Localization Blues

by Piyoz on Sep 16th, 2016

In video game parlance, the term “localization” describes a process by which a game is translated, rewritten, modified, marketed and sold to a region outside its native shores. Localization can even involve more drastic alterations. For example, Super Mario Bros. 2 wasn’t even a Mario game but a tie-in to a Japanese cartoon show. Final Fantasy games have been renumbered in some regions as not all entries in the series were released in the West at the same time as in Japan. The English translation of Ace Attorney: Justice for All wrote out jokes about pedophilia. The North American version of No More Heroes made the addition of gratuitous blood spray that was strangely absent from Japanese and European copies.

There are a wide variety of ways that video games can be changed as they are packaged and sold in different corners of the world. One of these ways is censorship.

Censorship in its widest sense refers to the alteration or removal of potentially harmful, offensive or disagreeable content from some work. In most discussions, people talk about censoring happening from the top down. By that I mean government intervention. This can include banning sexually-explicit images from primetime television. Or maybe swear words from radio broadcasts. Or allowing criminals to succeed with their crimes from comic books. Or in the more extreme examples, any expression of ideas that a government body can interpret as dangerous to its public rule.

The brand of censorship discussed in circles of gaming culture doesn’t often reach such serious levels as that. Instead, the focus lately has been on the removal of content in Japanese versions that’s been tossed out with the jetsam during its journey across the Pacific. The truth is that this is a pretty interesting conversation that’s worth having about media and culture around the globe. The problem is that this is the internet. Nobody wants to discuss stuff like this with any intelligence, patience or tact.

The following discussion of censorship of Japanese video games will focus on Nintendo titles. All of this can easily apply to the products of other companies. However, I am just more familiar with Nintendo as a company and with their franchises. So I’ll stick with them.

The first case (that I recall) of fan outcry against censorship of Nintendo games concerns Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water. You see, within the original Japanese of this obscure horror installment, there are two unlockable costumes in question that you can access for the game’s two female protagonists. These outfits are rather revealing swimwear that, like all the normal outfits, have unique textures for when the girls are wet (required as being drenched in Mt. Hikami’s dark waters is an important gameplay mechanic).

Which is stranger to you? The fact that a serious horror game would turn two of its heroines into sexualized eye candy while purporting to maintain a serious atmosphere of terror? Or that the male protagonist doesn’t receive revealing swimwear of his own? Both sat odd with me. In any case, Nintendo of America removed these two unlockable costumes and replaced them with the clothing of Princess Zelda and Zero Suit Samus. Fatal Frame fans promptly made their distaste for this situation known to the world on message boards across the realm and on Miiverse, Nintendo’s own backyard. As though the internet were running out of under-dressed Japanese girls.

I can understand wanting your beloved franchise one-hundred-percent intact with no corporate meddling. But think of this from Nintendo’s point of view. What do you think would happen to Nintendo if they released a game stateside in which the player can walk around as a sexy teenage girl in a swimsuit in cold water? Western social media hounds in their perpetual hunt for perceived social injustices would sniff out yet another example of objectified women in media and drag Nintendo’s name through the mud. Nintendo and their family friendly image would be torn to shreds. Scorched beyond recognition in the roaring fires of Twitter and Facebook retweets and shares. These fiends do not forget and they do not forgive. Being seen as worldly and concerned is how they form their identities. Nintendo and every other company in their field of vision have to work night and day to not transgress the boundaries of political correctness or else.

You think Nintendo (a company with a long-standing family-friendly image) wants that sort of attention? Yes, the game is rated M for Mature. Yes, it’s an obscure Asian horror franchise that only dedicated fans of Japanese media have ever played. Are two girls’ swimsuits that serious of an exclusion? Western horror can get away with showing lots of skin. Many obscure Japanese games with niche following can pass under the radar (or better yet, run head-first into controversy as a means of free advertising). But Nintendo has a corporate face to maintain.

