 to be a marvelous English dub, particularly Chie's character. There are also times where jokes and other cultural references can and will be lost in translation and I think that oftentimes a good localization team realizes this and can only address it properly with a re-dub or re-translation.

People tend to focus on companies like Nintendo and Valve expanding and changing the gaming market (and its certainly true; they are in their own ways). However, I like to think that the companies described in this article as playing an important role in that as well. No, we're not talking about million+ sellers, but a lot of 100,000~200,000 unit titles can go a long way. Combine these with the larger scale Japanese offerings by Capcom, Square-Enix, Bandai-Namco, etc. and I think that there is great potential for introducing western audiences to a lot of fantastic titles.

Personally, I've been shocked as of late as to what titles have been announced for release (or released) in Western territories by these companies: Sakura Taisen, Retro Game Challenge, Kenka Bancho, Lux-Pan, Flower, Sun & Rain, Sky Crawlers, Persona 3, FES, and 4 coming so late in the PS2 life-cycle, as well as Devil Summoner 2, not to mention all of the "smaller scale" RPG's, primarily for handhelds, that could very easily be ignored, but are actually finding life, and hopefully an audience. I couldn't imagine these titles appearing at the local game retailer only 10 years ago. Its a great time to be excited about games!

Tom's statement seems entirely fair to me. I mean, he did say it is His opinion only.

Tom has already expressed it well but I will add to his argument. A localization team can have different approaches to their work. They can be 'Faithful' in their approach, trying to stick to the meaning of the original text as much as possible. On the otherhand they can be 'Adaptive', reinventing jokes, reengineering lines of dialogue, redesigning characters (by simply using a different timbre of voice) or even go so far as to redraw individual pixels such as street signs, banners, etc all in the name of pleasing the mass markets. Obviously there needs to be a balance between the two approaches.

A game which requires a strong understanding of Japanese culture would alienate a large portion of gamers. But a game which changes much of the meaning to suit a broader audience is an unfaithful translation and the original Devs will probably be hugely offended. There was this nice interview with Shane Bettenhausen of Ignition Entertainment where he had a bunch of things to say about localizing Japanese games somewhere on this site. Also Leigh Alexander touched on this topic in her last podcast appearance on the Digital Cowboys.

Anyone who is acquainted with Japanese media (manga, anime, TV, games) know that their creators delve deeply in subtleties, i.e. small character details in the way they speak, behave and interact. Most of these incredible works of detail goes unnoticed by Western publishers and become absolutely slaughtered during the localization process thus endangering the meaning of whole texts and upsetting fans and devs. Larsa Solidor from Final Fantasy XII had a strong, pure-hearted and earnest Japanese voice to illustrate that he was not stained by politics and warfare and that his views were idealistic and naive only to cause his story to be all the more sorrowful when he learns of the bloodied history of his family and country. In the English version, his voicework was replaced by a bratty, snob-nosed kid. Bratty snob-nosed kid running my country? No thank you.

Equally in Persona 4 (addressing Stephen Keating now), while I agree that Atlus have done a superb job with the English dubs, they've absolutely slaughtered Yukiko as a character. Yukiko was meant to be the embodiment of beauty and mannerism in appearance but instead she was actually an immature kid lacking good self-control. It ties in with the theme of the game greatly. Two personas in one person. Her Japanese voice was a perfect 'refined lady' type, But they went on to wreck her character by putting on some spicy, Southerner cowgirl with heavy nasal accent for her English voice, thus destroying the original text.

Another example, Odin Sphere uses childish cartoon voices, the stuff you find on a Saturday morning cartoon for the kids. Why? Because they think the game is a fairy tale! And if its a fairy tale they ought to use kiddie language. If you've played Odin Sphere, you would know the content of the story is too mature for any ordinary fairy tale. Play the Japanese tracks alongside the English ones and be blown away.

Another villain, NIS America, for their horrible localizations. Patrick Gann from RPGfan.com rips them apart well.
http://www.rpgfan.com/editorials/2009/03-01.html

I can understand why there are fans that hate dubs, because they can be done so poorly and distastefully. Japanese devs are wary of Western publishers and rightfully so (An even bigger problem in the American Anime industry).

ATLUS is the best we've got. They're good, but I think they can be better. Its time to step up that plate and pay the extra attention to detail to please the most hardcore of fans, like myself, that form some 1% of your consumer base... Or not.

