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 Words of Truth and Wisdom: Ace Attorney
Written by Alethea and Athena Nibley
It was recently pointed out to us that the second volume of Ace Attorney manga is already out in bookstores (it seems like already to us, because we never pay enough attention to release dates; come to think of it, it's been a really long time since we translated it), so I thought we would indulge ourselves in talking about Ace Attorney, because translating that manga was a little bit unusual for us.
The thing about Ace Attorney is that the manga is based on the game, so there was a little more pressure to get things to match than usual. Normally, the manga we translate is what came first, so we actually don't really worry too much about how close our translations are to whatever other thing reached the State first. For example, we didn't go out of our way to make sure our translation of Fruits Basket matched FUNimation's subtitles. Our reasoning is that the manga came first, and the anime is usually tweaked a little for whatever reasons, so we'll just stay true to the manga. Also, we don't want people to think we're faking it and just copying the subtitles. We have strange neuroses.
But anyway, as I said, with Ace Attorney, the game came first. Not only did the game come first, but the game was already out in the States, and had been localized, meaning all the super Japanese stuff was changed to more American stuff so that it would be “more relatable” to an American audience (like with the ramen being changed to burgers). Our instructions were to make sure the manga had as close to the same feel of the game as possible. So our next order of business was to... go out and buy the games. Eheh.
I'll admit it! We hadn't played Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney when we got the assignment. But we're dedicated to doing our job right, so we were also glad we had gotten Nintendo DS's the Christmas before. Of course whenever something like this happens, there tends to be a little twinge of guilt for taking on the assignment when there are clearly big fans out there and we're not among them, but! as we learn from I Hate You More Than Anyone (a fantastic manga that everyone should check out! (published by CMX)), just because you start loving something later than someone else doesn't mean you love it any less. And that is the case with us and Ace Attorney.
As it turns out, playing the games was very very important, because, as anyone who's familiar with them knows, there are a lot of very unique characters with unique speech patterns. I shudder to think what might have happened if we hadn't played the games first. Gumshoe would have lost all his pals and Armstrong certainly would not have been speaking French. Incidentally, before we turned in the final translation of the first volume of Ace Attorney manga, we played through the case with Jean Armstrong several times to make sure we were getting his speech pattern right. Also incidentally, fake French accents are really fun to do, and we should think about doing them more often. In fact, Ace Attorney is another one of several games and game-related things (namely, Advent Children) that has us wanting to be more creative in dealing with dialects. A friend of ours recently went to a writers' convention type thing with a workshop that told writers never to write out accents, but it really is sad to have everyone talking exactly the same way. I say if Mark Twain pulled it off, there's no reason we shouldn't be able to! Of course, that doesn't mean we actually can, but well...
Anyway. Because of the localization of the Ace Attorney games, there were some interesting challenges in translating the manga. Del Rey likes to have translation notes whenever there's a Japanese cultural reference, but we had also been told to stay as true to the games as possible, and we weren't sure what they would want to do. Things were kind of complicated all around, so when something came up that might need localizing, we just came up with two scripts. For example, there's a scene when a client comes and asks Phoenix's help suing his wife for making bland lunches. In Japan, the series takes place in Japan, so the lunches are pretty much nothing but white rice, and the man wants his wife to at least add hot dogs. For Del Rey titles (and actually for any company we work for), we would just translate it and provide a translation note, because he specifically calls the lunches something referring to the Japanese flag (we translated this a looooong time ago, so I don't remember the details), which is the first thing we did.
But in the American version, the series takes place in Los Angeles, so we thought that maybe peanut butter sandwiches would be more “local,” and he would want his wife to at least add jelly. Plus I think it's funny. So we had an alternate script with sandwiches instead of rice. And even though we have copies of the final English version of manga, they're in the other room and I'm too lazy to get up and find out which version they ended up using. Plus, now I can say, “Go to your local bookstore and find out!”
Oh! That reminds us! We got to come up with names for characters! We were very pleased with the ones we came up with, but again, I can't just tell you all about them, because that would spoil some of the surprise (or have you all already read them?).
Other than that, I think the biggest challenge was dealing with Maya's love for miso ramen. I've already mentioned that they changed her favorite food to burgers for the North American version, but now that they were talking about her favorite food in manga, with lots of pictures of ramen and not burgers, it was pretty interesting to deal with. We had a bunch of alternate scripts for those scenes, too: the “the game actually takes place in Japan and her favorite food is actually ramen” version, and the “this is the American version but miso ramen is Maya's new craze” version. I actually think it was kinda fun.
Jake Marshall was a challenge, too, because we realized how lacking we are in knowledge of cowboy speak. But really, challenges are what make life fun.
Anyway, we had a lot of fun working on this manga, and we hope all the fans enjoy it just as much as the games!
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