MJCA-00019: DRAGON FORCE II –Kamisarishi Daichi ni–

[Jormungand]

The notes section originally had:

Kouhei Tanaka composed and arranged tracks 1 & 54.

This contradicts the information in the booklet, which credits Takayuki Negishi as the arranger of both tracks. I edited the notes section to reflect this.

[_if]

I noticed the opening and ending themes have full titles. Google Translate says "Opening theme "war and even invite you. "" and "Ending theme "Between sleep and dream ...""

Can anyone give a more proper translation?

[_if]

Fixed some minor track lengths, changed "Fandalia" to "Fandaria" and "Traddonoa" to "Tradnor" as those are what were used in the English release of the first game. I also added Arrangement to the classification because the tracks that were sequenced in the game have significantly upgraded synth here. I know it's been discussed at length about what to do in this situation but without any clear conclusion, so I just decided to look at Final Fantasy XII's entry and copy what was done there.

On another note, damn, I am seriously impressed with how good the synth quality is on this album, especially for it being released in 1998. It's not totally realistic but still sounds more than acceptable even by today's standards and really a lot better than some more recent and more high profile titles. And to think, Windows 98 didn't even come out until the following month!

[seanne]

Is the English subtitle an official one? It doesn't seem the game was released overseas.

[_if]

No, it's something I picked up from one of the people working on the fan translation of the game. I kinda figured it might be useful to have there since previously, and currently in some other places out on the Internet, it had been translated as "When the Gods Abandoned the Earth", which appears to be less accurate. Running it through Google Translate produces something unintelligible as well, so I thought a (to the best of my knowledge) more correct translation would be worth adding as an alternate title.

I think it'd be helpful to do that for other albums that have untranslated Romaji in their titles, and I think some already have that. I agree with the policy of using Romaji in the absence of an official translation, but this can also lead to not knowing the meaning of the name of the game whose music you're listening to, even if the tracklist and credits/notes are translated and understandable in English. Is putting a translation as the bottom alternate title an acceptable solution?

[Despatche]

It most certainly is not. Translations, ironically, mean even less than all that "moonspeak", and it is precisely because of what they are. Romaji spam means almost as little. In both cases, the problem is that the context isn't being reinforced; the meaning doesn't have much of a point to it, and the whole idea of "foreign languages/cultures" is that their points are not known to you.

That's not even concerning titles and names, an even more terrifying case. These are static terms that are divorced and devoid of all meaning except whatever the creator had in mind; there aren't supposed to be any alternate forms unless the creator enforces their own. Wanting to know the "meaning" of a title is completely different from forcing a completely fabricated title (pretty much lying) on people. Within any title, all translations are completely useless and always mean nothing.

I don't know why tracklist translations are valid while title translations are not, though I do know that only the names of legitimately localized products are considered. Even that is going a bit far... I'm not even sure if it's still necessary. I haven't bothered to look into how search works now.

This is a topic that needs more love and attention, or at least "ignorant acceptance"... which seems to be all people will allow of themselves.

[_if]

Alright, I'll bite.

I think you're well aware by now from the cold reception you get whenever you say these things that you're pretty much alone here. If anyone else among this site's userbase shares your opinion they've either not spoken up or I've missed it in all this time. The point of view that translations inherently have no value is one I've never encountered from anyone else; thankfully diplomats don't see things your way. Are you equally consistent in regards to other subjects, like never saying Christopher Columbus, always Cristoforo Colombo, his real Italian name? And you'd never suffer a "meaningless" translation of Война и миръ, so if you wanted to read the book you'd simply learn Russian or else never experience it at all, right? And students of the military must be taught Chinese to draw any wisdom from The Art of War? For that matter, are official translations covered under your statement "there aren't supposed to be any alternate forms unless the creator enforces their own"? If so, you probably shouldn't make an exception for them when they're virtually never written by the original author of the words and, indeed, there are many examples where official translations are less faithful to original meanings than unofficial ones. Like Final Fantasy XII, track 1:

