Concept of Canon/Japanese Paratext (Studio BentStuff Prep)

[MelodicEnigma]

I think this is my first ever thread. Haha Fitting, really.

I've been working on a research paper of the history and book-making process of our favorite Studio BentStuff, while also creating an archive of translations and additional information on the staff's products/website comments. In light of this research I've found myself having to supplement my knowledge on an understanding of Paratext, specific usages of JPN peritext like Original Plan/Original Work (原案/原作)—amongst others ya'll are familiar with—and of course inevitably that of canon and formulating a way to navigate ambiguity by exploring how fictional canon functions. If all of that sounds boring, don't worry, it's all mostly in context of Square Enix games and content ya'll are aware of, hence why I figured why I'd post this here before I release my proper BentStuff, stuff. lol I think you guys will find this fascinating if you care to dig deeper into these types of things for evaluating FFVII material or other things—so grab that popcorn and reading lamp to enjoy the show. Definitely tell me what you think, as well, as this can be a discussion thread of ideals surrounding these things and such, too.

I have my writings on Google Doc (what's linked) and a blog, so if there's an issue with posting either on here then let me!

Concept of Canon in Fiction

Paratext for Fiction and Fandom

Original Work and Original Plan - Japanese Peritext

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Cool, this is 100% my jam.
I don't know what 'peritext' is, but I'm assuming it's supporting material written around the main text, eg FFVII OG would be the text, and interviews with developers would be peritext - am I right or am I wrong?
Edited to add: I have now read "paratext for fiction and fandom". I was wrong.

 

[MelodicEnigma]

Close! Peritext is almost literal in what "surrounds the text"—for the OG game, it would be more like that of the title, developer name, or descriptions/summary on the back of the case. Epitexts are things that are outside the text, such as interviews, company website, or even the guidebooks.

Edit: To throw in quickly, both are essentially subsets of "Paratext" as a whole.

 

[TurquoiseHammer]

This is such a fantastic set of writeups, @MelodicEnigma! Incredibly comprehensive and satisfyingly circumspect. I repeatedly found myself preparing some sort of observation only for you to make it in the next paragraph. And the number of examples you provide in the last paper is really impressive. I admit I didn't look at every one of them.

I think another possible source of paratextuality are translations themselves. If we apply the TAA, then the most authoritative translation would be one made by the original writer(s), in the ultra-rare (nowadays unheard of) case that they both understand the translation language with equal fluency and also take the time to localize their own work. However, in modern games where motion captures and even facial captures may only be provided for one language/region, even a "pure" authoritative translation still leaves room for paratextuality in the culturally specific ways the story is conveyed. The paratextuality of a translation could, in cases where the translation team has authority by virtue of good communication with the original creators, even lead to additional (primary) text. Consider a hypothetical scenario from FFVII Remake: In the scene where the Shinra trooper recognizes Cloud's sword, imagine if the full original line were, "Hey, that sword is Angeal's." Now imagine that in the original Japanese version, this line were truncated to "That sword...", but because of structural linguistic reasons, it were truncated in the English localization to "That's Angeal's...". In such a scenario, the translation would be providing authoritative source text that isn't available in the original presentation (though to the fanbase it may be hard to ever prove this as more than paratext). In the presence of many cascading such scenarios, the paratext of a translation (be it accurate or inaccurate) would give rise to a sort of epi-canon (ur-canon?) specific to the fanbase who speak that language. In fact, that's kind of what happened with the original FFVII, and why a lot of English-speaking fans are skeptical or even hostile when confronted with the "correct" native canon. But this is digressing into more of a philosophical argument, so I'll stop.

Any ardent fan who picks up Dismantled or an Ultimania Omega would like to know exactly where the source for the book's paratextual information came from. Did the authors conduct thorough interviews with the writers about every aspect of the game? Did they send emails back and forth as they worked through the story playbacks? Did the creators themselves volunteer interesting bits of information and suggest how to implement them into the general framework BentStuff's guidebooks follow? Or was BentStuff just handed a huge folder of scenario outlines, behind-the-scenes commentary, transcripts, and storyboards?

I appreciate your writeups not just for providing tools to classify what is canon and what it means for something to be canon, but also to compartmentalize the importance of canonicity itself, and discuss things in their proper context with the proper perspective.

 

[MelodicEnigma]

Haha Thank you so much @Ultimasamune, I really appreciate that! Also, those example aren't going anywhere, so I hope that people can always go back to them for further study too!

EDIT: I write too much lol (as you can tell from my documents), so I'll put the paratext/localization comment in quotes. Feel free to join in @LicoriceAllsorts on what's below if you have any thoughts too.

