He mentioned AI would crank out translations faster, meaning fans could get their hands on global releases quicker, maybe even at the same time as Japan. The savings in time and cost from AI could make it possible for more niche titles to reach worldwide markets, especially Falcom’s hallmark Trails series, with greater lingual accuracy.
At Tokyo Game Show this year, 4Gamer demoed ELLA, a prototype AI translation tool co-developed by Digital Hearts and Rosetta. Designed to bring more “emotion” than the usual robotic translations, they tested ELLA using The Legend of Heroes: Trails of the World -Farewell, O Zemuria- as a guinea pig.
The result? Lines that were a messy blend of English, Japanese, and Chinese, with visitors asked to guess which sounded the most “authentic.”
Afterward, 4Gamer got Kondo’s thoughts on ELLA and whether Falcom would give it a go for future translations. First up, they discussed ELLA’s translation accuracy.
Original: “Hey, old man. Finally back, huh?”
(Preliminary comments from Nihon Falcom Co.) In this scene, Aaron Wei playfully addresses Van as “old man” after he returns late at night from a task, conveying a teasing yet somewhat relieved tone. The goal is to capture this subtle nuance in the AI translation.
A: “Yo, old man. You finally came back.” B: “Hey, old man. You finally dragged yourself back, huh.” C: “Yo, old man. So you finally came back.” D: “Yo, old man. Where’ve you been wandering around till now?” E: “Yo, old man. So you finally made it back, huh.”
For the character of Aaron Wei, the president of Nihon Falcom had this to say regarding ELLA’s multi choice translations before selecting option A.
“Looking at the results of everyone’s votes, I feel like D might be the one (laughs). I was torn between A and D, but since it’s the first line of dialogue, I thought simpler was better. Actually, we have an internal rule regarding scenarios that says, ‘Start with a simple greeting.’ I also struggled with the nuance difference between A’s ‘came back’ and C’s ‘returned’.”
(Preliminary comments from Nihon Falcom Co.) This line is spoken by Yume, who is fighting off sleep as she greets Van, who returned late at night. The goal is to capture her childlike demeanor and her struggle with sleepiness in the AI translation.
A: “Van, welcome back~. Yume isn’t sleepy at all. I’ve been waiting the whole time… ZZZZ” B: “Van, welcome back~! Yume stayed awake the whole time waiting… ZZZZ” C: “Van, welcome back~! I’ve been waiting for so long, not even sleeping… ZZZZ” D: “Van, welcome back~. I’ve been waiting the whole time, not sleepy at all… ZZZZ” E: “Van, welcome back~! Yume stayed awake waiting… ZZZZ”
For Yume’s character, the Tokyo Game Show crowd picked line B as the most “authentic,” narrowly beating out option E. Kondo himself agreed with the fans’ choice, noting that the voting results were close, with B and E practically neck and neck in his eyes.
“However, the phrase in E, “I was waiting without sleeping,” sounds a bit like an explanation. Yume is still young, so I thought she would say it in a more casual way, and in the end I chose B, “I was waiting without sleeping.” If she were a more elegant, princess-like character, it would probably be E, but Yume is a little strange, but she’s a typical young girl.”
Original: “Mom, it’s more like… my private life is all in order, as you can see… (sweat)”
(Preliminary comments from Nihon Falcom Co.) “Is the room clean?” “Is she not bothering those around her?” “Is she even capable of living on her own properly?” and so on. Judith finds herself overwhelmed by these questions one after another and ends up at a loss for words, leaving her speech trailing off with “… (sweat).” The AI translation interprets how she falters at the end.
A: “Mom, my private life is, as you can see, sparkling clean… (sweat)” B: “Mom, my private life is in order, seriously… (sweat)” C: “Mom, as you can see, my private life is on point… (sweat)” D: “Mom, my private life is perfectly in order, so don’t worry… (sweat)” E: “Mom, my private life, as you can see, is perfectly in order… (sweat)”
As for Toshihiro Kondo’s thoughts on ELLA’s AI translation of Judith Lanster, the majority of the TGS crowd threw their support behind line B, and Kondo himself went with that choice. Here’s what he had to say about it.
