OtWtaS Analysis Thread / Comparison Works

Thread for discussions and analysis surrounding On the Way to a Smile material that may be turned into frontpage articles. Doesn’t have to be me who end up making a suggested feature.

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Currently on-going:

Comparing the three literary versions of Denzel's story and the two versions of Tifa's story. This is accomplished by creating full episode transcriptions and then comparing each and every row in Excel, using the "check if identical or not identical" feature.

By now I've spent 200+ hours working on this. The goal is to create frontpage articles where all the bigger changes are presented and commented on. Naturally an actual translator will have to translate and write the commentary. I'm just here for the foreword and the document compiling.



Yes, I like comparing stuff. In case it wasn't already obvious

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Features I'd like to see, whether by me or by somebody else:

- Translation of Episode:Barret from the OtWtaS novel, to compare with official 2007 localization. Spot potential edits that were made or important nuances that are lost in translation.

- Comparing Denzel OVA and Denzel V3. How do these match up? One known example: The OVA actually gives us estimates for the number of casualties after the #1 Reactor bombing (around 230) while the novel does not seem to provide this number.

- An "Inconsistencies / General Oddities" article, unless these are automatically included in the features above.

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The reason I bring this up now after 200+ hours of painstaking work is because of refinements required in the transcriptions. Refinements that require some knowledge of Japanese, though not a whole lot.


It wasn't until very recently I learned of three symbols that are actually six symbols in total.

Katakana --- Hiragana

ヘ --- へ (he)

ベ --- べ (be)

ペ --- ぺ (pe)


I am not qualified to confirm whether a he/be/pe symbol should be in its katakana or hiragana form. Tried gaining qualifications and got a great deal of help from Tres, but in the end it's not good enough.

I need somebody who is willing and eager to check these symbols in the transcriptions and make sure the correct symbol is written in every situation. What is fortunate here is that comparing the Word documents and the scans is not necessary. The symbols are too visually similar. All that's needed is to read the context in the documents and figure out if a symbol should be in katakana or hiragana.

Volunteers? Preferably someone who is eager to see this done. I am VERY close to complete comparison documents for the Denzel and Tifa stories respectively.

I've got about half an hour to kill. Let me see what I can do.

EDIT: All the "he," "be," "pe" stuff is done.

An epic mega-thanks to Tres for his help. With his contribution I have now finalized the comparison between Denzel V1 and Denzel V2.

Dowload link:
- DENZEL_V1_versus_DENZEL_V2

As expected, the differences are very few, but they do exist! Each difference has been double-checked by comparing the screen caps and the scans in the appropriate places. Extremely meticulous work.


Once I've entered the correct he/be/pe stuff into my Denzel V3 transcription and then adjusted the line breaks to fit with Denzel V2 (so they can be compared correctly in Excel) we will finally get a glimpse of just how many changes were made in the long period between the V-Jump AC Prologue and the novel version.

After receiving assistance from Tres with the final he/be cases, more progress has been made. Currently Tres is set to sort out which differences between Tifa V1 and Tifa V2 are worthy of being pointed out and analyzed in a frontpage article. In the spirit of sharing, here is the Excel document for everyone to enjoy.


- TIFA_V1_versus_TIFA_V2

Green boxes show that a difference has been confirmed/double-checked (and also confirms that the similarities in that row are true). Line breaks in Tifa V2 started out as mimicking those in Tifa V1, but for ease of showing where discrepancies begin and end, line breaks have been further edited. Also some random empty rows here and there to make reading easier.

Even somebody like me who can't read Japanese can spot that a thousand small "largely uninteresting" changes have been made. I have taken the time to point these out in small commentary bubbles to the right (Column F --> ). So while the majority of changes are not suited for a frontpage article, I'm still convinced there are some relevant changes the fandom has not paid attention to and which are not highlighted in our current hosting of Episode:Tifa.

I will argue that when Tres's analysis is done, edits should be made to our Episode:Tifa article to fit some of our newfound knowledge.

