This video is part of a series where I showcase a mod me and rassicas worked on, where we retranslated the Octo Expansions dialogue to be closer to the Japanese original. The English translation is really good, though it goes mainly for flair rather than accuracy, and as a lore fanatic, I wanted to make an alternative translation that aims for more accuracy while still keeping some of the flair. If you have a modded Switch and want to try the mod out yourself, you can use the link in the video description!
okay but could you possibly make a tutorial i searched your channel for one until i saw the install directions in the read me, im able to do it now that i saw that but i think itd be helpful for a lot of people to see the installation process might make one myself haha
i fucking love captain cuttlefish's dialogue in this, idk what it is exactly but he types and talks exactly how you'd expect an old person to talk over text and it's SO funny something about the repeated use of "no fan of the inkantation could be a foe of mine" kills me
i like how in the official translation they just constantly add "no fan is a foe of mine, i dont see species", like making tartar call out real life social issues ("you fight over genetic deviations") and having cuttlefish threaten to fucking kill you at the start for being an octarian just wasnt enough added racial allegories for them
Idk if I'm just too used to the English version of these logs or something, but I love these Japanese logs waaaay more. All the little interactions are so funny and cute! They actually seem more like a chat room rather than an author's interpretation of a chat room. Amazing work!
This is really cool! Thank you for putting this together! Most of this is actually a lot closer to the English version than I would have guessed. I’m especially surprised that the idea of Kamabo co appearing to be “in a different dimension” is actually accurate to the original translation, as the strange magnetic fields are never really explained. It’s also interesting to see the differences in Marina’s tone when Pearl finds out she’s an octoling. I’m personally actually a fan of the line about the Octarian souls being “freed from the oppression of Octarian society,” but I could see it being more in character for her to say “we just want to live on the surface like the Inklings.” Again, really interesting stuff!
Yeah, the English translation gives a lot of connotations that might hold true, but ultimately it's just simply not what the dialogue originally says at all
The main benefit of this translation, as others have pointed out, is that it feels more authentic. As much as I like Pearl's more extravagant nature in the official translation, it definitely feels overboard at times, and Marina is a bit more likable in this one imo. Still, I don't think the differences are as egregious as rassicas likes to make it sound on Twitter.
I don't have twitter lmao so I'm not sure what they said about it, but yeah.. it looks like there's really only two major changes to what the logs say, and honestly considering the way the final speech changed in translation between their own video on it verus the mod's showcase of it, I can't feel certain some of those changes weren't by choice instead of going for accuracy. With such a big gap between the languages it seems pretty possible some of it could've been translated to what they wanted to hear/read.
It's really interesting to see what the original dialogue is like, like how marina is a little more formal and I think they do a better job of showing cuttlefish not really knowing how to react to octolings coming to the surface. Though now I'm wondering just how many little bits of information that have been lost in translation. I kinda wish the translators didn't have as much freedom on editing the dialogue.
1) i love this translation, it may remove some jokes, but for more L O R E and also more charm and personality! 2) I appretiate how Marina sounds More like.. you know... A charachter. With personality, and charm Instead of a robotic lore/plot device. 3) . . . . . . + 75% Gay octopi
Surprised I hadn't commented here yet, but this is amazing! You two kept the dialogue fresh and let the character's personalities really shine through. There's a lot more substance here, especially in Session 6 and 7 which is where the biggest plot element is revealed in my opinion. I think people interested in the lore will definitely be able to learn more thanks to this mod, keep up the great work man!!
Although there are a few English localization lines that I love, like the “I don’t see species” line from Cuttlefish which cracks me up, it’s really interesting and refreshing to see a translation that’s more faithful to the original. I love Marina and Pearl’s back and forth sooo much 🥺
Im just now realizing that you can’t blame inklings for thinking octolings are also inklings considering an inkling from squid squad does kind of resemble one with the eye mask thing
If that’s true, no wonder Octarian integration is smoother than most. Inklings really would look like Octarians so they really can’t differentiate between Inklings and Octarians and then since they could live amongst them, assuming a few Octarians fit in and stand out nicely (like Marina), it would be easy for Octarians to be accepted. Also helps that eventually info would come out seeing that DJ Octavio is forcing the battle currently, so they would see Octarians as forced participants rather than aggressors.