Japanese - "ループデモ"
Romaji - "LUUPU DEMO"
English [unofficial] - "Loop Demo"
English [iTunes] - "Demo Movie"

There are others, like 29, which is officially translated "Unrest", but the unofficial "Rebellion" suits the context of the game much better since it plays during a rebel attack on the Empire and the connotation of the word 'unrest' doesn't really fit well. I understand you're all about reprinting what's official and present with the product, but why should we who want good translations be deprived of one when the official isn't good? If it's worth having a translation, as someone official decided it was, why isn't it worth having the best translation the community can muster? Why shouldn't that be worth having when there isn't an official translation?

And I'm curious, if you take such a negative view even on Romaji titles, how would you have people with non-Japanese keyboards search the database for an album we're looking for if the title is wholly Japanese?

I wouldn't have thought that the value of getting a decent idea of a title's meaning would be controversial. Nor do I think your claim is correct that "the whole idea of 'foreign languages/cultures' is that their points are not known to you." It's not as though the title of this album or any of its music was conceived as a secret code to keep foreigners from understanding. I see no reason why anyone interested shouldn't be able to learn from this great compendium of information here, created with the intention of being primarily an English-language website mind you, what the name of a song is intended to convey, even if it is approximate. Never mind that some translations can in fact capture all the intended meaning, like much of this album with titles like "Highland Theme 1" and "Epilogue 5". Words are not more meaningful to someone in a language they don't understand than is a translation in one they do, and the purpose of this site is to archive and make information on music, much of which originates from Japan, more widely available in English. Obviously, however, you feel very strongly about your philosophy and I know no amount of debate is likely to change your stance on it. But if we all participated in a thread on this topic to give it the attention you think it deserves, I don't think your view would receive the love you think it deserves.

[Despatche]

I know this is a complete mess... it really is as complex an issue as both your post and mine make it out to be, and I find it hard to properly phrase all my thoughts and responses. Unfortunately, I can't seem to go any lower than size "1".

tldr: the source always trumps all else, but this is rarely respected. official translations are still great as alternatives, but unofficial study really should be kept to threads as "notes"... as study.

---

I promise you, I'm not trolling, or out to make anyone feel bad for fun and profit; I'm here to tell the truth. I already feel bad enough... I hate it all just as much as anyone else could. But I know that it is a reality I cannot change; I can only help change what is being created now.

I will maintain that my view "won't see the love I think it deserves" simply because people are not used to it. At this point, people are so conditioned to "accept opinion" that they see pretty much everything as opinion. But this isn't opinion, this is reality. This is how the system works, and noone can do anything about it once it's done, not even the creators. These are the rules that people created for themselves, and at some point they have to respect them.

I don't have a problem with people understanding the meaning of something, because you can bet I look up words all the time to get an idea (key words here) of what I'm reading. That's what I have a problem with: people forcing these translations as "defaults" that should be respected over any original simply because those translations are in English, or in some cases simply because it's in Latin characters. I think it's fair to say that is wrong and very backwards by any metric.

Meaning is all well and good, but it can't even be treated as an alternative, because it's not. Even then, when it comes to databases that are trying for some semblance of accuracy, anything other than the original source (whatever that source may be is irrelevant) is an alternative at best. I would and do not really have that much of a problem with noting possible romaji or possible translations, but the original source (what matters) is always being treated as an alternative to something that isn't even a name for the object, and something could easily be wrong by its own rules (as you've pointed out with the old translation for the subtitle of this album).

The original source is not wrong (it's the original source) and whether it's wrong by its own rules (whether there's an error between game versus album) is irrelevant. Even as an English-based website, you simply cannot deny the Source.

Originally Posted by _if

Are you equally consistent in regards to other subjects, like never saying Christopher Columbus, always Cristoforo Colombo, his real Italian name? And you'd never suffer a "meaningless" translation of Война и миръ, so if you wanted to read the book you'd simply learn Russian or else never experience it at all, right? And students of the military must be taught Chinese to draw any wisdom from The Art of War?

