Introduction
When I love a game, I try to learn as much about it as I possibly can. One of the things I find most fascinating about many of the games I play is how they change in their respective localizations. I really enjoy examining the text, graphics, and minute details in the Japanese versions and comparing them to their English counterparts. I love seeing how the localization team attempts to adapt a piece of media and judging how well they manage to transfer the original message. I also enjoy trying to get into the developers' and localization teams' heads to understand why and how something was changed. That's why I've always been a big fan of Clyde Mandelin's Legends of Localization website and have even bought some of his books.
One of my favorite games is Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, and up until recently, it was the only Archanean FE game to be localized into English. Naturally, I wanted to learn more about how different FE11 was in English compared to its Japanese counterpart and other languages. While there are some wiki pages and sites like The Cutting Room Floor that list localization changes, there were no dedicated articles that compiled everything and discussed these changes in depth. That’s why I’m here today to share this blog post where I list and discuss many of the localization changes in FE11, in the same style as Clyde Mandelin's Legends of Localization series
Humble Beginnings on the Famicom
Before talking about Shadow Dragon, I want to give more background by discussing the game it was a remake of, Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light (FE1), as well as the other remake, Fire Emblem Mystery of the Emblem (FE3).
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light is the first game in the Fire Emblem series and originated as a doujin project called Battle Fantasy - Fire Emblem. It was brainstormed by Shouzou Kaga, who had worked at Intelligent Systems up until the release of the fifth Fire Emblem game, and in the previous year achieved third place in Enterbrain's LOGiN magazine game coding contest with his entry titled Cosmic Fighter, described as a "role-playing game with hidden romance elements."
The idea for "Fire Emblem" came into existence in 1987 after the completion of Famicom Wars. Intelligent Systems wanted to move away from the military wartime setting presented in Famicom Wars and shift towards a more traditional fantasy-type RPG game in the same vein as Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy.
However, this game wouldn't be a standard JRPG. In addition to JRPGs, Kaga was also a big fan of strategy games but felt that, at the time, many of them were just about clearing an objective and didn't have room for the player to empathize with the characters and story, as many JRPGs did. Conversely, Kaga felt that one of the drawbacks of JRPGs was that there was always just a single protagonist. So, players could only experience a linear story that the game designer had prepared for them.
With these criticisms in mind, Kaga prepared a design document for a game called Fire Emblem, a game in which he took aspects from these two genres that he enjoyed. It outlined game mechanics, map scenarios, and character information, among other things. The concept of the game was highly ambitious at the time, leading to the necessity of cutting, removing, or scaling back various elements. The most discussed setback was related to the graphics, which became the major criticism of the game in Japan. However, despite facing challenges, the game was eventually released with some assistance from some higher-ups at Nintendo.
An important note is that FE1 not only marked the inception of the Fire Emblem franchise but also essentially pioneered its genre. While other games attempted to blend strategy games with RPGs, they were mainly limited to tactical-based random encounters or leaned closer to action-adventure games.
This point is worth highlighting because Japanese fans initially criticized the game as being "too complex" or "hard to understand" simply due to the lack of similar games in the market. However, as people began to comprehend the game, and word of mouth spread, FE1 became a hit in Japan. Shouzou Kaga, the creator, was promoted to head designer for future Fire Emblem games. Moreover, Fire Emblem's unique gameplay served as inspiration for many other games that either emulated or built upon FE1's initial design. And while the people within the English community may vehemently disagree, FE1 definitely had a large impact.
Transitioning to the 16bit World
A few years later, after the release of the second game, Fire Emblem Gaiden, the team went to work to develop Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem. Initially conceived as solely a sequel to the first game, discussion would lead to the additional inclusion of a remake of the original game for people who hadn't played it. This version of Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light would include a few changes like the removal of some chapters and characters, some altered dialogue, a change in the battle system, and obvious graphical and music upgrades as they were now working with a fancy-schmancy 24 megabit cartridge.
And to put things bluntly, FE3 was a commercial success. FE1 got people to notice Fire Emblem, but FE3 was the game that put the series on the map for most Japanese players, cementing it as one of Nintendo's more notable IPs in the same tier as games like Mother, F-Zero, and Pikmin. With that said, FE3 would end up being the best-selling game in the series before Awakening in 2012. FE3's popularity would further spawn an OVA, a manga, and numerous pieces of merchandise, and served as a justification for including the poster boy, Marth, in the Super Smash Bros. series of games.
Recapturing the Original's Glory
Fast forward to 2007, and we have Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon, which started development during the development of Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn. Intelligent Systems wanted a chance to remake Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light so that software from their earlier days could be experienced by more players. This time, they would also appeal to the international market as Marth was a prominent character in Smash Bros., and with the small but steadfast audience in the West after the release of the Blazing Blade, they thought it was important to have the game localized.
The team approached the project not merely as a straightforward remake but as a 'renewal,' aiming to bring the original to a new platform with updated mechanics. Their greatest challenge lied in striking a balance between incorporating fresh elements and preserving the authentic atmosphere of the original version with the original director no longer at the helm.
Kouhei Maeda, Koji Kawasaki, and Toshiyuki Kusakihara were the three wise men responsible for overseeing the story and script which was heavily lifted from FE3. The team opted for minimal additions and chose not to burden players with unnecessary details. Instead, efforts were directed towards streamlining the story content from the original, in stark contrast to the expansions seen in subsequent or previous entries.
The game sold decently well in Japan, although it didn't sell amazing over here in the West. Despite that, it received a generally positive reception, and amongst the fandom, it's one of the few games that are more positively regarded.
Journey to the West
To get this game to the West, however, it needed to be translated, localized, and published. With previous entries, starting with FE7, it was normal for FE games to be localized in-house by Nintendo Treehouse, however with their eleventh entry, Intelligent Systems opted to entrust this localization job to 8-4, Ltd.