I think this is a very good article. Personally, I'd like to see a follow-up with interviews from small Japanese developers. The only problem is the nature of indirect communications by the Japanese; the true meaning is usually not literally or explicitly stated. The focus on relationships and "who you know" is very much standard Japanese business practice, as is the extended negotiating period. This is something a lot of the English market still doesn't seem to understand; it's just not feasible to license any particular title even if it is believed that it would sell very well. To do so, it's necessary to have specific contacts, but if those contacts do not exist (or if they do not wish to license the product for whatever reason) there's little that can be done. Japanese tend to look at business partnerships (and employment, for that matter) as similar to marriage; they usually look at the long term relationship and permanent compatibility. The comments about the pride of Japanese developers are also quite accurate, but it's worth noting that some Japanese do not necessarily care about their own work or how it is conveyed to others. I would say that the majority do, though, no matter what the work might be.

It might be good for us to recall that the modern game market over the past two decades or so, especially in the world of consoles of all types, has largely been due to Japanese products, including many relatively unknown titles by small developers as well as products offered by major Japanese publishers and developers. I don't agree that various titles offered today would not have been viable ten years ago; in fact, there were titles ten years ago that were offered but were relatively unknown (such as NIS' Puppet Princess of Marl Kingdom [aka Rhapsody]).

The replies here about the problems with localized products are pretty relevant, too. I've been complaining since the days of the PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16 that I do not want English dubs of games. With the technology available today and the expanding global market, it's even more pointless to refuse to offer the original Japanese voices. However, once again, the decision is often made by the rights owners in Japan, and they may insist on a dubbed version. In addition, they may insist on certain other changes based on their views of the market potential for the product. This happens in manga and anime, too, of course, or even products from countries such as America that are taken to other countries from their native culture.

I'd like to add one big problem with such localization attempts that was not mentioned in other replies. Namely, even someone who is bilingual (and, hopefully, bicultural) will not be able to offer a localization that conveys the entire meaning of a scene to every diverse individual who might be experiencing the product outside of its native culture. I'd say that in most cases, localization attempts wind up being personal, subjective views about how to convey meaning(s) to (stereotyped) individuals of another culture. This happens because localization attempts in mass media entertainment are not being executed by professional researchers, academic scholars, or experienced interpreters who have worked as translators for politicians, business leaders, etc. The goal is "to sell product" rather than "to be accurate and academically, culturally aware and sensitive." This is a very unfortunate situation and occurs due to the friction between business, academe, and consumer markets. We would be far better served on all accounts if business and academe worked together in order to offer entertainment that accurately educates while entertaining. This is a very worthwhile goal, but it seems that decision makers in business and academe are not ready to face the facts about the power of entertainment as a pedagogical tool. I don't mean in formal class settings, either, although that is certainly true, too. I mean entertainment as it educates through its use in daily society around the world right now, even if that "education" is inaccurate and misleading. People are learning through entertainment media; it's the responsibility of business and academe to ensure that the information is accurately portrayed within cultural contexts.

The choice of alterations isn't always just dubbed / not dubbed, either. There can be changes to scenes or even commonly used artwork. For example, Star Ocean changed the character icons for the NA release. Xenosaga had various scenes edited in order to retain an ESRB "T" rating. Growlanser Generations (Growlanser II & III) had additional menu commands and shortvut buttons coded into the NA release that were not offered in the original Japanese versions. Etc.

When I worked for a small start-up company, I added extensive liner notes in order to explain many specific language and cultural elements within the games. There was only one instance where a specific dialogue was altered from its original, and the alteration was explained in the liner notes. This particular instance was done in order to maintain the flow of conversation for the player, but the liner notes explained the original, literal line, where it came from, and why it fit the scene from a Japanese cultural perspective. This type of effort can be done, but it certainly takes a lot more work.

I'd like to say that I disagree with Victor Ireland's assertion that you need to be fluent in Japanese in order to judge whether or not a game is good (in your view, at least). Even during the 1990s, this was not necessary; that's why various import game companies started up and thrived, and it's even more true today with various fan-made guides, etc available online. For example, a game like Tokimeki Memorial can easily be enjoyed and (mostly) understood without being fluent in Japanese. This is especially true due to the indirect and nonverbal elements of Japanese communications. In fact, people who focus on what is literally, verbally said often mistake the true meaning and intention of characters in Japanese stories because the true meaning is often not what is literally stated.

One final comment I'd like to offer is about the PC market. Both professional PC software publishers and doujinsoft (fan-made) groups are very aware of the global market for their products. In fact, there are already legitimate download site companies who offer many doujinsoft products, and even some professional products, for English-speaking markets (with the entire game in original Japanese, of course). There are also download site companies for the Japanese market who accept purchases made by English market consumers (although you have to use the Japanese site interface, of course). Products from the latter companies include download versions of professional PC game products. Both the global market and many development companies seem to understand that they cannot restrict the flow of information any longer, even with language barriers between different cultures.