You are going a bit far with the diplomats bit; these diplomats do care--mistranslation is very easy and happens all the time (some of it's probably even forced)--and aside from published statements, conversation is very different from these static works.

And with those static works, it is likely that I would have to take what I can get. While you can understand something just by reading The Art of War, you're still missing the various contexts it was written in. It might not be possible to gain them anymore; I need to understand more about what The Art of War actually is and what it was meant to do in order to make that judgement. What I would like to do is not just learn Russian, but what that Russian actually means to speakers of it, specifically whoever wrote the work.

When you're talking to someone, you should obviously use what they're familiar with; my only goal in that regard is to change what they're familiar with, because that's all you can do. But for the purposes of a database--let's say I made my own wiki or something--I most certainly would use whatever the exact source is, which means any company renamings are alternatives to the default they started with, any legal name changes of persons are alternatives to the default they were assigned at birth, and so on.

Originally Posted by _if

For that matter, are official translations covered under your statement "there aren't supposed to be any alternate forms unless the creator enforces their own"? If so, you probably shouldn't make an exception for them when they're virtually never written by the original author of the words and, indeed, there are many examples where official translations are less faithful to original meanings than unofficial ones.

The "creator" is whoever made the product plus whoever put out the product. Any official translations have to be covered, they're official. Remember that all of this is marketing, and so the poor employees get damned, unless whoever made the product = whoever put out the product. Either way, any official translation is still alternative to whatever the source, and that's the key to all of this; titles and names are divorced of all meaning, and in a way that's kinda why we don't go around trying to translate everyone's name except in the sense of "oh, that's interesting"... why is that exclusive to a person's name? Why isn't all translation seen like that? Why must perpetually incorrect information be forced as a default?

Anyway... we should be treating all these iTunes releases as reprints anyway, so unless it can be decided where they were being released first (I honestly don't know), you'd go by what region the company represents if the album is available there... pretty sure that all would be Japan for the purposes of most Final Fantasy albums, at least.

Originally Posted by _if

There are others, like 29, which is officially translated "Unrest", but the unofficial "Rebellion" suits the context of the game much better since it plays during a rebel attack on the Empire and the connotation of the word 'unrest' doesn't really fit well. I understand you're all about reprinting what's official and present with the product, but why should we who want good translations be deprived of one when the official isn't good? If it's worth having a translation, as someone official decided it was, why isn't it worth having the best translation the community can muster? Why shouldn't that be worth having when there isn't an official translation?

Because what is "good" or "bad" is irrelevant; all that matters is the source. You don't go correcting "Engrish", unless you're a company trying to fix up street signs or something. Again, for the purpose of actually writing this information down (a database), all that matters is the source and its possible alternatives. In the past, I proposed theorizing over tracklists and translations to be its own proper discussion in the threads; if people really do care that much about having "meaning", this is the best option.

Originally Posted by _if

And I'm curious, if you take such a negative view even on Romaji titles, how would you have people with non-Japanese keyboards search the database for an album we're looking for if the title is wholly Japanese?

I'm pretty sure you can code the search engine to make all existing romaji terms (if romaji is uncalled for of course) "invisible", like tags. But that's multiple burdens on the staff, so you'd really have to get it right or not get it at all (unless they're willing to pitch in for this effort... I certainly would somehow, if I knew how to code, or if I had access to some sort of tag system)

Originally Posted by _if

I wouldn't have thought that the value of getting a decent idea of a title's meaning would be controversial. Nor do I think your claim is correct that "the whole idea of 'foreign languages/cultures' is that their points are not known to you." It's not as though the title of this album or any of its music was conceived as a secret code to keep foreigners from understanding. Words are not more meaningful to someone in a language they don't understand than is a translation in one they do, and the purpose of this site is to archive and make information on music, much of which originates from Japan, more widely available in English.

