As a globetrotting double-native in English and Japanese, Ivy League University graduate, passionate reader of books, web designer, and huge fan of Ridley Scott's Alien, Agness Kaku is not only a fascinating character to talk with, but is also well suited to Japanese-English localisation in any form. She's done work for over 300 corporate, government and NGO clients, in everything from superconductivity to souped-up cars, temple architecture to disaster relief. She has also handled some acclaimed games, and was also responsible for writing the delightful English scripts for the Katamari series. Undoubtedly her biggest project, at least in terms of international recognition, has to be Konami's Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, for the PS2.

The increasingly absurd story in the game - involving self-aware prosthetic arms, immortal waterwalking vampires, and an all-new effeminate main character Raiden - led fans to question if Hideo Kojima and his blockbuster series had jumped the shark. Countless words have been written both defending and lambasting the game, in a proverbial game of snake and mouse, trying to hail Kojima as either Zeus of the medium or a washed up hack better skilled with gameplay mechanics than actual writing. In a sad indictment of how ugly the fan community can be, some have accused Agness of not living up to previous MGS localiser Jeremy Blaustein, attempting to bait her into an argument, while others accuse her of despising Kojima's halloed source material. I interviewed Jeremy concurrently with Agness, and the truth is, not only do both localisers have a similar approach and work ethic, but Agness has been the unfortunate victim of fanboys incapable of accepting that, no matter which way you cut it, MGS2 was misguided. As author of this piece I like to think there's a bar in Sapporo where the three of us would probably all get along, trading war stories of our sometimes difficult dealings with Konami - because they are even less accommodating to the press than they are their own freelancers.

Agness' only direct addressing of criticisms was a single forum post, stating: "I didn't despise the titles while working on them. I was 24 years old, and excited to be working on a blockbuster. I killed myself doing it. I have never taken, nor would ever take, a job and piss on it; I have a thoroughly old-world work ethic that way. Love is a beautiful thing. I can tell that a lot of you love the MGS franchise. But once every few years someone will write me, seemingly trying to get me involved in a catfight with translators for the other MGS instalments. Why are so many fans eager for bad blood? One guy from [WEBSITE REMOVED] even went so far as to request a podcast interview, then just happened to mention that he'd talked to Jeremy Blaustein and 'oh my, he thinks your work sucks, and hey, how's Tuesday night looking for the interview?' When I told the little troublemaker I had no intention of slagging off a colleague, he abruptly ceased contact."

Sadly this isn't the first example of such behaviour from a fansite - I personally know of several examples where disgruntled fans of a franchise have tracked down and harassed localisers, voice actors, programming teams, and others, simply because they didn't like how a particular videogame turned out. Not only does this disgusting and appalling behaviour embarrass the entire games industry, but these insignificant, whiny little pissant fanboys with their irrelevant points-of-view and sycophantic blogs, make it harder for legitimate journalists to work. Many a game developer has shied away from being interviewed, because reprehensible jerks have baited them in the past.

I spoke with Jeremy about these events, and he was both shocked and a little saddened that people would try to drag the two of them into an argument. Thankfully when you work in the industry as a localiser or translator, everyone tends to share a feeling of professionalism towards each other. As Jeremy said, "No, I never said anything bad. It has always been my sense that she had wanted to make changes to make it less, you know, kind of cliched. But I think by that point they were keeping a tight control on translation, and she probably couldn't get away with any changes." In earlier interviews he has also described Agness as a "real pro" when it comes to her work.

As Agness explained, these kinds of fan attacks never happened with the other blockbuster she worked on, Katamari, or the writing work she's done for over 300 other companies. "In the case of Metal Gear though, I can look back on it now and think my goodness, I was young. I was very young, I graduated College in 1996."

Speaking about her excitement at the time to be working on a well known blockbuster, Agness also revealed that as a freelancer working through INTAC she was paid less than $5,000. This is a candid answer, especially in an industry where people are cagey about revealing figures. "Oh, you can print that. Nowadays I look back and think, wow! I was willing to become a ghost and work in complete isolation, without access to the artwork or screenshots."

NO SUPPORT FROM KONAMI

This is an important point to highlight, since it's in stark contrast to how Konami treated the localisation of the first MGS. Jeremy was blessed with access not only to Kojima himself, but also three huge, hard-cased ring binders from the R&D; department, one of which was filled with original drawings by Shinkawa, another was the script and another was biographies, with info about all sorts of places and weapons. Agness laughs as she recalls the comparative lack of support from Konami, "Oh no, they were all originally just Word files. I should say that I was literally never given access to Konami."

I point out that it seems as if Konami, as a publisher in the West, didn't seem to care about the game - which is especially shocking given that at the time MGS2 was the game which single-handedly sold Sony's new PlayStation 2 to the masses. Agness agrees they didn't seem to care, "That's actually exactly right, and unfortunately that's sort of prevalent throughout the entertainment industry. I've found that as I've gone on to do other entertainment products which are under real NDAs, so I really can't talk about it, there's really almost no quality checks. So it's up to ethics of the individual translator and possibly if there's a checker. That's why you see some real stinkers go out into the open market. I'm stunned that I managed to guess the context well enough. I know people have nitpicked on supposed mistranslations. It is kind of amazing that I just sort of toddled along and did the best I could, because I think now I'd look at it and go: No! I'm not doing it, I'm not working under these conditions, because I wouldn't be able to deliver a good enough product. But you know, youth is a wonderful and terrible thing."

PERSONAL BACKGROUND