Wrapping up Anime Expo on the last day of the event is NIS America. Their afternoon panel will discuss localization and also announce a new title.
We got a really good look at Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love, a strategy RPG and dating sim PlayStation 2/Nintendo Wii release that marks the series' debut in America. There will be two discs for the game: one will be with English dubs and the second will have Japanese voices. Nicely done, NIS. They said they are making it a two-disc set as the game with both language tracks would not fit on one.
We had the pleasure of watching an extended-length Japanese trailer for the game, which showcases much of the game's story movies. The game will release in the Fall of 2009.
Read on for the rest of the panel from NIS America.
The panel continued with a discussion on localization with NIS's staff, featuring both their script writers and translators. Here are some highlights:
Cross Edge took a month to translate, they said. They said it had 30,000 lines in all. As for editing, it also took a month. On a good day, 1,000 lines a day can be tackled.
Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman originally referenced Japanese popular culture, with in-depth lines referring to anime and film that Americans might not necessarily understand. For the localization, they had to remove these references and re-route them to American pop culture, focusing on our comics and cartoons.
For Sakura Wars, they worked hard to have the American voice compare to the Japanese voices, going as far as to compare the dubs line for line with the original version.
The translation coordinator works with the Japanese companies, like Gust, Hit Maker, Sony Japan, and more to synchronize the output from NIS America with the programmers and coders.
Every year the NIS has a paid vacation company trip as a group. Lucky!
The company is looking for a new editor for their staff, as one is leaving to teach English in Japan. They are asking for editors here at Anime Expo. They will be contacting people over the next couple of months from this list gathered here. They will be sending out a sample text edit soon as a sort of test. If you're interested, be on the lookout for that.
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