Yes it is, and yes they are. It's not just about the words themselves, it's also about the people saying them. The only reason we still have separate languages and even separate cultures is because those cultures were made separately and fear any other culture by default (difference). Subconciously, there is definitely a comfort in knowing these other cultures may not know what you're going on about; this principle is used in more petty cases, and even for legal purposes sometimes.

As you can see, I obviously don't have a problem with "meaning". But you have to force things on people, because most of the time they have no idea how to care otherwise. If there was only ever kanji and kana in these autotagging systems (for audio files), there would only ever be kanji and kana in tags. Translation is really a part of "study"; you should use translations as an "aid" and make it very clear that they're "aids", hoping to reinforce whatever context can be gleaned simply from the original characters... at the very least, a person's opinion of cultures tends to get "triggered" just from seeing that culture's language.

Again, if anything we know about how people work is true, you have to force things on people or else they will always say no to wanting it; somewhere, we are all indiscriminately afraid of "difference", regardless of whether or not that difference is good. You have to fight that, you have to go out there and discover the truth for what it is... and you have to learn about what that truth means, even if it's all something as simple as titles. (It's never as simple as titles.)

[_if]

I know you're not trolling or trying to make anyone feel bad and that you're representing your view of the truth. I don't intend at all to align myself with the "all opinions are created equal and none are right or wrong" faction which sometimes shows up in debates. Taking an easy example, if someone were to say, "In my opinion, the Holocaust did not happen," that opinion is straight-up wrong, not just in my opinion but also factually.

No one is suggesting that the unofficial English translations are superior to the original and their status as defaults does not carry that implication. This site was founded by Secret Squirrel, in collaboration with others, purposefully to be primarily in the English language, including English tracklists and English notes, with forum discussion in English. In the absence of English translation, Romaji transliterations are used so those who don't understand Japanese can at least read and search for something. With nothing against or any prejudice towards people who speak other languages, English is just the language this site was to commonly use. This is reality, not opinion, and your vision of how this site should be, which is indeed your opinion and not an objective fact, is opposed to the creator's/creators' and owner's vision. It is not fair to say the purpose of the site – because you're really questioning one of its main reasons for existence – is "wrong and very backwards by any metric," as it's simply not by at least one: the system as it stands is very useful to a lot of people. I would also argue it's logically sound as well, though more minor improvements could debatably be made (showing English/Romaji and Japanese titles in search results?). We try to have quality translations and, in wiki spirit, if someone sees a way one could be improved they should make the change or discuss it. The source language is not denied, it's included, in fact, easily accessible. The bottom line of your position is not without merit but it is also not what this site is for as defined by the owner (not that the staff or the users seem to have much sympathy for your opinion either).

I don't think I'm going too far with the reference to diplomats. I know they care about the quality of translation and so do I and a lot of others here. I was saying they don't view all translations as being inherently wrong or useless and that's a good thing or else the world would probably be a much worse place.

Originally Posted by Despatche

While you can understand something just by reading The Art of War, you're still missing the various contexts it was written in. It might not be possible to gain them anymore; I need to understand more about what The Art of War actually is and what it was meant to do in order to make that judgement. What I would like to do is not just learn Russian, but what that Russian actually means to speakers of it, specifically whoever wrote the work.

You hit on something here that I think somewhat undermines your own argument against the worth of translations as well. While translations are often imperfect and compromises are made, no language is perfect at communicating equally well to all audiences of even native speakers. People have different perspectives and might view the same words in different ways or, in the case of an ancient book like The Art of War, even if they recognize all the words used, definitions or connotations may have shifted over the centuries, giving a modern reader a different impression than what was intended from some original word choices. So translations being imperfect isn't too much of a knock against them when no method of communication is perfect and an all-or-nothing approach to the value of any one will leave you with nothing. Whether original or translation, anybody presenting some writing does their best, puts it out there, and leaves it to the reader to understand, even if that requires further research for some.

