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Old 2009-08-15, 00:22   Link #52
relentlessflame
 
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Join Date: Dec 2003
Age: 41
So, the game came out earlier today on MangaGamer, and I decided to buy it. In terms of a first impression... well, the translation seems not too bad at first glance, but it could use a bit more editing (or rather, some more aggressive editing/rewriting). For example, we have "Ladies are eternal mystery for us men" and "It doesn't surprise me of the fact that this man in front of me is a Devil". A more subtle one later on is "She is our world history instructor and the homeroom teacher at Verbena Academy" -- no, she's "our world history instructor and homeroom teacher", not "the" homeroom teacher... I also liked "jumping up and down the stairs 30 laps". And what does "just hang out and go home" mean? A "pack of milk"? Do we really mean "a different strain"? (Isn't there a better term?) Or "melting inside of my cell"?

They sort of blew Itsuki's comeback when Rin does his stand-in for Kaede at the class entrance, though. They have "Rin... Get out of my face...", but the actual line is more like "Rin... welcome to my bosom..." delivered in ultra-sarcastic tone, which is followed by Rin's narration "Rin welcomes with his tight hug as usual". I sort of wonder how that edit came to be? It's like someone read the script without listening to the audio, and thought "that must be an error" and corrected it to what they thought would make more sense in the apparent context, and in the process kind of ruined the joke. There's just nothing at all about that line in Japanese that's near "get out of my face"; they made it up.

Anyway, I'm giving it a hard time (once an editor, always an editor...), but I guess it's about the level of an average scanlation? It doesn't look like it was written or edited by a native English speaker (and/or someone with much time or drive to do extensive rewrites). There aren't many typos, but it just doesn't always sound very natural. Overall, I guess I'd give the script maybe a 7/10 from what I've played so far?

The only other thing is that I'm not a big fan of the font... I wish they had given an option to change it, but no big deal.

Anyway, will keep working my way through it. It's passable, but by no means professional; it probably needs about 4 months of re-writes from a merciless and obsessed editor to polish it up (and I doubt they pay enough to hire that sort of person).

Edit: Wanted to add in the plus column, they do have some translation notes in the script and in a file that comes included with the game. These cover the basic Japanese honorifics and some specific terms used in the game. That's a nice touch.

Last edited by relentlessflame; 2009-08-15 at 01:53. Reason: added positive note
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