More progress after a long sitting.

- Denzel_V2_versus_Denzel_V3 (proto document)

Nothing has been double-checked or commented on yet (except for a few stray bits). First impression is that there are fewer "big" changes than in Tifa's story. Not an important fact, but Denzel's story is longer than Tifa's. Still, looks like there could be some small gems in there. See row 210-214 (Denzel V3) for a segment that was added, and see row 395-400 for a segment that appears to have been hugely rephrased. In row 710-711 a sentence was removed from Denzel V2.
(EDIT: Already noticed a false difference in row 1073, where extra spacing was the culprit. All these false differences will be removed by me.)

All in all, I expect that when these difference are examined, 99% will turn out to have no huge impact. Even for the small gems, I'm happy to see this project getting closer to completion.


EDIT: Now taking a break from this project. Need to enjoy my vacation in other ways.

EDIT#2: Cleaned up the document to remove false differences and to write out what the differences are (typically when they are small)

- DENZEL_V2_versus_DENZEL_V3 (ready for translator)

Technically not about the OtWtaS analysis, but I just learned about the "FFVII:ACC Complete Reunion Tracks". Before I only knew about the mini album.

Listening to the tracks for the Denzel OVA, I notice some segments are not included in the animated episode and some notes sound different. This is not that surprising of course. Many soundtracks get edited to fit with movies/animations, but the non-edited soundtracks are sometimes what's bundled in the music albums.

Example: In Promise, everything after 0:48 is not included in the animation. From what I can hear, the first 48 seconds are looped in the OVA (with the drum sound being somewhat subdued). After that is an obvious unused segment, followed by what sounds like the first 48 seconds except with some more notes from an electric guitar (I think it is).

Edit: This arrangement of Tifa's theme (called Connected Heart on YouTube, titled Hearts Entwining in the album I downloaded) is completely unused in the OVA. Surely intended for when Denzel calls Tifa, but instead it's 'Daybreak' from 01:45 and onwards that play.

I really wanted to find those extra tracks for the audiobook version, especially that alternate arrangement of Denzel's theme. Seemed odd that it wasn't available.

Does anybody have transcriptions of the English releases of Denzel's and Tifa's respective stories that came with the English Advent Pieces set in 2007?

I would very much like to have those. Send me a PM if you'd prefer to link them more discreetly.

I don't have transcriptions, but I did get that edition of the movie, so I've got the book. I'll look into the matter and find out if anyone else has done transcriptions. If not, I'll do it for you at some point soon.

In other news, I've finished comparing Denzel V1 vs V2 and taking note of the changes (aren't that many, really). I'm now about 1/10 of the way through V2 vs V3.


EDIT: These appear to be transcriptions of the official English versions:

http://www.ffinsight.com/?ff07-ac=SmileDenzel1
http://www.ffinsight.com/?ff07-ac=SmileTifa

Are you sure those are the official translations? The Denzel one has weird sentence structure. Maybe I'm just used to the flow of my own version. Like this

There were two vistas in Midgar: the acropolis, a steel structure known as the Plate which pillars held aloft high above the ground; and the slums, where folk lived chaotic but hardy lives upon terra firma from which the Plate blocked all sunlight.

Click to expand...

Seems overly literal, badly written.

vs my version

Midgar was divided into two very different worlds. An upper city; a steel acropolis high above the ground, known as the Plate. Then there were the slums; areas beneath the plate that never saw daylight. The people who lived there led chaotic, but hardy lives.

Click to expand...

All nice and flowy

I can't remember what version I based mine on. It was before I starte using the german version to fix up translations

I'll double check the Denzel translation later tonight. I'm sure about the Tifa one, though.

Pixel's version definitely has a more flowy introduction, but that is, indeed, the official English translation. Just confirmed it.

Shademp said:

So while the majority of changes are not suited for a frontpage article, I'm still convinced there are some relevant changes the fandom has not paid attention to and which are not highlighted in our current hosting of Episode:Tifa.

