Looking at the P4AU titles, I think it was a mistake to leave out the "Dark" part from "Dark Messiah" in
Pepsiman's Minazuki translation, because they presumably have two very different meanings.
I also wonder if "The Rule-Smashing Pun Machine" is more literal than not.
That's what I was thinking, too. I keyed off the 'pun' aspect of the name, too. Seems like a missed opportunity for a character who makes a lot of puns to not have a pun in their name, and giving 'machine' a double meaning would fit the bill.
Bear in mind that when I write up those translations, I have none of the special insight that anybody working on the game officially at Atlus USA will already have in terms of plot significance and whatnot. Basically I just write up what's fun for me personally that tries to convey what I feel is the appeal of the original Japanese, which often entails a good amount of wordplay-laden satire that's hard to play well in English without a lot of massaging. Somebody actually asked me
what I thought about the localized titles on Tumblr a few days back and like I wrote on there, I suspect our differences are in large part because of the technical aspects involved in localizing games specifically. Technically speaking, the only limitation I have is time and screen space, which lets me be indulgent in my output if I want to be; Atlus USA very likely has to deal with character count limits for the title boxes underneath character portraits during combat, especially if said boxes aren't programmed to have dynamic widths in response to how much writing is present, and that can very understandably affect how you approach things like that. Realistically, as much as I like some of my own work that I've churned out as a fan translator, I wouldn't be surprised if the vast majority of it would have to be subject to some serious editing if it was faced with the prospect of being reedited into the game, including probably some for plot reasons. But again, I have no insight into what the game is like to actually localize, so I just approach them on my own terms and just go with whatever I like best.
Because of all that, I never attempt to front like virtually any aspect of my translations are what you should expect "canonically" from the final localization. I don't know what has to happen to make that game work in English, so there are bound to be discrepancies here and there between my work and Atlus USA's output, especially since the latter presumably knows a lot more about the plotline than I do. Japanese is a really sensitive language to translate from because so much context is implied rather than explicit like in English that frankly there are parts of the trailers in Japanese that even I'm completely lost as to what could be going on beyond what's being said in a literal sense and that has an impact on what I put out, too.
And then all of those issues notwithstanding, like I wrote on Tumblr, some of it is just a matter of philosophical and stylistic differences. I'm very much so not a literal translator for most mediums that I work on like a lot of people that do it as a hobby for two big reasons: 1. I feel that translating between languages is a lot more complex than just Term A in Language A=Term B in Language B and 2. I was just a plain old writer long before I ever got into the translation business and I think my work would be sorely lacking if I didn't use that experience to help produce English that's smooth and naturally comprehensible in the same ways as the original Japanese. Basically, whether it's professionally or as a hobbyist, I don't feel I've done my job until I've given my work that extra polish that emphasizes the original emotional intent of any given line, rather than the word-by-word semantics, because you ironically risk having your translations convey potentially faulty implications to readers if you're not aware of what power the words you use carry natively in English just on their own. And beyond that, much like how two readers of a book or two different players of a game can come away from something with different interpretations about the meanings or nuances of a given plotline, translators inherently have their own perspectives and biases in terms of how to approach their work. You only have to look at something like my P3 and 4 protagonist trailers for Q versus what the 4chan anon had put out weeks before to see what the huge difference in semantics that can occur when different translators work on something, even if the overall fundamentals of what's being conveyed are the same.
I'm not saying you're not entitled to disagree with my work or criticize it; far from it, I welcome that sort of feedback. But given what I can do relative to those circumstances outlined earlier, all of my output is subject to a lot of deliberation before I hit publish, sometimes even with the opinions of some outsiders, so for lines that I know will be controversial like the fighter titles, I went what I felt at the time was the best fit relative to how the original Japanese resonated with me. Sometimes I could do better and I've done a handful of revisions through annotations here and there, but I otherwise by and large stand by my work based on what I knew about the game at the time the subtitles get uploaded because I'm just trying to adhere to my own standards and philosophy as best I can at the end of the day and people are free to do with that as they please. I'm just flattered anybody pays attention to my work at all and for what it's worth, I'm happy to explain my reasoning when people ask,
as I did with how I translated Ken's title.
Regarding Sho's official pun-related title, that is indeed a case where Atlus USA hewed more literally than I did. I actually debated a lot about how to incorporate the machine bit, but admittedly couldn't figure out a way to do it within that existing framework of having a title that was a pun in and of itself and again, we don't know for sure the specific significance of the use of "machine" in the original Japanese title, so I went the cautious route and dropped it to avoid potentially conveying something I wasn't 100 percent confident about to people coming to my trailers to be filled in on his basics as a character. The title itself was for once not actually a pun or otherwise involving much wordplay in Japanese, so that was a challenge I took upon myself mostly for fun and to better convey the overall playfulness that those titles have in Japanese. I actually expected more people to take issue with it than they have; this thread is the first time to my knowledge that anybody has brought up my dropping the term "machine" specifically.
In terms of the Scarface Messiah stuff, I thought tacking on a "dark" in front of all of that was mostly redundant; the association of "Scarface" specifically with a movie that has an antihero protagonist is a very easy one to make in both Japan and the States and I think that knowing that and Sho's character in general that nobody would reasonably conclude that the messiah bit was anything but ironic, given Sho's known objectives. Dropping "dark" from the equation aside, that's actually by far the most literal I've ever skewed for translating one of those titles, as I felt it was one of those rare instances where there was still a lasting appeal retaining the original Japanized English, for lack of a better term.
So yeah, that's where I stand on all of this.
Just so we're all clear, in talking shop about the philosophical differences between translators that claim to stay literal versus what I do, I'm not at all intending to say that Atlus USA is just looking at a dictionary and pairing like for like because there's definitely still discretionary stuff happening from what I've seen. I totally respect that they probably have a lot of circumstantial reasons for going with the route that they have for a lot of those titles and that they've done a perfectly fine job all things considered. And like I wrote on Tumblr, they demonstrably not afraid to go less literal when they can avoid in cases like Ken's where you risk having the whole thing be pretty incomprehensible if you don't do some rewriting that remains true to the original spirit. I do what I can and they do what they can; there are bound to be differences along the way and when they are, I trust that it's because they know more about the game than I do, so I just make do with what I have and try to make my own work enjoyable for what it is.
Edit: I hope I don't sound super dickish or anything. I know you mean well in asking what's up with that sort of stuff and like I said, I really do welcome any and all feedback on my work, especially since I do the work entirely by myself most of the time and that comes with its own share of plusses and minuses. I just had a really stressful last week as a translator, including an incident with my professional work where somebody called my credentials into question willy nilly because they didn't like the news that I had written, so I might still be a little more on edge than I normally might be. I really am just trying to convey my own perspective on these things and don't mean to disparage contrary opinions one way or the other, promise.