Nearly half of you chose B. Basically, Judith talks to her mother and grandmother in a guilty way, so that was the point I chose. They all seem that way because they have “(sweat)” attached, but Judith’s private life is probably not very neat in the first place, so if you think about lines that convey that clearly, C and D are a little different. As for E, Judith probably doesn’t often use the expression “tidy”. That leaves A or B, and A seems like an old-fashioned high school girl. E is like that, but her original tone is different. That’s why I chose B.
Original: “Ahhh, a morning bath in Calvard is quite the charm.”
(Preliminary comments from Nihon Falcom Co.) This is a scene where two familiar characters are casually chatting in a relaxed state, and it captures Crow’s easygoing nature with his exclamation, “Ahhh” and the expression “quite the charm.” It’s of interest how well the AI translation can capture these nuances.
A: “Ahhh, a morning bath in Calvard feels great.” B: “Ahhh, the open-air morning bath in Calvard feels nice.” C: “Ahhh, a morning bath in Calvard is something special, don’t you think?” D: “Oh, a morning bath in Calvard is quite the charm.” E: “Ahhh, an open-air morning bath in Calvard is pretty nice.”
For the character of Crow Armbrust, participants were split between options C and E, pulling in 56.9% and 42.6% of votes respectively. However, Nihon Falcom’s president, Kondo, chose option E, admitting it was the hardest one for him to decide on.
“To tell the truth, the most Crow-like line is C. In terms of Crow-likeness, it’s either C or E. However, this line is spoken in the Calvard Republic, which is enemy territory. Crow acts relaxed even in enemy territory, but he is a strong person at heart, so I chose E, which somehow exudes that. Also, in the original text, it says “morning bath in Calvard.
This expression is based on the comparison with the experience of taking a morning bath in the Erebonia Empire and the fact that he is talking to Rean, who is from a hot spring town. I think that the translation method and which translation is most appropriate will change depending on how much background information you understand. Due to these circumstances, it took me a long time to choose.”
Kondo, who’s worn various hats at the Trails and Ys developer since he joined in 1998, landing a spot thanks to his Legend of Heroes III: White Witch fan site, seems pretty satisfied with ELLA’s AI-translated results. Most of the time, he finds them fitting given the characters and their settings.
When asked for his final thoughts on the results, Kondo replied via machine translation:
“There were times when the translator got minor subtleties wrong, but at the same time, I felt that he translated some parts so well that I was sometimes surprised to see that he translated them exactly as they were written. Although there are still areas where human translators are not as good as they used to be, I can’t help but think that this is an amazing technology compared to what we had a decade ago.”
“I myself used to play PC games made overseas that were translated into Japanese, and I think the text used was probably at the level of first-person translation nowadays,” said the studio president. “Compared to that, the translation of ‘ELLA’ is at a much higher level. Also, since the AI is learning more and more, I feel that even if human intervention is necessary in the end, it will save a lot of work time in the future.”
When asked whether he was concerned about AI “taking away human jobs,” given that in the English-speaking world, negative opinions on AI translation are loud, Kondo admitted, “I think it’s inevitable if the world is moving toward AI.”
Frankly, I agree. A new AI startup, Orange Inc., is making waves by translating Japanese manga faster, cheaper, and in way higher volumes for global release. With generative AI translation slashing costs by up to 90% compared to hiring human translators, Orange Inc. claims they’re able to crank out up to 500 manga volumes a month at full capacity.
Compare that to the measly 2% of Japan’s yearly manga output that even gets officially translated for English audiences. And without the added risk of so-called “localizers” who twist and ruin Japanese media to push their own agendas, it’s about time AI got a shot.
Consider a side-by-side comparison of Seven Seas Entertainment’s official localization of Uzaki-chan wa Asobitai! and a fan-translated version. Uzaki calling someone a “broken-tongued bigot” in the official release feels totally out of place, anyone familiar with the character can tell that’s not her style, even without knowing Japanese.
This issue of malicious translations, otherwise known as localization goes far beyond manga; it’s a huge problem in anime and video games, which are far more commercially visible.
We’ve seen so-called translators take liberties that are closer to fanfiction, slipping in buzzwords, memes and childish insults that don’t even make sense, or worse, inserting political agendas. It’s as if these translators think they’re paid to write their own stories and use the creators of others as their own personal soapbox.
Then there’s the translation of a scene featuring a dark-skinned man complimenting a woman’s white skin, only for it to be rewritten in English as either a crude innuendo or something vaguely racist, like telling her to “cash in on some vitamin D.”
