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Many moons ago, Steven asked a question about the Corpse Party translation for the PSP. I’ve never played it but it’s always looked like something right up my alley, so this is a good chance for me to finally take a peek at the game!

Here’s Steven’s question:

Here are just some choice quotes from Corpse Party (some profane stuff here): ”I’m gonna butter up my pooper with it real good!” – From the character Seiko during CH1

”Anyone who takes stuff posted on the net and swallows it wholesale is a fucking dumbass. A total retard.” – From the character Naho later in the game. I was just wondering about the localization because while it is grammatically great, and flows really well (while being able to maintain the scary atmosphere the original must have had), some lines just seem to be ad libbed based on the mood rather than what the character says. Mind you there is 100% voice acting in the game, but my Japanese isn’t really good enough to tell if it’s what the character actually said in the original version. I would definitely say that it and it’s sequel are known for their incredible localization though – especially since it’s a horror game with minimal visual representation.

Since I’m not familiar with the game it took a little detective work to find this line of text in both versions of the game, but luckily it wasn’t too bad – it sounds like this “butter up my pooper” line made a big splash with English fans, which helped a bit. So, for reference, here’s the full scene in both versions of the game:

And here’s the actual line in question:

And here’s a look at the text, side-by-side for easy comparison:

Japanese Version (basic translation) English Version Seiko: H-hey, Naomi. Seiko: H-hey, Naomi? Naomi: Hmm? Naomi: Hmm? Seiko: Do you have any butt medicine? The kind you gotta rub on. Seiko: Do you have any of that ass medicine on you, by any chance? You know, the smeary stuff? Naomi: Huh, again? Naomi: What, again?! Seiko: Yeah…… My butt’s kinda been giving me some trouble lately, you see… Seiko: Yep. My butt’s been drier ‘n a desert since we got here. Naomi: Well, I do have some ordinary ointment. Here. Naomi: Well, I’ve got some antibacterial cream, if that’ll work… Seiko: Thanks! Okay, I’m gonna go apply a bunch real quick! Seiko: Thanks! I’m gonna go butter up my pooper with it real good! (Seiko walks off the screen for a few seconds) Seiko: Yay! ♪ ♪ Seiko: Yaaay! Naomi: ……You could show at least a little embarrassment, you know. Naomi: …Do you have any shame at all?

This is more or less what I was expecting before going into this – the English version is a punched-up version of the Japanese text, but in terms of content it’s about the same. For the most part, if you ever encounter writing that sounds like this in a translation, you can usually assume the Japanese text is actually quite a bit tamer.

There’s a lot to say about the topic, but to just touch on it quickly, straight translation from Japanese to English often results in English text all having the same “tone”. As a translator, this is sometimes frustrating; the original Japanese text usually has so many distinguishing characteristics that get lost – things like gender cues, age cues, background cues, status cues, relationship cues, and the like. So the natural desire is to try to take these “monotone” translations and re-inflate them with character and other distinguishing characteristics.

This process usually happens one of several ways:

The translator might try to insert other types of characterization to compensate for what’s lost in translation. This is usually the cheapest, quickest, and easiest route, but it requires the translator to be really creative and willing to divert from the stuff they just translated. For instance, a lot of my fan translations were like this, such as Bahamut Lagoon and much of MOTHER 3. Some of my professional translations I’ve done for agencies were like this, too.

The straight, literal translation might be given to a punch-up writer or editor. As a personal example, many years ago I did the straight, literal translations for the Shin-chan anime series for FUNimation, and those translations were then rewritten and punched-up like crazy by Evan Dorkin, Sarah Dyer, and some of FUNimation’s own writers for the English dub that aired on Adult Swim:



The level that a translation gets punched-up can vary greatly. Sometimes it’s done just to make things sound less like “translation-ese” and more like natural English, and sometimes it’s to completely change everything and repackage it for a completely different target audience. With game localization, punch-up is usually somewhere between those two extremes.

The translator might try to use what I currently call “reverse localization”, which is really a topic for a future article… But as an example, let’s say you’re translating a scene from Japanese to English. The normal mindset is to just translate like normal – try to recreate the Japanese text in English. But with “reverse localization”, you instead pretend that the scene was originally written in English first, and then translated into Japanese. And now you’re looking at that Japanese. So your job is to deduce or figure out what the original English text might’ve been first.



It’s weird and tough to explain quickly, but it’s an interesting approach that only really good, experienced translators can pull off. We’re talking Level 99 Black Magic Translation Wizard stuff here. Some of Alexander O. Smith’s translations give off this vibe to me, as an example.

I’m sure there are a few other approaches to the re-characterization process, but those are the main ones that come to mind right now.

Anyway, off the top of my head I can’t recall how XSEED handles things, but I get the feeling they use a combination of all three, but with a little more emphasis on the use of punch-up writing and editing. I’d actually love to know more about how different companies handle this aspect of game localization, that’d be an amazing topic to research sometime!

All that said, the “butter up my pooper” line seems to be legendary among Western gamers now, but it’s not even really a blip to Japanese gamers. It’s always amazed me how that happens – another example is the good ‘ol spoony bard line from Final Fantasy IV!

Summary: The “butter up my pooper” line is a punched-up version of the original Japanese line, but the scene is the same in Japanese and in English.

So, getting back to the question, there was one other line to look at – one near the end that’s surprisingly harsh in the English version. It took some digging up, but here’s the full scene in both versions of the game:

Here’s the exact line in question:

And here’s a look at the line side-by-side for comparison:

Japanese Version (basic translation) English Version Naho: Anyone who accepts info on the net without thinking is an idiot. An IDIOT! Naho: Anyone who takes stuff posted on the net and swallows it wholesale is a fucking dumbass. A total retard.

Insults in general can be tough to handle well in translation, and this is one of those cases. Naho doesn’t seem to be speaking as harshly in Japanese as she does in English… but in the Japanese version of the game she normally speaks in a polite, formal way until this scene, when she suddenly switches to the rudest and crudest speaking style. So it sounds like the use of “fucking dumbass” and “total retard” in the localization is an attempt to convey that sudden jump in speaking style. This sort of speech style switch is another obstacle in Japanese-to-English translation, so it’s really interesting to see how it was handled here.

Summary: The English words in Naho’s line are indeed much more harsh and vulgar than the Japanese words, but this is actually done to convey a sudden shift in the character’s tone and character.

Whew! So even though we looked at just a mere two lines in the translation, hopefully that helps shed some light on why these translations were probably phrased the way they were and why there’s actually more to translation than just words!

If you found this article interesting or helpful and know any fellow Corpse Party fans, I hope you'll share it online. Thanks!