The Botched Localization of Persona 

No

Yes

Yesnt

Mhm

Not no

Can't you just tell I was resisting the urge to crack jokes in this one?

Funnily enough, I heard that Reiji in the PSP version was voiced by Chris Sabat. Makes his localization name a lot more amusing in hindsight.

What about Kenta "Toro" Yokoichi being renamed to "Chunky"

Or maybe just call Eriko Elly or Ellie

chinese I take it?

@@fakegrant Elly = Ellen, I guess, also why Nate was from Nanjo, which was his last name. Kei could’ve been Keith

all just because black people are such an uncommon sight in it's homeland.

And the most powerful because he can say the n-word

Mark's persona is the weakest in the game. Why? *Because he doesn't need it*

Zen from Persona Q would like a word with you

Cielo: Am I a joke to you?

Oh shit....😭

Didn't he also do graffiti? They knew what they were doing

@@elijahfyffe5176 The Japanese know nothing about black people outside stereotypes.

@@wiseguy240Winston That's what I was joking about. They made him even more of a stereotype

@Shaquille Europe at least he can breathe

Don't, we're doing just fine!

At least the encounter rate was lowered. That seems like the only good thing

I personally really love the psp port. Yeah some great pieces of the original soundtrack isn't there but it didn't really bother me. I personally really loved Bloody Destiny

@@GuardrailBandit I'm grateful for it too. I just wish they had included an original soundtrack option, or done even more new music for it.

@Gian Ruiz Here you go: mega.nz/file/HJEXHJqC#ky5Ra5W8n5zJr12JMDWWHuH1w0zFpwnbZvCCTymzMAI

how i can remember in psp port you can change ost to the old one

@@Elapso That's only in P2

they're both remembered for some good and crazy things sometimes.

That is correct. It's something I rectified for the Persona 1 analysis.

Basically.

"fantastic" pfft nice joke

Whatever you do, don't read his twitter: twitter.com/2dollarhat

SnicketySlice his account was suspended

It was. Very sad.

SnicketySlice what did he say on the link

"Mark" actually talks very normally in this incarnation of the game, pretty much like an average highschooler.

To be fair, the E10+ rating wasn't invented yet

@@el-karasu6070 That's what I was thinking. Earthbound had a similar situation.

@@Taneuma_563 what's wrong with voyeurism

DAS RITEEEEEE *Persona shows up*

it doesn't help that his initial Persona is the Nigerian god Ogun

Mark is the most powerful persona user because he can say the n word

"I am a shadow... The true self"

@@3agle280 bruh

Spaceman Ronald Mcdonald vs Black Ryuji with blond fro

@@sirspookybones1118 It's like the funky student in p4

@@elijahfyffe5176 wiggidy wack, yo

@@sirspookybones1118 Yusuke being a graffiti artist

Aigis in Revelation:Persona 3 would just be Metis then

They kind of brought it over. Atlus didn't change Naoya's design when he showed up in P2:EP for like half a cutscene

I think they intended to be racist

Nintendo's been like that ever since the 80's; No Devil World for the US, Censorship on all games as standard (until Mortal Kombat SNES, where it's up to the 3rd Party to determine censorship by then), No culture clashes, No controversial social issues (like Captain Rainbow's Birdo), and avoiding unintentional infringement as a result of Shout-Outs or accidents (like the Red Cross). The only positive? Improved English compared to earlier games' poor English.

Not ALL the time, but him and Aki do call him that in the PSP version at least, Aki going a step further by making monkey noises. Mark also gets arrested by demon-possessed cops (one of which he has history with), and is the only character warned to be careful with his gun. Atlus USA really didn't think that change through.

@@espurrseyes42 the real question is, is it a very racist localization? Or is it unintentionally racist due to the whole, Mark being black in the western release thing but the dialogue is faithful? Because I know something I've seen in like, anime and such, is the whole calling the goofy character a monkey in reference to their general behaviour. So this could just be an unfortunate case of too faithful in some areas that would have been better off changed.