Nihon Falcom has been a regular victim of this nonsense, with Western publishers like NIS America and XSEED periodically handling the release of Falcom’s games in the West, including their highly sought-after Trails series.
One of the most blatant examples of “creative” localization ruining the source material was The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, a game that originally came out in 2004 but had the misfortune of being warped with fanfiction-level changes that basically turned some characters into entirely new people.
When The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky hit Western audiences in 2011, XSEED’s translation wasn’t a faithful adaptation, it leaned into fanfiction territory, straying far from the original.
Estelle, a beloved character, underwent a complete personality shift thanks to the added fluff in her dialogue. Instead of sticking to her straightforward, down-to-earth vibe, her lines were padded with extra content that totally changed her tone, and XSEED even scrapped her signature catchphrase, replacing it with unrelated lines that didn’t capture her true character at all.
This change was like putting a filter over the character Western fans never asked for, but since it happened over a decade ago, most people missed how far off it really was.
Now, with Nihon Falcom’s recent announcement of a full-blown Trails in the Sky remake for 2025, fans are curious if they’ll still outsource it to Western publishers like XSEED or NIS America, risking another stray from the original vision.
Nihon Falcom genuinely cares about its fans and values their input, which, thanks to the internet, now means players can call out poor translations directly. It’s ironic that the same internet which lets questionable translators, like Katrina Leonoudakis, thrive also serves as a watchdog, exposing botched translations and holding publishers accountable.
Dedicated fans who prioritize authenticity over half-assed rewrites haven’t been shy about letting Falcom know when localizers screw up.
In fact, when Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana got butchered by NIS America’s localization, full of grammar mistakes, typos, and inconsistent translations, Nihon Falcom listened to fan outrage and forced NISA to clean up its mess, revising, updating, and patching the game’s translations. Ys VIII is just one in a line of NIS America’s screw-ups.
Recently, 4Gamer asked Falcom President Toshihiro Kondo if the company might consider AI translation for their products in the future. He responded that speed is now a crucial factor.
“Until about 20 years ago, 80-90% of our customers were Japanese. Recently, however, the percentage of overseas customers is increasing, especially in Asia. If our games do not sell well overseas, we may not be able to deliver them to Japanese customers. Given this, we see potential in AI translation in terms of shortening the time it takes to reach overseas customers and improving accuracy.”
It’s a new era, and the localization timeline has changed drastically. Whereas games used to take months, or even years to justify hitting Western markets, now fans want near-simultaneous releases.
Take The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky as an example: it first launched in Japan in 2004, but the English release didn’t hit until 2011 on the PSP, a gap of nearly seven years. Back then, getting Japanese games translated for international markets was an afterthought.
Huge JRPGs like Falcom’s Trails series face challenges with simultaneous releases due to their sheer scale and the insane amount of text, which requires a ton of time and cash to translate. Unfortunately, some “progressive” publishers take liberties with the content, distorting the original message to suit their agendas.
But Kondo’s not dumb; he noted that “human power” will still be needed for final adjustments, understanding that robots will inevitably take over some roles while skilled hands will still guide the process. Kondo sees value in AI-driven translations to speed things up, noting that AI could mean faster, more accurate translations.
Since Falcom’s model has been to finish games for the Japanese market first and only then start on translation, fans have had to wait up to two years for localized versions.
With AI, though, Kondo envisions releases either dropping alongside the Japanese versions or within a few months, letting Falcom save on costs, meet global demand sooner, and dodge interference from the likes of XSEED, NISA, and those who’ve botched localizations.
More authentic translations would keep fans happy, and knowing certain companies and names won’t touch Falcom’s games would let fans breathe easy.
“Designers fear that their art could be used without permission in AI models, so their concerns are valid. This is a separate issue from translation, but we aim to use AI in ways that respect both human input and AI’s capabilities. We can’t ignore emerging tech, and we want to handle it smartly while staying aware of the challenges.”
Up next for Falcom fans, The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II is dropping internationally on February 14, 2025, with an English dub for PC and Nintendo Switch.
This move highlights the need to ramp up productivity by leaning into machine learning for translations, especially when you consider that Trails Through Daybreak II initially launched in Japan on September 29, 2022, for PlayStation consoles, and got a PC release the following year in Asia.
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