Click to expand...

Now you got my attention. Would you mind teasing us with a general, vague change or two? I'm not literate enough in Japanese to sit down and help translate stuff.

I can give you better than a teaser of changes. Here's all the differences between the versions of Denzel's story (V1 vs V2 and V2 vs V3):

https://mega.co.nz/#!Ns5DhDCT!-Wz-xItieLwTPfKk1Ae3Ox788tIbqUBRcrPDnjfU2PQ

Also, because I was checking Episode:Barret in Japanese to see if there were any comments about the airship construction due to this thread Shademp had made, I found some changes there -- possibly one about the airship itself.

First, we still very much have mention made of construction being underway on an airship in Rocket Town:

(Official English translation of Barret's story included with the North American Limited Edition of Advent Children)
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Past the long line of houses, a large area opened up, and Barret could see an enormous airship— yeah, just like the old Highwind!—under construction.
----

(Japanese text from the On the Way to a Smile book)
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家並みが終わり、視界が開けると巨大な、かつてのハイウインドのような飛空艇が建造されている様子が目に入った。
----

(My translation)
Past the row of houses, the field of vision opened up to bring into view an enormous airship like the old Highwind under construction.


Nothing notable there so far. Later, though, we've got this:

(Official English translation)
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“You’re buildin’ an airship, right?”
“That I am.”
----

(Japanese text)
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「飛空艇を作ってるんだろ？」
「まあな」
----

(My translation)
----
"You're building an airship, right?"
"Sort of."
----


Now, obviously it's impossible to know whether this is actually a change from the Japanese text used for the official English translation since that one has never been made available to the public, but it does appear to be the case.

At any rate, what Cid says -- 「まあな」/"maa na" -- expresses a sort of half-heartedness that could be translated as "eh," "sort of," "you might say that" or even "I guess so." Basically, it lacks the certainty of the confirmation we see in the official English translation, and a response like "Sort of" could point to referencing that the origins of the ship are not entirely of Cid's making -- i.e. "I'm sort of building one, but I didn't start from scratch."

I leave how each of you take it up to you. Cid has a very crude way of speaking in the first place, and he likes to use 「まあ」 (this isn't the only time he does it), so it may be that this isn't intended to be as dubious as it sounds. That said, Cid is capable of offering responses with more finality to them, as we'll see momentarily.

At any rate, "Sort of" is a possibility that I'm strongly leaning toward.

Now, for the other stuff that I got out of Episode:Barret -- all Cid's references to speaking with Red XIII by this point are removed:

(Official English translation)
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“How’s Shera?”
“Meh, she’s about the same,” dodged Cid.
After that he steered the conversation away by talking about how Red XIII kept dropping by, how Yuffie was teaching the wushu fighting style to the kids of Wutai, and how Vincent had stayed completely out of touch.
----

(Japanese text)
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「シエラはどうして？」
「まあ、相変わらずだ」シドは言葉を濁し、話題をえようとした。
----

(My translation)
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"How's Shera?"
"Eh, she's about the same" he said vaguely, and tried to change the subject.
----

(Official English translation)
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“Won’t get another drop of Mako outta the ground there. The flow of the Lifestream’s changed.”
“You checked it out?”
“Red told me. If he says so, it must be true enough.”
----

(Japanese text)
----
「もうあそこじゃ魔晄は出ねえよ。ライフストリームの法れが変わっちまった」
「調べたのか？」
「ああ。ま、そんなに本格的な調査なんてできねえけどな」
----

(My translation)
----
"You won't get any more mako out of that place. The flow of the Lifestream has been strange."
"You checked it out?"
"Yep. Haven't been able to do a full-scale investigation, though."
----


As you can see, there are some definite changes at work in Episode:Barret. While I'm confident this isn't the full extent of them, I'm not particularly interested in searching for more. If someone wonders whether something specific has been changed, though, I might check that.

Isn't まあな "Well..."

