A Study of KH1's Japanese and English Script - Elizabeth Bushouse (2024)

With KH3 right around the corner, I thought it would be a good exercise to try typing up the Japanese and English text of KH1 side by side, not only to refresh myself on the series’ lore and storyline, but also to see if I could learn anything from the translation that I could use to improve my own work. In the process, I made some observations that I hope might also benefit fellow translators, or perhaps be of interest to KH enthusiasts. I’ll be posting my notes here while also attaching the entire text dump in an excel sheet for others to peruse and use for their own projects, if they so desire.

Kingdom Hearts Japanese vs English Script

Also note that you can find a list of all my Japanese/English game scripts on my Resources page.

In order to make my observations more accessible to those who might not know much Japanese, I’ve added my own fairly literal translations of the few lines I’ve pulled for comparison in my notes. To that end, in the interest of staving off any undue negative critiques of the official translation, allow me to insert this disclaimer:

You will find many differences between the literal and official English text, but this does not mean that the official translation is wrong. In fact, it was handled quite spectacularly. Literal translations can be a good tool for putting the differences between two languages’ sentence structure and idea formation into sharp contrast, which can help people further understand a foreign language and culture. That said, it’s quite a far stretch from being entertaining and fun to read, and it makes it much harder for average people to engage with it. (For more in-depth writing on information load and translation theory, see Chapter 1 of Postcolonial Translation: Theory and Practice, specifically page 21.) And the fact is that most games aim to reach the widest audience possible in order to be more profitable. Of course, “fun to read” is itself incredibly subjective! There’s no such thing as the One Perfect Translation to end all translations. If you give the same line to ten translators, chances are you’ll get ten different translations back, with each translator’s understanding of the text, writing style, and intended purpose/audience for the translation varying. There are many translations, but they all share the same passion—one passion, one destiny.

In any case, before I get too far off track, this is all to say that for the purpose of translating entertainment media, a more natural translation like that of KH1 is usually desirable. And this project aims to be a stepping stone towards achieving that style of translation.

Therefore, without further ado…

I’ve split up my notes into four sections: general translation strategies that I picked up on, a list of how some common Japanese phrases were handled, lines that really stood out to me, and general observations touching more on the game’s lore/interesting tidbits I found in the Japanese.

General translation strategies

• Avoiding repeating words or similar-sounding lines:

• Avoiding using katakana words verbatim in translation (or rather, feeling free to use other words):

• Rewriting “*name*…!” or “……” into a full sentence that fits the scene:

• Getting rid of unnecessary quotation marks:

• Switching phrasing around to sound more natural/flow better:

• Adding lines to clarify or aid the flow of a conversation, or add personality:

• Rewriting lines to better fit the mood of the scene or convey a character’s personality:

• Toning down stuttering:

• Making passive sentences into active ones:

• Spelling out game terms in case players are unfamiliar with them:

Ellipses are largely left out.

They are generally only used when a sentence is left unfinished, or when continuing sentences between dialogue boxes/subtitles. Though there are a few cases of full sentences ending with ellipses. When continuing a sentence between boxes/subtitles, there is no leading ellipsis and the first word is left in lowercase (if appropriate). When ellipses are used between words in the same sentence, there is no space between. (“Now…you’re…gonna…you’re gonna…”)

Also, as an aside, long dashes are used in the Japanese subtitles instead of ellipses. I’m curious if this helped the translators stay away from using too many ellipses, since dashes would look even weirder in English.

Translations of common phrases

• 仕方がない

• 何を言ってる？

• まかせて

• 負けない

• 手にいれた > “attained” “learned” “obtained”

• 無駄だ > It’s no use. \ Don’t bother. \ It is futile.

Lines that stood out

General observations

In the very beginning the line “僕はもう　戻れない” is left untranslated. It reveals that the voice in Sora’s heart is someone other than Sora (who uses the pronoun 俺); a boy who is unable to return somewhere. Initially I had assumed this might be Ventus (who uses 僕 at the very beginning of BbS, but then switches to 俺), but it turns out that the Kingdom Hearts Ultimania α book (and an interview with Nomura) confirms that this is in fact Mickey, who has just set off into the realm of Darkness to try to stop Ansem’s plot. In any case, I’m guessing this was left untranslated so that the voice remained a mystery and there’d be no chance of a mistranslation creating a plot hole. Space limitations might have also factored into it.