Marina Ida was a 83rd generation Octarian combat engineer. When she heard the calamari inkantation, she was able to flee from Octarian society. (marina lore)
18:00 "The enemy of my enemy and all that" So from what I know octarians are enemies with inklings, but are trading with salmonids, and the salmonids enemy is grizz co, inklings enemy are salmonids and octarians. So what does pearl mean here? Maybe theyre refering to salmonids? But marina said that octolings are working for grizz co, why would they decide to attack salmonids if they were in good relations with them?
We were wondering about this exact same thing as well. I interpreted it as Marina telling Pearl that Octarians and Salmonids are not enemies, but that's probably not what they meant. This is so hard to wrap your head around it could mean anything lol
I thought she was saying that the Octarians’ enemies were Inklings, and the Inklings’ enemies were Salmonids, and then Marina was saying that her and Pearl were not enemies
Always thought that much was obvious. Pearl says enemy of my enemy in response to Octos joining Salmon Run, the octos are enemies of the inklings enemies. But Marina says the octos and salmonids aren't enemies, which Pearl misinterpreted
Kind of late but I think it Pearl is saying that salmonids are enemies of both Inklings and Octarians, and Marina is reminding here that the Octolings in Inkopolis aren't enemies with the Inklings. Despite the fact that they apparently have trade deals, I'm pretty sure that the Octolings hate salmonids as much as Inklings do. Salmonids are known to wreak havoc wherever they go, and im sure the Octarians have to deal with rushes as well as Inklings. People can still negotiate business with their enemies, and we know that the Octarians have been having an energy crisis for a while. The little bit of tech forked over to the salmonids was probably worth the power eggs, and the Octarians are only giving salmonids their tech because they need it to keep their power grids running. They still hate the salmonids, but it's kind of a necessary evil to survive.
i think i like the chaotic hammy official translation when its just goofy picture sharing, but regards of some random lines i dont like (the cut a fish shit was pretty good and i find the weird added racism morbidly hilarious for some reason), i like how the japanese ver treats the lore dumps more
my god seeing the more accurately translated text smoothly play as the deepsea metro subway car music plays in the background it’s all just, AAAAAAA ✨nothing but pure bliss✨😩😩 absolutely fantastic work on this!
I’m a…. bit late here; but I just wanted to express how awesome this is!? You don’t want to know how many months I’ve been looking for something like this. My Japanese is incredibly poor and I find it to be very hard to read, so outside of trivia I haven’t been able to translate most of this, leaving me no choice but to scrounge up random trivia and small tidbits here and there, despite knowing full well there’s just… something us western fans are missing. So to have this retranslation is awesome!! Incredible!! Spectacular!!
As much as I appreciate the accuracy of the japanese original it's not worth sacrificing for the funni english translation. I don't know why everyone's saying this version is more accurate to a real chatroom. The original japanese feels way more monotone with one message leading into the next like a static Halflife cutscene as opposed to the english translation which feels like I'm watching 3 actual discord users hanging out. I mean how much closer to genuine can you get with that? Truly the biggest letdown was finding out Marina says "pearlie?" in the original instead of "PEARLIE" like in the translation after Pearl posts a pic of her half asleep. Really felt like I was browsing Fishcord in the english translation and that's why I personally prefer it
I’ll say this though, the original English translators for the game did a great job with the addition of “I don’t see species” that wasn’t in the Japanese text. Really adds some realism and relatability to the whole inkling octoling racism allegory.
13:28 I'm a little confused on what Marina means by "the way you (Pearl) work with triplets." Is that a musical thing or a hint towards Pearl working with a group of presumably young triplet kids?