Gaël said:

Now you got my attention. Would you mind teasing us with a general, vague change or two? I'm not literate enough in Japanese to sit down and help translate stuff.

Click to expand...

Watching the bolded parts (which represent an addition being made between V1 and V2) in our hosting of Episode:Tifa, I might have overestimated just how much unknown new stuff there could be. The big differences in the Excel document and the bolded parts on our site match up pretty well.


One important change that I don't see many people talk about though (and which is not commented on in our hosting of Episode:Tifa) is the removal of a segment from the first version of Tifa's story.

Here is how it reads in the official English 2007 release:

She felt worse than ever. Am I all alone in this house? The isolation proved to be too much, so she called out her daughter's name.

...

My daughter. That's how Tifa would introduce Marlene.

Click to expand...

Compare with Xcomp's translation.

A surge of uneasiness came over her. She wondered if she was all alone in the house. As the thought crossed her mind, she couldn’t stand it, and she called out a girl’s name.

...

Tifa stopped washing and followed Marlene.

Click to expand...

The bit about Tifa thinking of (and referring to) Marlene as her daughter was removed. Tres already confirmed this by checking the Japanese script.

I do not know if any other big edits were made that changes the dynamic of the Seventh Heaven family.

Pixel said:

Isn't まあな "Well..."

Click to expand...

It can be. As a complete sentence to itself, though, it comes off as a decidedly incomplete/noncommittal thought. And just in general, I think it's kind of "filling air space" and doesn't say a whole lot. Depending on whether a whole sentence follows, "Well" could be a perfectly valid translation.

I guess everyone knew there was an official French version?
http://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/237...mp=1642&creative=6746&creativeASIN=2371020028

Everybody on TLS, yeah. Tres even interviewed the translators.

Shademp said:

One important change that I don't see many people talk about though (and which is not commented on in our hosting of Episode:Tifa) is the removal of a segment from the first version of Tifa's story.

.........

The bit about Tifa thinking of (and referring to) Marlene as her daughter was removed. Tres already confirmed this by checking the Japanese script.

I do not know if any other big edits were made that changes the dynamic of the Seventh Heaven family.

Click to expand...

I remember bringing this up when it was first changed. (I rather enjoyed that daughter line.) So are we saying this was removed in the revised edition? And not just a mistake in the translation?

That's correct, yeah. I rather liked that bit myself, so was sad to see it go.

I prefer Tifa not referring to Marlene as her daughter. Creates an uncomfortable atmosphere, in my opinion, when you remember Barret is Marlene's father. I feel this unintentionally links Barret and Tifa through parental titles in a way they should not be linked.

I do see however that it makes sense for Tifa to refer to Marlene as her daughter when talking to strangers. Prevents the more complicated explanations.

Like the explanation Cloud had to give Evan? =P

While on the topic, by the way, I figured I could give a detailed explanation of the difference in these lines between the two versions.

Both versions contain this clause:
娘の名を呼んだ ("called out a young girl's/her daughter's name")

娘 ("musume") means "daughter" or "young girl."

In the original, it's part of the line そう思うとたまらなくなり、娘の名を呼んだ。 "She couldn't stand the thought and called out her daughter's name."

In the revised version, it's part of the line やがて、たまらなくなり、娘の名を呼んだ。 "Before long, she couldn't stand it and called out a young girl's name."

Now, I've changed the translation of 娘 across the versions because the revised edition lacks these lines that were present in the original:

娘です。人にはそう紹介することにしていた。
"My daughter. That's how I would introduce her to people."

The revised edition cuts straight to describing how Marlene was the daughter of Barret's closest friend, how Tifa came to know her through meeting Barret, that she then naturally ended up being the one to take care of Marlene when Barret went on his journey, etc.

In the original, all that followed the "My daughter. That's how I would introduce her to people" bit.

With that removed, I can only assume the first use of the word above should become "young girl" instead of "daughter." Wouldn't make any sense for it to still mean "daughter" without that.