Hey guys, I’ve been wondering to start a twitch channel and to play games (?) in Japanese and translating/explaining the sentences as we play along. I always wanted to have something like this, do you guys think this would be something that people would care about? Do you know some twitch streamers that are already doing something similar?
I was also thinking of maybe reading Japanese Classics (Akutagawa etc.) and doing the same, but I thought more people would be interested in video games. What kind of games would you want to see? I’ve been thinking about JRPGs but open to any recommendations!
5 comments
Well Idk about anyone else but I would definitely tune in. I personally haven’t heard of anyone doing this.
As far as games go I definitely agree JRPG is probably the best way to go.
People will, but not enough to make money. Loremaster Nojah used to do this and he gave up because viewership never really went up. If you’re just doing it for fun, go for it. If you’re worried about making money, it won’t.
My recommendation would be to do the stream and post edited cuts to youtube, and post the youtube cuts to various subs/forums to get new viewers.
I know a few people on twitch who do this sort of thing. A professional translator who live-translates Japanese games. A friend who lives in Japan and sometimes played ridiculous visual novels for practice (nekopara and one with an aviation club theme). And on the flip side a few Japanese streamers who stream as a way to practice speaking English. Also a few multilingual ppl who aren’t necessarily seeking to translate games but enjoy sharing Japanese games and so will translate for their English-speaking audience (usually creating a lot of new Japanese learners along the way).
It’s definitely the type of stream people can enjoy.
Anything with a lot of text or subtitles that won’t flash by too quickly will be good. Streams are only good and sustainable if the streamer themselves is having fun so try to look for stuff you’d be excited to share with people first. Even if it’s not strictly video games you can find your own niche.
I’ve been doing that with old Sega Saturn games. There is an audience for it, definitely give it a go!
I think this could be extremely popular. I remember the absolute lengths we would go to, to try to get translations to play psp games we liked, before jrpgs were more international and english releases existed.
I think if you play things games that only released in japanese from popular series like like shin megami tensei, both game fans and learners would be interested. You can think about it to see what you like 🙂