I agree that all official translations need to be covered here and I think we have a good policy on that: making them one of multiple English tracklists if there's reason for keeping another translation. I don't agree that "what is 'good' or 'bad' is irrelevant" because I believe accuracy is important, so a bad official tracklist should be included in addition to an improved one that does better at capturing the original. And I don't agree relegating translations to discussion threads would be the best option, "if people really do care that much about having 'meaning'," as it's an unnecessary complication that would not meaningfully improve the site for most people's purposes and would create a greater hurdle than simply clicking on the Japanese tracklist tab if that's what you want to see.

Originally Posted by Despatche

I'm pretty sure you can code the search engine to make all existing romaji terms (if romaji is uncalled for of course) "invisible", like tags. But that's multiple burdens on the staff, so you'd really have to get it right or not get it at all (unless they're willing to pitch in for this effort... I certainly would somehow, if I knew how to code, or if I had access to some sort of tag system)

You kind of didn't answer the question since you admit that your idea is unfeasible. But nonetheless, some careful consideration should readily expose how bad an idea it is even if it were implemented. For example, how do you propose someone learn the Romaji title to be able to search? The search results would be in Japanese so how would you know which one is what you're looking for if there are multiple options? If Romaji were made invisible on the album page you wouldn't even be able to learn it here to be able to find it again if you did manage to find it somehow. Catalog numbers would be an unwieldy thing to use since it's much harder to memorize those and that's more often information someone would go to VGMdb to get rather than to find something in the first place (not to say many people here haven't used that method in some cases though). Setting aside the trouble of creating that system, your idea would significantly break this site.

Originally Posted by Despatche

This is a topic that needs more love and attention, or at least "ignorant acceptance"... which seems to be all people will allow of themselves.

Originally Posted by Despatche

I will maintain that my view "won't see the love I think it deserves" simply because people are not used to it...

As you can see, I obviously don't have a problem with "meaning". But you have to force things on people, because most of the time they have no idea how to care otherwise. If there was only ever kanji and kana in these autotagging systems (for audio files), there would only ever be kanji and kana in tags...

Again, if anything we know about how people work is true, you have to force things on people or else they will always say no to wanting it...

I don't mean to attack you in saying this or make this discussion personal: these quotes imply a very disagreeable kind of psychology. You seem to have an impression of your own superiority that I'm unconvinced is warranted. That's not to say all people's thoughts are equally good or that some aren't better than others. With regards to this subject, you think very highly of your supposedly factual, non-subjective perspective, despite its incompatibility with this site's mission, and after having hit nothing but a wall here you take the view that it is other people's deficiency, not yours. While being met with wide disagreement does not mean you are wrong, you don't appear to have considered the logical problems with your arguments, the impracticality (excepting the Romaji idea for which you did consider it) or uselessness of some of your proposals, or come to understand that the purpose of this site is broader than accuracy to the source alone. But nonetheless, you're faulting other people for not agreeing and you imply that manipulating the information they're exposed to (that is, removing the unofficial translations from the album pages) will reduce the desire for it drastically, as if no one else is critically thinking and just doing so, if they're even capable of it, would bring them to your side.

Your assertion that people only have English or Romaji tags because of auto-tagging systems is flawed because those didn't exist when Japanese VGM came to the West. In the beginning, only Japanese tracklists existed for those albums, of course, and people took the initiative on their own to start translating them because they saw that as being valuable for their own use and for that of others. It's not a habit that we use translations, it's because we want to know as best as we can what the words mean. If we did what you suggest, or even took it farther and totally banned unofficial translations from VGMdb, there would still be translations on other sites. There would probably be a lot of complaining around here about their absence from the album pages as well.

In reference to your thoughts on culture, I understand that people will sometimes use someone else's ignorance of their language to their advantage and I understand people frequently have knee-jerk reactions or deep biases against things that are different than what they're accustomed to. However, I find the suggestion that the words here are purposely intended to exclude foreigners from understanding, as if the author would be upset for an outsider to learn the meaning, to be quite outlandish. People often fall short of how we'd like them to be, but it would be very weird for it to go that far, especially when we're talking about a commercial product.