Chris, I think appeasing 1% of the consumer base just doesn't work as a business model. In translation, the recent mantra I've gleamed is that literal is bad, for the simple reason that only 1% are going understand literal. If you want literal, the original work is available and I would say that for people who enjoy that, it's certainly their right to import the product. But for people who want enjoy a game more for its flavor and less for its mannerisms, the product will be infinitely more enjoyable to a person who's not familiar with all the ins and outs. More than this, I think throwing them into this will be off putting and as such there must be a level of discretion.

Square with its re-releases with "more accurate text" have mostly been awful. The speech seems stilted, particularly games like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy.

As for Yukiko, I tended to think that her voice came off as very refined when speaking to people whom she didn't know. The context I saw was that she was more relaxed and felt relieved of the pressure to be that refined lady after her encounter with her Persona (as they all seem more relaxed after that first encounter).

@Stephen:

Your assertions lack factual basis, I'm afraid, at least unless you can name a source for your statements. In fact, based on the stance of such companies and their stated desire to cater to the so-called "niche market" (which I do not feel is accurate when speaking of the global market, either) using English dubs is a terrible choice, as is using any type of "adaptation." This is what fails as a "business model" - alienating knowledgable members of your target market. In addition, you cannot claim that "imports are available" when companies continue to attempt to lock out products by region and prices vary with local currency around the world. If there were universal standards for a global market, you'd have a point, but we're nowhere near such a stance.

Sure, you will have people state that "literal is bad" but those are the people who only want to sell a business product with the least possible work involved. This is true for most entertainment products, unfortunately, but it does not change the facts that I've mentioned in my reply and that others have alluded to, as well. In other words, being accurate / literal cannot possibly be bad because that is what is being said. However, what IS bad (and I am not seeing you say this so I do not think this is what you mean) is when accurate / literal translations are done without any contextual and cultural explanations of the meaning being conveyed. An analogy would be offering people controversial subject material in a formal course (which varies between culture and time, of course) without any effort to encourage learning through discussion of the various cultural and contextual elements surrounding the topic(s).

Dave, pretty much all the assertions here lack factual basis, they're all opinions on how to best approach translation. As for any kind of adaptation, I suppose I can only say that if it's so "bad," then why is there an argument in the first place? Learn Japanese and play it in Japanese. This is your real argument: I don't want to learn Japanese because that puts the onus on the end-user, but I don't want the original work to be compromised. That's a double bind and an argumentative fallacy.

You can't have it both ways, and this is why a literal translation is bad. To not compromise the original work is impossible but the best way to make the original work shine is to bring in contextual clues that regular, non-knowledgeable audiences can understand. As such, the knowledgeable audience can hopefully respect this reality and see the work in a different light. Let's for example assume that Yukiko in Persona 4 was "mangled." As a character however, she was actually quite drawn out, to the extent that the above writer could even describe her personality as that of a southern girl. Essentially what occurred was occlusion, a blocking of what was expected as a typical given in an atypical scenario. This also ruined a person's enjoyment of the character, but that doesn't mean others would not enjoy such a character. Essentially the work changed and for some it changed for the better. For others this is not the case.

It's a good mantra, not because translators are lazy, but because translators want the work to be fully appreciated within a context: a literal translation is a bad translation.

Japanese in particular with the way things are written/spoken as well as certain kanji characters carrying double meanings. Literal translations mangle Japanese worst of all, because the writing translated in such a manner comes off as stilted (because it is when translated in such a manner).

"You can't have it both ways, and this is why a literal translation is bad." I don't think he means "literal" translation in that sense at all, he means it in the WAY it was meant to be understood. All concepts can be reconceived or slightly tweaked to get the same meaning across in english, one of the best Translated games I've ever seen so far is Tales of Syphonia for the Gamecube, excellent voice overs and enough story to get the gist of the message.

But I also would have preferred an option of Japanese voices with subtitles, I would also let fans update and add to the subs. The bad thing about console games is that you can't modify them, thank goodness Capcom released Streetfighter 4 for the PC, it has been getting unofficial mods by the players even though many of them are for shits and giggles (cammy nude model), it goes to show that game companies in their attempt to lock down games to squeeze every dollar out of the consumer is alienating their customers.

Game companies with the top down approach are doing a lot to fan the flames of piracy as well, the smart companies will come in and fill in the vacuum left behind by the idiot companies.