@@frog1405 No, this is definitely an accident. I just find it funny that, in their attempts to westernize the game by changing character names and even their races, they turned what was an innocent few moments of Mark being made fun of into what could be seen as racist stereotypes and jokes out of context.

@@espurrseyes42 that's what I figured but I also wasn't 100%, but good to hear that it is indeed an accident

I think nanjo doesn't call him like that in the psx US version 'cause they thought it was racist

nerd

@@aetherland1883 kinky

Got shadow realm'd

Ah yes, 4kids... The abomination that ruined Saturday cartoons...

Horrible localizations are still a thing, even worse some people defend such practices

Yup!

About the character Mark. Mark wasn't his actual name in the Japanese version; Mark is his nickname. Mark's actual name is Masao Inaba.

Yea it's the complete opposite now, to the point where the English cast uses honorifics and even say some Japanese words

Bobby Rare Who cares what people think? We shouldn’t change anything because 99% of the time excessive localizations are shit, not out of respect.

At the time it was needed japanese culture was seen as odd back then. Now that japanese culture is accepted here in the united states there is no need to Americanize things anymore.

@@YOTSUBA_desu i disagree with "we shouldn't change anything", the meaning of some things are completely different in different cultures, changing some things to preserve the feel it's supposed to have is ok in my books, it just takes a lot of finesse and intimate knowledge of both cultures, which is something this localization lacks.

Bc they used alot of racist stereotypes

I think that's because Mark had a far more radical change, his whole design is different, and going from light skinned to more white is not as striking as going from light skinned to black

@@somebodyyoudontknow3980 A race change is a race change” is what I’ve heard from so many people. Reality is the changes for all the characters should be treated the same because it’s all one big race change. And one change made a Japanese character go from dark hair and dark eyes to blonde hair and blue eyes yet nobody bats an eye? It’s the most biased and odd shiz ever how the anime community reacts towards asian characters being turned white than Asian to black. Like the death note live action They turned most of the cast white Not only that but most of the white characters in the live action have non of their original Japanese surnames some have no Japanese names? Yet I barley see anyone pointing this out but the moment they turn one character black people lost their minds. And it’s Funny because the black guy who played L actually did a decent job and acted somewhat like his character? While the white actor who played misa and light did horrible? Yet people got more upset at the black one? Same with dragon ball evolution There wasn’t much backlash for a white goku but a black jet black had people malding for months. Either all is ok or non. If you don’t care about a white goku or white light than you shouldn’t care about a black mark or jet black end of story.

@@LoopyLemon775 look I actually agree overall. I don't like explicit race changes either, but I just wanted to offer up an explanation of why people don't care. It's simply not as drastic. Trust me if the characters went from black to white then there would just as much as an uproar about it

@@somebodyyoudontknow3980 That’s kinda the problem. So many folks in the anime community or in general cry and whine about race changes in live action But have no issue when a character go from full on Japanese we talking dark hair and dark eyes to Caucasian with blonde hair and blue eyes. Even the Japanese name is erased? It’s honestly on the same level?

You can do better than Mark

What's the setting to your fangame?

@@tikalthewhimsicott2736 I'm not sure yet, I've been thinking of an arena type

@@solarrrrrrrr An arena? How would it play out?

@@tikalthewhimsicott2736 Maybe be like an arena for Persona users. -But I’m also thinking a runaway plot-

"metempsychosis" is the word ATLUS used way back in the release of Nocturne and hasn't been officially retracted yet, fans didn't get it out of nowhere

@@zaqareemalcolm I mean, the two words ARE synonyms. Maybe they just thought it sounded cooler.

I'm a month late but they were trying to make Persona marketable to the average American in the 90's. But as time went on more weebs started exiting and they were no longer a small group. Atlus USA shifted to that market and no longer had to make drastic changes so the game could sell.

