Romanization or Direct Translation?

[fcgamer]

I know there have been plenty of times when I've picked up a Famicom game and added it into my collection list. Later, I would go to research it online, but I would have trouble finding the game, due to the fact that I only knew the English name of the game, and the resource I was using only had the game listed under its Japanese name, Romanized.  Likewise, there are times where I only know the Japanese/Chinese name of a game, and its Romanization, and do not know its English translated name.  This leads to the question I would like to ask.

When reading Famicom (or Japanese) videogame lists, do you prefer for the games to be listed under their Romanized Japanese name, or their translated name?  If you don't have a preference, and like both bits of information, if you were to gloss through a list looking for the game, would you rather look for it under a translated name, or a Romanized untranslated name?  I ask this, due to a project I am working on, and would like to see the opinions of others, before I decide which way I will list the games.

[L___E___T]

For me, I prefer to search by the romanised name.  BUT, that is for a significant reason I will talk about.

Let's take an example, Ninja Ryukenden.  When I talk about that game, using that name, it means I am talking about the Japanese version.  If I were to say Ninja Gaiden, that might not be so clear.  However, this is an example where there is a famicom and NES counterpart, so the (part) localised title already exists.

If we used an example where there isn't a NES counterpart, like say Kyattou Ninden Teyandee, then it's a bit better - but there's still the official localised title name, because the animated series came to the West.

So, what about if we take a game where there isn't really an official translation - something like SD Hero Soukessen.  In that case, half the game name is translated anyway, but I don't usually see this game referred to in a localised name format.  Maybe because most people don't know what Soukessen means.

So this brings me to the point of these examples - I think its best to use the romanisation because firstly it's more accurate, secondly you're always going to have it and thirdly because it avoids any misunderstanding for the cases where there was a localised release.

Having said that, I would say the best solution in this case is to use all, so that you can search using either.  You may have seen this site does exactly that in the game listings on the front page and marks when a localised title is missing.

I hope that all makes sense.
Post Merge: October 13, 2013, 07:36:07 am
Something else I just thought of which adds to it - is that we're talking about a Japanese gaming system, with Japanese games that were released in the West under localised titles.  Let's not forget (as if) that there were also Chinese titles and that Chinese localisations work differently to Japanese localisation.

If it were me building a list, I'd include the Romanised Chinese title as well as the Hanji Traditional Chinese and then additionally the localised name.  I don't know many Chinese games, but perhaps you could give an appropriate example there.  Huang Di doesn't work because it's a person's name I believe and names are not usually localised.  Or at least I'm of the school of thought that says it's best not to localise names.

[nerdynebraskan]

fcgamer,

I'm alright with romanji/Romanized Famicom titles. The problem I have with them is that there are still often multiple, common spellings for the same game. (Such as Getsu Fuumaden vs. Geppumaden.) I don't really know much about the Japanese language. Is there a "right" answer with these, or is romanji more or less a "best guess" on spelling if that's not the alphabet actually used in the name of the game?

I'm also ok with English translations, although they're a bit less authentic. These still aren't always correct, especially with Japanese sellers on eBay for instance. Not that I blame them: I'm guessing no one calls them the "Samurai Pizza Cats" in Japan. These errors can range from simple "Engrish" mistakes, to more serious mis-translations. Hell, even the Transformers label itself misprints its subtitle as "Comvoy no Nazo." (Optimus Prime's Japanese name is Convoy, with an "n.")

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that one of the biggest challenges especially in trying to research and collect Famicom games as a Westerner is in just trying to find the damn game in the first place. So maybe if you're writing a database or a book on these games, it would be most helpful to include multiple versions of the name: best possible original spelling, best English translation, and if necessary a handful of other common (mis-?) spellings for both Easterners and Westerners. I realize that probably makes your job quite a bit tougher, but that would definitely make your finished product much more user-friendly for the rest of us.

[L___E___T]

That's why it's best to use Japanese, Romaji, localised and NES names where possible if you're building a database.

[P]

I agree with both of you that you should use the correct Japanese name for the Japanese version of a game. And if you have room for it you can use an English translated title as well since it will be easier for English speaking people to remember names they understand. But including every misspelled variant of names? Well if there's a title that's misspelled very often I would maybe include it as some kind of note.

