Genki Life Magazine 55 - Spring 2024

This brings us into the past decade—where a vocal minority
in our society became highly polarized to activism and
ideology. Localizers were brought back to light when a former
localizer was discovered and openly admitted to making
substantial changes to the anime Lovely Complex for
purely ideological reasons. With some more controversial
localization tendencies being more out in the open in the
anime, manga and video game communities, there’s now a
debate about the localizer’s job and their responsibilities to
preserving the original material’s integrity. This also poses a
possible industry-wide problem where localizers are including
ideological and/or personal biases into their translations.
These changes are most prevalent in anime and video game
English dubs and dialog rewrites in manga.
One show that was brought up again after being swept
under the rug for a few years was Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid-
Dragon. In this instance, the dialog was changed to reflect
the localizer’s political ideology. Okay, some of you probably
remember the infamous Ghost Hunt almost 20 years ago. That
was a different story. AD Vision was given leeway to translate
it while preserving the storyline. A more accurate translation
was released not too long ago. In the manga, I Turned
My Childhood Friend Into A Girl (Osananajimi wo Onnanoko
ni Shiteshimatta Hanashi), there’s a male character that was
completely rewritten as a transgender female, going against
the creator’s wishes. Another manga case is Mato Seihei no
Slave. The title was changed to Chained Solider. The male
protagonist literally becomes a slave to the main female
protagonist to strengthen herself to fight demons as mentioned
in the manga title. Other than these few instances,
there are a lot more examples out there to mention that
could be easily searched for. That’s how prevalent this problem
has become.
There’s scrutiny about these activist localizers that are
completely unapologetic for doing as they did. Spreading
their political messaging is
worth more than doing the
job they were hired to do.
This cult-like adherence to
“the message” gives you an
insight into these localizers’
integrity. A few years ago,
Ken Akamatsu, creator of
Love Hina, and a handful of
other mangaka saw this early
on. They started pushing
back, with the help of the Japanese
government, when
they got tired of seeing their
work get butchered by Western
activists.
The example here from Miss Kobayashi’s
Maid Dragon has been circulating for a
few years, but swept under the rug.
What’s done is done. We can only move forward. One
solution…the publisher of Mahō Tsukai no Yome (The Ancient
Magus’ Bride) is moving to have this IP and others to
be translated by AI rather than having it done by Western
localizers. Although the translation is done by AI, there
still has to be a human element to oversee the translation
and make “necessary” corrections.
Now that Japanese companies are beginning to see the
benefit of having AI do translations for manga and subtitled
anime, Western localizers are beginning to worry, as they
should. They brought this upon themselves. Localizers who
previously bragged on social media about changing the material
they were hired to translate are now complaining. By
prioritizing content censorship and personal opinions and
ideologies, the companies they’re working for are losing money
as well as their credibility. In early 2024, even the president
of the anime streaming company Crunchyroll announced
that they will start using AI for their dubs. The AI genie is
out of the bottle and it’s not going away…whether we like it
or not. Localizers remaining on payroll for these companies
will be further scrutinized and pressured into doing their job
properly. In the long run, companies providing better products
will gain support from the fandom and become more
successful than those who fail to improve. ❖
Genki Life Magazine | Spring 2024 17