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Can a 42-year-old straight guy get into Boys’ Love manga? Let’s find out at MangaPlaza

They say you can’t teach an old dog new homoerotic literature.

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Evangelion’s original English scriptwriter has some harsh words for people complaining about translation choices, but also a pretty good point.

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Japanese audiences absolutely lose it at their cheesy poster for foreign horror movie

The original audiences get eye-squinching, skin-prickling images of horror. Japan gets a poster befitting a zany comedy.

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Sharin no Kuni Kickstarter campaign launches to localize dystopian-themed adult game

Another popular visual novel is headed West.

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More adventures in localization: Icelandic film’s poster gets unusual makeover in Japan

It’s time for more misadventures in the land of cinematic localization as the movie Virgin Mountain gets promoted in Japan.

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Nintendo removing “skinship” romance touching scenes from North American Fire Emblem game【Videos】

Hands to yourselves, 3DS gamers!

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Whaling film In the Heart of the Sea becomes The Battle with the White Whale for Japanese release

As one of the most celebrated directors of modern cinema, movie fans across Japan are no doubt looking forward to Ron Howard’s upcoming epic, The Battle with the White Whale.

Wait, what?

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Yo-kai watch what the western Yo-kai Watch doesn’t want you to yo-kai watch

With Yo-Kai Watch finally exported overseas, many await the inevitable changes due to localization and censorship that will occur. After all, if it can happen to Doraemon, it can happen to any series. Sure enough, the English version of Yo-kai Watch anime did not fail to disappoint.

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Smartphone smash Neko Atsume heads west, we talk to the localization team behind it【Interview】

As further proof that cats rule the Internet and humanity at large, the relaxed, mostly goal-less mobile app time waster, Neko Atsume—which tasks players with simply collecting a bunch of cartoon cats and kind of just watching them do stuff—proved a massive success in Japan despite a distinctive lack of explosions, destruction and, er, constantly running from left to right that are the typical hallmark of successful mobile games.

In fact, the game is so popular among cat lovers (read: everyone) that the Japanese version of the game began trending abroad, even though the large majority of fans surely had to resort to Internet guides to make any sense of the Japanese kanji plastered all over the in-game menus and inventory.

Said fans were in for a great surprise, though, when last week, developer Hit-Point updated the game with full English support thanks to renowned localization agency 8-4. We had a chance to sit down with the 8-4 team and chat about the behind-the-scenes work that went into localizing the app for an English speaking audience.

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Life Is Strange is coming to Japan, gets new voice cast & dubbed trailer 【Video】

The last few years especially have seen a notable increase in the number of western-developed narrative-driven video games. Notable entries include Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, and of course Game of Thrones, which deliver their respective stories in downloadable chunks once every few months, leaving players itching to play the next episode and find out what happens.

Telltale pretty much cornered the market on this genre until French development studio DONTNOD Entertainment released the absolutely captivating five-part supernatural high school story game Life Is Strange. The game has been a surprise hit, selling over a million copies to date, with players falling in love with the endearingly complex characters, time-travelling mechanics, mellow game atmosphere, and killer soundtrack. In fact, the game has done so well for itself that publishers Square Enix have decided it’s time Japan got a piece of the photo-snapping, heavy decision-making, time-rewinding fun for themselves. Yep, Life is Strange is being released in Japan, and it’s getting an entirely new Japanese voice cast, too!

Check out the reveal trailer to hear Max, Chloe and the rest of the characters speaking Nihongo!

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Pixar alters Inside Out’s visuals for Japanese release, removes broccoli

If you’re an anime purist, you’ve probably watched at least one title with a localization choice that rubbed you the wrong way. Maybe you were irked by Sailor Moon’s Usagi being called “meatball head” on American T.V. instead of “dango/dumpling head.” More recently, you might have wondered why Doraemon’s central family ditched all their chopsticks and now eat their Japanese food with forks in their U.S. appearances.

But localization runs in the other direction, too, and it’s just come to light that Pixar has altered part of the artwork in several scenes of Inside Out solely for the film’s Japanese release.

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Ace Attorney localizer explains alternate-universe Los Angeles

While the Ace Attorney games take place in an urban Japanese city, for the European and North American games, they take place in Los Angeles. Although the games have gotten their fair share of ribbing for this decision, game localizer Janet Hsu posted a blog entry about some of the decisions behind this change, as well as the alternate-universe version of Los Angeles that makes this possible.

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