Shrine of Punishment · Celestial Storm (CES) #143

1 comment

1. 

   Ambassador

   (1 year ago)

   The way this card’s effect is written should actually result in each Pokémon GX/EX ending up with 2 damage counters on them, since both players are obliged to read and execute the “additional rules” a Stadium card adds to the game. The original JP text has a more passive tone that matches with how Stadium cards are usually written, and has no such problem.

   But there is a reason that despite this card being written differently in both languages the two groups played the card identically, and it ends up being a rather thoughtful comment on cultural differences.

   This is a little contentious, so if you don’t get my point, compare this card’s text to that of a Stadium like Old Cemetery. That card isn’t putting the burden of putting damage counters uniquely on any player, so much as introducing it as a rule of the game and so, implicitly, both players are responsible for ensuring that that is followed for the game to proceed as intended. For Shrine of Punishment (at least the EN print, anyways), it reads more like it’s only the player who put the card into play who is responsible for ensuring its additional rules are executed on as indicated.

   The key thing here is that this standardized ‘reminder text’ of “both yours and your opponent’s” is exclusive to the EN game. What I mentioned above – that both players are obliged to read and execute the “additional rules” of Stadium cards – is a simplification that ignores this weird, nuanced difference I continue to find odd with the EN text. While the JP game seems to have no hiccups whatsoever with phrasing Stadium cards along these lines, and in theory the EN game should have no problems either since it’s structurally identical in terms of the rules, the EN game still occasionally lapses and the text gives away that even though everyone knows it really doesn’t matter who puts a Stadium into play (save for the matter of ensuring they cards are returned to the correct discard/deck/hand/etc.), there is an underlying desire to nonetheless assert possession of the cards.

   Sometimes, critical evaluation of translation can have less to do with evaluating the choice of syntax/vocabulary and more to do with documenting the differences and commenting on the reasons why. I think in the little bubble of the internet we find ourselves in, people get this weird idea of what “localization” is – e.g. if an anime is making a joke about some Japanese novel that never got a translation in the west, it might be okay to rewrite the dialog to make a joke about an American novel people *have* heard of. That’s not really what “localization” is, though, because that’s just bad translation work. ‘Localization’ is actually what is done without realizing it¹ – bilinguals of any other languages should immediately be able to appreciate this, but that is not actually a great example of the “untranslatable je ne sais quois” in translation.

   Languages have a way of influencing thoughts, and vice versa, and they each have their own ‘identity’, and when it comes to what “localization” is, this card is a great example – the English language is one which heightens a sense of individualism, and rather than using “localization” as an excuse to drop the ball (as above example and others), *this* would be a better example of when to play that card to defend differences in translation.

   ¹ Language and ideology go hand in hand.

   Reply