Hi everybody, this is my first ever post on Reddit so please forgive me if I make a cultural mistake here or there. Please feel free to point them out and I’ll try my best to adjust! Moving on to the main topic:
I am a Dutch, White, mostly cishet guy who has been working as an EN>JP localizer for quite a while. I’ve worked on a lot of fun projects so far and have quite some experience in localizing creative works for the Japanese audience. However, my current project has got me stumped.
The videogame I’m currently working on makes a very big point of incorporating pronouns and gender identities out of the binary for all the characters that are in it. Not only is my grasp of what the terms in question actually entail quite weak, I have no clue what I should do to localize them.
The Netherlands is a pretty progressive country, so I do know people with alternative gender identities and the like who are willing to openly teach me about this topic, but of course none of them speak Japanese. The Japanese people I’ve tried to speak to tell me that, as far as they know, these topics aren’t discussed at all in Japan so they have no way to help me out either.
If it’s just a matter of finding the right equivalents to match the English terms, I would be able to figure something out, but it feels like there is a clash of cultures in play here. I support the message and the sentiment of representation that my client is trying to get across, so I would like to do it right without ruining the enjoyability of the game for the general Japanese public. I’m in a bind here.
Therefore there is only one solution: turn to Reddit. Because Reddit knows everything. Is there somebody out here who might be able to help me out?
As an example, the way the game’s characters are represented in-game will be as follows:
\————-EXAMPLE—————
Age:
18
Gender:
Female
Pronouns:
She / Her
Occupation:
Baker
Hobbies:
Sunbathing, hanging out with her friends, reading light novels, experimenting in the kitchen
Sells:
Baked goods, hot beverages, baking ingredients
And finally a short description from the perspective of the player character.
The pronouns that come into play are: He/Him, She/Her and They/Them
Besides Male and Female NPC’s there is 1 that is Genderfluid and 1 that is Non-Binary. These gender identities are listed at the “Gender” tab.
\————-END OF EXAMPLE—————
I really do hope that somebody out here will be able to help me out with this! I may not be be part of the LGBTQ+ community, but I realize the importance of representation and what the videogame developers are trying to accomplish.
I personally have a premonition that none of this will localize into JP well at all. However, if that is the case, I want to at least be able to make my case with the developers and show them that, at the very least, I tried my best.
5 comments
I’m not sure if I’m understanding your question correctly but Japanese does not have a they/them equivalent when it comes to non-binary because in Japanese third person plural pronouns are also gendered like 彼ら (Plural of him) and 彼女たち (plural of her) unless you want to use the very rough こいつら (plural of ‘this person’).
The best solution would be to simply choose one or the other and stick with it depending on their personality, first person pronoun the character uses or physical trait. Or else it sort of default to “him”
Politics aside, if it is a woman with they/them pronouns i’d use 僕 and if it is a man with they/them i’d use 私(あたし). These things don’t translate well to Japanese but I guess that kinda gets the point?
this article has a bit about pronoun usage in japan, if it’s any help
https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/queer-japanese/
It’s generally a non-issue because the third-person pronouns, while inherently gendered, are not actually used that much as pronouns outside of English textbooks. I’ve seen *kanojo* used more often to mean “girlfriend” than I have seen it as “she.” A simple *koitsu*, *aitsu*, or *ano hito* works fine if you don’t need a name but still need to indicate someone.
Where you have the real fun is with the first-person pronouns, however many you want to use (since some are quite obscure).
i am aware of some japanese people using ‘X gender’ to refer to not being male or female. but otherwise, translating as ノンバイネリー and ジェンダーフルイド might be understandable enough anyways.
for characters with they/them pronouns in the original, i would just avoid using gendered terms to describe them, since third-person pronouns aren’t as prevalent in japanese. i think the pronoun section of the characters’ descriptions can be taken out.