Quote:
Originally Posted by Mortavia
I see both arguments. There is 狂想曲 (rhapsody) and there is 協奏曲 (concerto) and the second one is what's used here. However, both words are pronounced the same way (kyousoukyoku), so writing コンチェルト above 協奏曲 lets you know which one they meant. At the same time, the word 協奏曲 is not the word コンチェルト. It's kyousoukyoku, not koncheruto (concerto). I see that they were letting the reader know which one they meant, but that is the idea of furigana: it supplies information about readings, not how to write something. It's still written as kyousoukyoku, because that is 協奏曲.
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Late, but this is an extremely common phenomenon in Japanese media, and is handled in a very specific and very obvious way. What has been said is absolutely correct; you still write out the kanji and they have the same meaning, but you
pronounce them in a completely different way, and romanization must follow this because it is a system specifically concerning the
pronunciation of Japanese words. Furigana completely defines or even replaces how to pronounce the original word or phrase, which is also how we get so many great puns.
In Japan, Dragon Ball Super is indeed pronounced "dragon ball super", despite that big fat "超" kanji there normally having a totally different pronunciation. Similarly, the descriptor for Cyber Formula is always pronounced "future grand prix"; the
spoken "future" completely stands in for the the clearly
printed "新世紀" phrase. Likewise, over in Japan, the title of this game is always pronounced "byakuya no concerto". You are being told that "concerto" is a valid way of pronouncing "協奏曲" for the purposes of this game, and the simplified form of "白夜の協奏曲" is always "びゃくやのコンチェルト" without fail.
This is different, but related to, official translations. We have a fantastic example of that right here as well: you'll note the "Concerto of Midnight Sun" clearly on display in this album (it's in other places as well IIRC). You'll pretty much never hear that phrase in Japan because they use the above, and you'll never hear that phrase in the west because they have "Harmony of Dissonance". But you're given the impression that "Concerto of Midnight Sun" is an acceptable alternative to "白夜の協奏曲", if you ever wanted to use it. It's also closer to the source than "Harmony of Dissonance", because of its meaning... and because it is a title dictated by the same organization responsible for the main "白夜の協奏曲" title and also meant for the same market as the main. "Harmony of Dissonance", on the other hand, is a largely unrelated title dictated by a totally different arm of that organization for a totally different market, completely regardless of how much that arm understands or feels about the original title.
In fact, the meaning is irrelevant; if "Harmony of Dissonance" was the official translation and "Concerto of Midnight Sun" was the localized title instead, we would have the exact same situation, even though the "Harmony of Dissonance" phrase has nothing to do with "白夜の協奏曲". We even have an example of this on the album here; you see that "Castlevania" is replacing "悪魔城ドラキュラ" wholesale for CotM's mention, even though the two terms are only vaguely related in meaning. Part of this has to do with Konami temporarily rebranding the series "Castlevania" in Japan at this point, but this does not subtract from the point that "Castlevania" is being used as an acceptable alternative to "悪魔城ドラキュラ" here. And yes, this is despite "Castlevania" being created as a localized title by a different arm for a different market in the first place.
This is the power that a creator has over naming their work. This principle is not to be ignored or belittled for any reason, no matter how "insane" it may seem to get. I always hear this horror story of creators acting foolish just to troll people, and this is used as an excuse to degrade the entire principle. Thing is, titles are such a simple idea that it's not really possible to troll people in such a way without also trolling yourself. We're supposed to shun such creators anyway, like we do with those crazy Japanese light novel authors with their paragraph-long titles; this is basically a funny meme that keeps getting passed around authors, probably trying to outdo each other. For what it's worth, the official story is that the light novel meme started off as a way to grab the attention of buyers. Making a really long title is a pretty simple trick, all things considered. Western authors used to do it all the time, and it was not done to troll people at all like it is in Japan now, nor does it seem like it was done to distinguish a work seeing as pretty much everyone did it.