They stopped doing this right after 1 with Eternal Punishment

I was polarized on that On one hand I was sad it was all changed on other I was singing those tunes from the top of my lungs, they were kinda catchy

wtf do you mean the remake's soundtrack isnt as good as the ps1 version

@@alicemargatroid52 it doesn't even loop well

PSP's soundtrack is mostly good, many people consider Bloody Destiny the best piece and i can't agree with that, it is good, but not when the game is so japanese that you are fighting the last boss on beginner difficulty for more than half an hour in a game you're meant to play on the go.

I love the PSP version soundtrack :(

There's a fan mod adding in the PSX soundtrack, but I think it only fully fixes the SEBEC route? I've not tried it myself yet

Bro shut up

You better not be hating on my buddy Gray

Huh, yeah your right.

Ignorant

It really says something that Mark being turned black was more controversial to some fans rather than the game being completely whitewashed of anything Japanese.

Here's the thing, many things don't translate over well, localization is a necessary evil since without it chances are most wouldn't understand or would get the wrong message since it comes from a different culture where some things just don't come as second nature to us. Ideally the tampering should be minimal, but some is always necessary. Ps: Persona 1 localization is horrible though, I agree with that. Localizations are very easy to get wrong unfortunately.

I’m a bit late, but if you’re still looking for it, the full name is “shin megami tensei:persona” so check the games that start with s in psp games category

Its like that for most anime in general really....dbz pretty much dont remember that black people exist, and I had hoped at least one of the protagonists in persona 5 would have been black, but unfortunately there was one, and he was a background character as a bodyguard for some club...... Then again, its not easy to talk about because people flame you for saying things they don't want to hear nowadays, and make up every possible excuse for why they don't want black people(yeah, that's basically the one color many people seem to be against). In fact, give it some more time, somebody will more than likely come along and say something similiar to how wrong it is, hope or expect such a thing.

If the MC was black though that would be awesome!

Xyzzulous they should let you customize the character

Green A.J. Production That would make me happy. I mean it would have been nice considering you name the protagonist and give them personality.....due to not being able to do so i pretty much just give them thier canon names.

Green A.J. Production I like the idea of an actual design rather. Joker wouldn’t be as iconic if we had many versions of him.

I mean, as he pointed out, they changed a few of the characters' race, Mark is just the most noticeable one

Or just have it set in a country that isn't Japan for some variety in the setting.

@@Klonoahedgehog They made a game mainly for Japanese people. Foreign audience are afterthoughts.

@@cunnyman on the other hand, Persona 5 was initially gonna be a backpacking-road-trip-around-the world-thingy before the 2011 earthquake happened so

@@Klonoahedgehog since its made in Japan by Japanese ppl idrc that the games are set in Japan but it would be nice to see a lil diversity

The game is 22 years old. Spoilers are fair game at this point.

I think It's best just to avoid spoilers if at all possible no matter the time frame.

If anyone was truly interested in the story of a game from 2 decades, they would've already played the game before watching videos about it. Or they wouldn't even care enough to play it in the 1st place because of its age. Now if it came out like, last week, then I'd understand, but no, spoilers for old stuff doesn't exist.

Don't be dumb.

How is that dumb? As opposed to waiting for like, what, 50 years to be allowed to discuss essential plot points in a story to make a valid example in a video? Yeah right, not happening.

It would be very hard to understand many endemically Japanese expressions, cultural differences, etc. without some degree of localization. Literal translations tend to sound awkward.

i hope you figured out what localization means sometime these last 4 years

Smt 5 reveal

Zio isn't force tho,zan is force and zio is flash

Zan is also called Force in Nocturne iirc

No, still just an enemy demon here, the way getting personas in this game work is you get demon's spell cards through negotiation and those are used as material for creating personas from a list (ie. its presented as "fusion" but its really more like rpg item synthesis), and there aren't many demons in this game that have a persona equivalent It's only until Persona 2 that they had Moh Shuvuu be a playable Persona.

@@zaqareemalcolm thanks for clearing that up. Moh Shuvuu was in my list of SMT demons who are yet to become persona (alongside most of the Devil Summoner demons). Nice to know that she was already in a Persona game, just one that doesn't have 3d characters.