A title where this discussion of censorship takes a different turn is in the recent strategy RPG Fire Emblem Fates. The grand war between Hoshido and Nohr wouldn’t evade its own controversy over removed content. It’s not easy to explain, but many character-building dialogues in the barracks were rewritten for English audiences (I’ve read English translations and they are all either boring exchanges or total nonsense). Also there was a minigame removed which involved using the 3DS touchscreen to stroke the face of the player avatar’s lover’s face. It’s a bizarre display.

Having seen the removed content in Fates, I don’t see the same potential for online controversy. Why would Nintendo of America remove the virtual foreplay and stale dialogues? It’s odd, yes. But offensive? Enough to trigger web users? This is fantasy, mind you. People consume fantasy by the metric ton (Game of Thrones, three Hobbit movies, a Warcraft film, etc.). In fact, this magic-powered, pseudo-medieval fantasy action stuff is pretty hot right now, evidenced by the success of Fire Emblem Awakening. Fantasy aficionados are willing to swallow much more less-than-kosher content than what was taken out of Fates. I don’t quite see the reason for Nintendo’s censorship in here.

My third and final example today lies in the American localization of the action JRPG Xenoblade Chronicles X. Japanese gaming fans cried foul once again when word spread that Nintendo of America made the decision to remove two elements of character customization.

One was the slider that allows the player to adjust the size of the female avatar’s bust in the game’s opening character creator. Yeah, it sucks for female gamers out there who want to make avatars that represent them as closely as possible. Yet I can totally see Western social media catching the scent and generating bad press for Nintendo in ways described above. Family-friendly makers of colorful, harmless kid’s games releasing a game where you can change the size of a woman’s breasts? That’s a scandal waiting in the wings right there.

The other removed content was revealing outfits for the playable party member Lin Lee Koo. When Japanese players are scouring the planet Mira to forge a unified, optimistic future for mankind after the destruction of Earth, they have the choice to dress every playable B.L.A.D.E. member in skimpy underwear. Man or woman. Human or alien. Even the thirteen-year-old Lin the Outfitter. For the Americans, Nintendo localizers in Redmond, Washington gave Lin a bit more clothing coverage (yes, I am aware that her body is merely a cybernetic recreation of her organic body in stasis). Still gamers online protested. My guess that is they are clamoring to see a thirteen-year-old Chinese American girl’s cleavage. A word of advice: if you are forming a virtual boycott of a JRPG because its Western release won’t let you look at an underage girl’s partially-exposed breasts, some mental health therapy may be in order.

There are so many more examples of censorship out there that could be discussed. From recent titles like Tokyo Mirage Session #FE to more classic works like EarthBound, localization teams have removed or altered content in beloved gaming franchises of Nintendo and many other companies. There’s a wide, wonderful world of stuff out there. But sometimes it’s so wide that cultural differences can emerge. The very same pieces of software won’t garner the same reaction between Westerners and Easterners, between men and women, or between the young and the old.

Here in North America and Europe, we’re very conscious about how sexuality, women’s bodies and gender roles are portrayed in media. In Japan, such things don’t receive as much attention. In the United States, having such a racially-diverse nation will cause people to question how certain cultures are represented. In the Land of the Rising Sun, a less ethnically-complicated society will allow for more leeway in humor at the expense of the non-Japanese. Add to all that linguistic differences, unique political histories and differing personal values (i.e. Eastern filial piety vs. Western individualism), and you have a recipe for two worlds of video game consumers with highly different tastes. Translating is easy. Localizing between these two worlds is anything but.

The thing to remember is that these cases of censorship happen for a reason. They may not always the best reasons. Some even might be bone-headed and clueless. But companies like Nintendo and others are businesses. They are waging a timeless war for sales and relevance in a media-driven, twenty-four-seven world of lightning-fast news coverage and information abundance. One wayward tweet or leaked email could tarnish a corporation’s reputation indelibly. Nintendo and its competitors must tread a fine line between being on people’s lips and being on people’s good side. In this round-the-clock war, perhaps some virtual boobs are a natural casualty.

Categories: Features