And I'm definitely down to discuss the nature of translations—the philosophical aspects about paratextuality are interesting too, if even inherent to the establishment of paratext in general. Circumstance and information can change our reasoning. It's one of the reasons why I say that when examining certain scenarios, the most efficient way to think about it is with a "practical sense" on the subject + any accompanying information that should reasonably build on that perspective. You definitely hit the nail that even translations can have a sense of paratextuality—even more specific that in the view of fandom, localizations have been approached as "secondary" to the original language and should be bypassed if the source text is available. In a lot of cases, this can be considered a reasonable thought when having the knowledge of "distance" that translators have in terms of the lack of influence and cooperation with prime authorities—as we know, the title of "official" doesn't always retain the utmost authenticity.

With that perspective, we could almost look at translations as a sort of adaptation, but in functionality they're much more straightforward in what it's supposed to be relative to as source material. Perhaps then, there is that level of viewing localizations as what I've seen fans define as "third tier canon", but with a twist, being that we should be able to view the localizations as primary sources for that practicality of its purpose, until a direct contradiction [defining as a "true conflict" as opposed to two separately existing things like words or facial animation] causes us to default to the original text in the case of comparative study. Which of course, would only matter for those willing to compare and contrast. I wouldn't apply this to every localization, as the information about the process can change our way of classifying its authenticity—but the practical knowledge about the specifics of Square Enix's localization by the standards that most translators and the translations themselves being done in Tokyo, the lead translators often sitting beside the writers, the knowledge of cross-work and cooperation for even deliberate changes, etc.—we should see the localization department as just another part of the development team, as intended through the establishment of it after FFVII by Honeywood. Of course this doesn't account for the mistakes or non-cooperation that can still happen (in any version), but I absolutely would classify those as the exception given the more normal expected standards listed above. If I'm thinking about the aspects of "Authority" in reviewing authenticity, we're split between examining authority on the level of actual hierarchy within the development team (the difference in say, Nomura vs the lead translators or one animator), or, seeing the development team as a whole as such for identifying purposes for the product—for SE at the least, the product that is a localization isn't just a byproduct of the localization department, as that of the game in and of itself with the rest of the development team, so there shouldn't be a need to separate their authority from that of the rest of the development team in the manner of the product specifically.

At least that is my take on it. Haha In the midst of my research, I've definitely thought about how localizations can be similar to the concept of an adaptation, but I honestly never thought about the paratextual nature they could be seen to have in retrospect to the original language, despite their paralleling functionality of being the prime source [from a product view] all the same. This exactly what I'd hope for by opening up the subject to others when exploring the paratext concept, so thanks for that!

Beside that, the interest of BentStuff's book production can also come too from the knowledge gained by their staff comments and, what I'd consider, reasonable takes on what can/does happen in the midst of these books being written/edited. There's also what to consider in how we expect these types of materials to be made by any company. We can't know everything, but for what BentStuff does tell us, we can get a general gist of possibilities for most situations.

For example, BentStuff Staff (like Yamashita [CEO]) has often mentioned that they'd get their materials from the developers through the Publicity/Advertising Department (hence, more than likely why they're also often under the Supervision (監修) or Cooperation (協力) peritext)—this can even include the information like art or character profile comments that Nomura has done before, or actual game data and information—but they don't often speak on having direct interactions with the corresponding devs consistently while making the book, outside of interviews (usually always at the corresponding company, e.g. Capcom's building or Square Enix) and anything undergoing specific screening [content check] by them, like for Matsuyama's stories. Also, there are times where they speak on the origin of a book, like back then DigiCube [part of Square at the time] would request certain books in general, and their Capcom game books [like in ALL ABOUT] were often planned with the company to be released relative to the game, so they developed both simultaneously. That's about it—though, this definitely doesn't discount any moments where it can happen, which once they created the Ultimania series, I don't imagine direct communication on certain things wouldn't be inaccessible or unused by BentStuff. There exist situations where this would beget such a thing, like Capcom including a manga in ALL ABOUT Street Fighter ZERO2 ALPHA, Nojima and his short story in FFVIII Ultimania, or Nomura doing things for the Kingdom Hearts Ultimania Alpha—this doesn't tell us the specifics of the workflow/checks and balances, but it gives a feeling that BentStuff have always been willing to produce a product that has some form of cooperation with the devs of whatever game they're doing. (which applies to a multitude of epitexts outside of BentStuff for SE games, and hoo boy will that list be long too lol) I just know that their ideas for certain sections and their production planning meetings don't seem to involve the devs themselves per their comments, but this could vary from specific scenarios depending on what is implemented.

It's honestly been an intriguing time looking at BentStuff and the accompany "starter" concepts of paratext and canon. Hopefully I can get the BentStuff Archive and writings out soon.