Projects: Evolution 2010 - Letter to Ecole

One of the biggest tasks I've done as a translator was to write a letter to a game company and coordinate Japanese people for an American event. 

About 2 years ago, Melty Blood (MB) would finally see the limelight. Through a series interesting events, MB became one of the major games at Evolution 2010 (EVO). EVO is -the biggest- fighting game tournament in the United States. It has been gaining more and more attention over the years and is probably the biggest stage for fighting games in the world.

In order to make sure that it would be US-MB's finest showing, I did a number of things:

1. Advertise that Melty Blood would be at EVO as a major game on multiple Japanese sites.

2. Help coordinate the people that could come. Specifically: inform them on the best time to come, help them register, tell them who they should meet to and where they would be.

3. Write a letter to the creator of the game.

Number 1 was not terribly hard. I simply posted everywhere (on Japanese BBS) about what was happening, when and where. As you can expect, many people were very interested in coming. One problem though: Japanese Melty Blood players are cheap... potentially more so than their American counterparts. So there were about 12 people that really wanted to go, but didn't have the funds to travel or wanted people to help sponsor their trip. The later was not realistic for our community, but we were fortunate that two fine gentlemen, Garu and Chelsea, could make it out.

After that, it was simply a matter of making sure they understood the details of the events (number 2). Since Paypal is not commonly used in Japan, I had someone else register them. They would then reimburse that person later. After they knew what they need, it was just a matter of them coming. After they arrived, we communicated through email to help them find the other MB players.

The last part was a more delicate than the others. I thought it would be best to involve the company that made the game, ECOLE. There are two huge problems here. Problem one: Who is Richard Meadows? Problem two: WHO THE #%!@ IS RICHARD MEADOWS?! No really, this is big. Japanese companies are super tricky. I may be the best damn translator in the world, but If they don't have someone to tell them that, no amount of work on my side will do. The best way to wedge your way in, is to know someone that knows someone (who may know someone). So I had two people help compensate for these two problems. The first person I talked to was a Japanese player that previously worked at ECOLE as a test player. He helped me talk to the company before hand and tell them that a letter was coming from my number two person, Joey Cuellar. With someone on the inside and "The granddaddy of SRK and EVO," it was a lot easier to get their attention and tell them what we wanted them to do via mail.

This kind work is different from your average translation work. Japanese can be divided into 3 parts. I will give them names to make this easier: 

Homeboy

Homeboy is the language you use with your friends and close family. Fairly loose and relaxed manner of speaking

Casual

Casual is the way you might talk to your boss or some of your co workers. Perhaps even family or neighbors that you don't talk with very often. You refrain from using certain words and you speak politely, humbling yourself at times

"Yes, Master"

This is the alien language that you don't master until you are 30. Not only do you refrain from using a lot of words that you usually use, you lower your own stature, raise who you are speaking to, and avoid even the slightest notion that you are speaking for them or putting words in their mouth. This is how you talk to the emperor.

The last one is what you use to speak to other companies in Japan, and it is extremely difficult for even Japanese people. It was necessary to write the email in this tone for this task. Here is example from the top of the letter.

Japanese:

- 突然、 このようなメールを差し上げることをお詫び申し上げます。

Translation:

- We apologize sincerely for the sudden email.

Literal:

-We humbly offer an apology for presenting a letter like this to one such as yourself so abruptly.

In the end, they only sent ten copies of the game, but it was an accomplishment for me. This is the type of work that I would like to make a living out of. Not just providing the best quality of translation, but assistance for all of the small things in the middle. 

If I was to do this again, I would like to see it all the way to the finish and interpret for the people in question... so, where is that Mad Catz deal at?