The problem that Japanese names are romanized differently is just because they are either using different romanization standards (compare Hepburn and Kunrei-shiki) or in the case of Getsufuumaden it's because 月風魔伝 (moon, wind, demon, legend) is most likely a made up word and thus doesn't really has a correct reading (kanji has multiply readings). But the reading that the makers of the game wants us to use, is written above the title in hiragana so it's clear that the makers of the game wants us to call it Getsufuumaden (or Getsu Fuumaden I'm not sure why you'd want a space in the middle of the word though). The person calling it Geppuumaden either didn't look at the title carefully enough or just decided that Geppuumaden sounds cooler or something.

The problem with using translated names on Japanese titles that was never localized is even worse. There are not just one way to translate something and multiply translations often exists.


So I would advise you to decide on a romanization standard to use and stick to it. As a suggestion I would use Hepburn romanization as it's the most common one in the English speaking world on the internet, and most likely produces the most accurate pronunciations from English speaking people. But it's very common that people on the internet are ignoring long vowel markings. Either write long vowels with a double vowel (like fuu in Getsufuumaden) or with macron (Getsufūmaden) but ignoring it just causes trouble.

[L___E___T]

I always preferred the macron approach.  I also like the ou style though, while I se it's not best practice.

[80sFREAK]

I would prefer code to avoid misspelling.

[P]

Using macron is the preferred approach nowdays if you are making an official writing. However it's a pain to use when you write something quickly so I always use the classical double vowel approach when posting on forums and such.

Another advantage with double vowels is that you can tell apart oo from ou (they are both ō if using macron) like in Ōsaka (Oosaka) and Tōkyō (Toukyou). It's not a big deal though since Japanese people often pronounce both of them like oo and romanization is pretty much only used when you want people not being able to read Japanese characters to be able to read a Japanese word. In which case this small difference isn't that important. People that are learning Japanese needs to tell them apart though, but they should always use kana instead of rōmaji for memorizing pronunciations anyway.

BTW romaji is actually written rōmaji (ローマ字) but since it has become an English word it doesn't really need the macron when writing it in that context. Much like Tōkyō is much more commonly written as Tokyo in English. If you are making a book or something about Japanese related stuff and are ignoring macron for things like "Tokyo" and other things that have a generally accepted spelling in English already, you might want to mention that as well as what romanization you are using and such things in a foreword or something.

[famifan]

make use of only original japanese title. Sometimes with catalog/cart id if it exists.

http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/profile.php?id=2276 features original japan title. Also searchable

[crade]

Personally I would prefer translated titles if people would just agree on them because they are easier to remember and give me some idea about what the game is.

[fcgamer]

Personally I would prefer translated titles if people would just agree on them because they are easier to remember and give me some idea about what the game is.

This is how I personally feel as well, but I know that the vast majority here disagree on this notion.

Another major problem I have with Romanized titles is that no one agrees on the Romanization system used, and then we end up having three spellings for one game title, and those spellings mean hardly anything anyway to those who don't understand the language.  I know personally that I have seen some horrible romanizations of Chinese game titles floating throughout the Famicom realm...they just don't match anything I've ever seen before in terms of how actual Chinese would be Romanized.

[P]

I don't agree. Usually only the Hepburn romanization with double vowels is used on game titles. Translations of titles that doesn't have an official translation however, are (understandably) very numerous. Japanese sellers often makes the weirdest translations (even of games that has an official English title) with lots of misspellings, and they are usually the ones that sometimes uses Kunrei-shiki romanization.

About Chinese romanization, Pinyin is by far the most common used one AFAIK. Pinyin needs four types of diacritical marks however (ā, á, ǎ and à), or the use of numbers 1-4. Since the first (macron) and the third (caron) are not very easy to type on a PC, they are often skipped (and numbers are not often used). What other kind of Chinese romanizations have you seen?

[crade]

Well, if you try to look up some example like
Hino Tori Houou Hen Gaou No Bouken even the google results you get will be all over the place..  And those will just be the ones that are close enough to your search that google make the match.
Where as if people called it:
"Phoenix Chronicles: Gaou's Adventure", at least you know the important part is Gaou so you can have a prayer of finding it..  Otherwise people will cut it up in 30 different ways, mis-spell it, reorder the words, you won't be able to tell what are supposed to be words, whats part of the title or subtitle whether it's a sequel or related to another game or anything

[P]

Still you might need to know the original title to be able to find the game. But I agree with you that having an English translation of the title as well as the original title would be helpful, as I mentioned before. But just unofficially translating it to some random language (English in this case) without including the official title doesn't make any sense.

[crade]

Lol, I suppose you just chose to make that post in english by rolling a die did you?  The official title uses Japanese characters, and I agree it would be great if that was always included because it's way more consistent.  It's never included though (at least not consistently) .  The romanization (why pick some "random" alphabet!? lol) is not the official title.