Each of the dream weapons has a negative aspect to it in Japanese. The staff will sacrifice your very soul. The sword hurts other people. The shield is cowardly. Perhaps these were left out in English due to a mixture of space limitations, the descriptions being deemed too dark for a game that’s partnered with Disney, and/or they just wanted the choices to sound more heroic.

Selphie speaks Kansai-ben! Also, there’s a wide range of speaking/writing styles ranging from Cid’s extra casual tone, to the classical Japanese used in Ansem’s writing on the terminals at The End of the World, not to mention tutorial/system text.

Maleficent mentions the door to darkness towards the beginning of the game in Japanese, wondering aloud if Sora will be the one to open it (闇の扉を切り開くか), but it was translated as “Will it be he who conquers the darkness?” (Unless I’m misunderstanding the verb 切り開く) The door of darkness doesn’t come up again until the very end of the game, so some foreshadowing was potentially missed here.

The Cheshire Cat is usually spelled チェシャ猫 (Chesha cat) but is spelled チシャ猫 (Chisha cat) in the Japanese KH script. Either a typo or a pun on 知者 (chisha, wise person).

In Japanese the 7 Princesses are simply referred to as Princesses, while English adds the epithet “of heart”.

世界 is used both to refer to individual worlds and the universe in general, leaving it up to the reader to decide which based on context.

In Hollow Bastion, Riku and Ansem sound slightly more threatening in the Japanese, but these are toned down a bit in English. Though the implication is definitely still there.

In Japanese, the Ansem Reports number 0-12, while in English they’re 1-13. Presumably this is to make it clearer that there are 13 reports total, because 13 is an important number in the series.

Also, there are no pronouns used in the Japanese text of Ansem Report 11(J) / 12(E), making it unclear who the writer is talking about. Japanese often leaves out subjects or pronouns, assuming the reader can infer who or what the speaker is talking about. The official English translation decided that the writer is referring to someone else.

Personally, the Japanese still gives me the sense that it’s Heartless!Ansem writing about himself, since previous reports did speak of his plan to turn himself into a Heartless, and we know that he retained his form and knowledge, unlike other Heartless. The Kingdom Hearts Ultimania α book also supports this, saying that it’s a memo Ansem wrote upon noticing that he himself didn’t change. That said, there’s a slight chance the translators were in discussion with the devs and wanted to retcon it a bit to hint at the possibility of another writer. In that vein, the Kingdom Hearts Ultimania α does suggest that the even numbered reports (0, 2, 4, 6, 8) seem to be written from a distinctly “sage-like” viewpoint compared to the odd numbered reports (1, 3, 5, 7, 9), hinting that Ansem the Wise wrote those instead of Evil!Ansem. However, it’s not certain that 10-12 (11-13 in English) are meant to follow this pattern, since they were newly added in the Final Mix version of the game.

That concludes my personal discoveries made during this project. Thank you for reading! I hope it proved useful or relatively interesting. I’m currently planning to continue this exercise with as many KH games as time allows for, following with Chain of Memories and going on from there. I imagine that the overall localizing translation strategy will remain throughout, though I’ll be keeping an eye out to see if there are any stylistic differences with new translators coming into the mix. If there’s enough interest, I’d definitely like to at least share the text dumps for others to look over.

Last but not least, a big thank you goes to Stephen Meyerink for helping me put this write-up together! And of course, my deepest gratitude to all those involved in Kingdom Hearts’ official translation for giving me a game that has been such a big part of my life:

Localization Team

General Manager – Akira Kashiwagi

Localization Directors – Kazuyoshi Tashiro, Ichiro Nonaka

Localization Specialist – Amanda Jun Katsurada

Localization Assistants – Mai Morofushi, Satoko Kondo, Tomoko Sekii, Seikou Hokama

Square Soft, Inc.

Localization

Localization Specialist – Ryosuke Taketomi

Editor – Jennifer L. Mukai

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