I found your recent inverview with Mr. Noguchi very interesting, though not entirely pleasing. This is, of course, no fault of your own, but rather dismay at the prevalance of attitudes like Mr. Noguchi's regarding the translation of Japanese games into English.

I certainly understand his feelings on the subject. Many people feel that, in order for a translation of a game to be enjoyable, it should be modified to suit the expected cultural norms of the target audience. Rather than simply translating the words or even the meaning, people of this opinion seek to translate the EMOTIONS from one cultural context to another, in the effort to cause the same emotional reactions in the target audience.

Yes, I understand this, but I am also deeply insulted by it. It seems as if people like Mr. Noguchi feel that we are incapable of thinking in any cultural context outside of our own. In their eyes the US market consists entirely of naive nationalist xenophobes who would not be able to comprehend another culture's customs or way of thinking.

I would like to think that most people are not that stupid. I certainly am not. Does Mr. Noguchi really think that my mind will snap out of utter revulsion and horror if presented with the thought that people in some cultures bathe together? Would I really be so shocked at the idea that some people enjoy reading an "adult book" (as Mr. Noguchi words it)? Does he really believe that my sense of humor is so withered and stunted that I need references to American pop culture to elicit a laugh? How then do people enjoy the humor in books and plays written hundreds or even thousands of years ago? It's all a matter of shifting your point of view to the context in which it was written. We humans are an adaptable sort, and given a brief explanation of the context of any situation we can appreciate its humor.

Moreover, does he imagine that I will cover my ears and scream if I heard a dramatic scene spoken in a language that is not my own? There are thousands of languages spoken by the 6 billion people who live on this planet, is it really so shocking to be exposed to one more? Certainly I can't understand all that is being spoken, but being a literate fellow I can surely follow a written translation shown simultaneously. (I would also like to think that most of us are not illiterate...)

Even more insulting is Mr. Noguchi's statement that anyone who wishes to play an uncensored/unaltered game should only be able to do so by learning the original language that it is written in. Learning another language is not something one can do on a whim, especially if it is not even distantly related to your native language. As it happens, I AM learning Japanese, I have studied it for three years, but I am still not what I would call fluent. In particular, the massive task of rote memorization of kanji is a major obstacle.

Yet even if I overcome that hurdle, what about products from other nations? I study Spanish and German as well as Japanese, but that is still only 3 languages out of thousands. I recently have enjoyed several games hailing from Croatia, does this mean that I must learn to speak the language of Croatia just to earn the right to not have my games censored and/or rewritten? Should I begin an exchange studies program in Zagreb in order to play the game? No, nobody can be expected to go to the trouble of learning native-level speaking skills for every nation that happens to make a product they like.

This is where the translator comes in. His task is to meet the viewer halfway, by converting the phrases and ideas that have a near or direct correlation between the languages, while providing proper explanations in the cases in where there is no good correlation. In this way the viewer can use his own frame of reference where it is applicable, while learning to appreciate the elements where it is not. The translator is not there to create something new, rather he is there to support the viewer in understanding the work that is already there. He is not there to change the work to fit the viewer's perceptions, but to assist the viewer in changing his perceptions in order to understand the work.

To be fair, sometimes it is fun to take a foreign idea, discard the cultural trappings while keeping the "human" core, and then add facets of your own culture to make it "yours." Nevertheless it annoys me when people like Mr. Noguchi make such cultural retrofits, yet present their title as if it were a direct replacement for the original work. To people who would do such a think, I would suggest instead that they make use of a concept known as the "remake."

For example, I happen to enjoy a particularly funny French film called "La Cage aux Folles." Certainly it has many jokes that appeal to a sub-cultural side of human nature, and can be laughed with absolutely no prior knowledge, but some of the jokes in it are dependent on at least a rudimentary understanding of French politics as well as its culture (and certain subcultures within it.)

Some years later, in the not so recent past, some particularly funny Americans, including Robin Williams, decided to take the basic plot and concept of this film and place it into an American cultural context. The result was "The Birdcage", a hilarious comedy that certainly lives up to the spirit of the film that inspired it.

Yet at no point did the creators of "The Birdcage" attempt to pretend that what they were creating was in any way a replacement or direct translation of "La Cage aux Folles." In the same video store that I can rent the American film, with its own take on the theme and plot put forth by its French inspiration, I can also rent a literally translated subtitled edition of "La Cage". I can appreciate the merits of both in their own context. One of them is made for my native culture, while one is made for another. Yet it doesn't take any real feat of imagination to apprecaite the virtues of both films.

In this context, I would welcome Mr. Noguchi of Namco, or Mr. Ireland of Working Designs, or any similarly minded individual to happily pursue an adaptation of a foreign game set in an American cultural context. By all means they should go ahead and create a game with no shared bath scenes, no girly mags (though one could argue that these are actually integral parts of American culture.) I encourage them to make all the jokes they want about Leonardo DiCaprio or DiCappuccino, or whoever. I only ask that they NOT claim their interpretations of another work as being its equivalent, and that in doing so that they stop closing the possibilities of true translations that strictly retain all aspects of the original, including all cultural context and spoken dialogue.

Let's rejoice in the diversity of our world. Let's revel in the fact that we don't all think the same. Let's appreciate other languages and cultures, learning to enjoy what makes them special, and in doing so, maybe we can come to appreciate more about our own.

Thanks for listening. :-)

James Sellman