The company of 8-4 is stationed in Shibuya, Tokyo, and was founded in 2005 by Hiroko Minamoto and former Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) editor John Ricciardi. The first game localized by 8-4 was Mario Tennis: Power Tour and the team has localized a large variety of games including Tales of Vesperia, Tekken 6, and Dragon's Dogma.
Intelligent Systems seemed to be satisfied with 8-4's work with FE11, as they contracted them several other times to work on future Fire Emblem games, such as Fire Emblem: Awakening, Fire Emblem Echoes, and Fire Emblem Three Hopes.
When localizing games, 8-4 usually gets involved in the process midway through a game's development, gaining access to a build of a game and the script. When first gaining access to the game, they tend to familiarize themselves with the game as well as other games in its series by playing through them and taking notes. When actually getting into translating, they use large spreadsheets containing the script in both Japanese and English and work from there.
8-4 cites Richard Honeywood, founder of Square's localization department, as an influence on their translation style. Aside from translating the text, 8-4 attempts to convey the same experience as that of the original language version through attention to tone, user interface, and cultural references. 8-4 also cites Baten Kaitos Origins' localization as one of their favorite projects, as the developers allowed them to take over every aspect of localization including script, debugging, quality assurance, and voice production.
8-4 is still going strong as a company now, providing translation for Masahiro's Sakurai's YouTube series on game creation.
Back on the topic of FE11, despite the PAL version of FE11 releasing before the US version, it was built off of the US version, rather than the other way around. The US version of FE11 was localized by 8-4 in collaboration with Nintendo Treehouse, then the PAL version of the game would use 8-4’s script as a base, and adjust the aspects from there. In fact, most localizations of games for other languages are built off the English versions rather than working directly off the Japanese version.
Because of the nature of this way of adaptation, the PAL version also has certain bug fixes that do not appear in the US version of the game. Apart from that, the PAL version features Commonwealth spellings for terms and phrases, like changing color to colour, or defense to defence.
The US version of FE11 uses the phrase "Another thing coming," which is a common misconception or misinterpretation of the original phrase "Another think coming." Over time, the incorrect version has become widely accepted and used, even though it deviates from the original meaning. While the PAL version opted to use the original saying, the English version instead used the more colloquial phrasing.
The most discussed change between the PAL version and the US version is some of the name changes, like 'Caeda' being referred to as 'Shiida,' or 'Navarre' being referred to as 'Nabarl.' A lot of people incorrectly assume these names originated from older English patches of FE1 or 3, but these names are, in fact, the official ones used in the PAL versions.
A lot of these interpretations actually come from both Super Smash Brothers Melee and Brawl. Some of these names would be used in those games for trophy descriptions and sticker names. In Smash, they seemed to be transliterated without too much context, and the PAL games would use these names for consistency but alter a select few of them only slightly to make them sound better in the setting.
The English version of Brawl uses the transliteration 'Nabaaru,' which was changed to 'Nabarl' in the PAL version.
This trophy description calls the antagonistic nation 'Dolua' here, so it’s assumed that the PAL version's choice of using the name 'Doluna' was derived from this. I also love how this trophy description totally spoils the plot twist that happens in Book 2.
Smash was spoiling FE games before Fire Emblem Heroes made it cool.
After that, in December 2020 the first game, Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light would get a rerelease for the series' 30th anniversary, which included a new localization this one done by Nintendo Treehouse. This localization would stay consistent with 8-4's localization of FE11 by reusing the same names for characters and most of the items, but the two localizations would diverge most notably in the game's dialogue, as FE1's English dialogue appeared a lot less flowery compared to FE11's and is more of a straight translation.
What is Localization?
Now then, reading this you've probably heard me mention the term "localization" maybe once or twice. So I wanted to explain what localization implies. At its most fundamental level, localization means adapting something originally crafted for one target audience to a different target audience. This commonly occurs when transitioning content from one language to another, which causes it to be aligned closely with the field of translation.
When translating media from one language to another, a literal translation can sometimes fail to capture the original impact, tone, or context. There may be sayings or terms that create gaps in understanding. And it's typically the localizer's job to bridge these gaps.
Take for instance the French expression "Sacré Bleu," which is a stereotypical phrase used to convey astonishment, shock, or amazement. It's a substitution for the more religiously charged "Sacré Dieu." Directly translating "Sacré Bleu" to "Sacred Blue" would lose its meaning in English. Thus, effective localization involves finding an equivalent expression that conveys similar emotions. In this case, "Oh my gosh!" serves as a lighter alternative to the commonly used "Oh my God!"
Obviously, though, this isn't a one-size-fits-all change, if the fact that the characters are French is important to the story, you wouldn't need to change it at all. Or if the tone is meant to be more positive, a different expression might be used altogether.
Language is very mutable, and many phrases are open to different interpretations, which leads to certain terms being translated in highly subjective ways, especially when the languages themselves are as different from one another as English and Japanese.
As described by Clyde Mandelin in his Legends of Localizations book on Earthbound, several steps were taken by many localizers to adapt games from one language to another. The initial step revolves around obtaining the literal translation of the original Japanese script, essentially forming the skeleton of the game's text. While direct translations can often suffice, they often risk obscuring the full meaning and nuance of the original work, necessitating clarification and adaptation.
Moving on to the clarification phase, the goal is to extract the intended message from the original Japanese text. This involves dissecting nuances, potential jokes or wordplay, tone, and emotional delivery, and noting them.
Subsequently, the adaptation phase commences, wherein changes or revisions are implemented to ensure the game resonates more naturally with the new target audience. Beyond just making terms make more sense to the new audience, alterations might also occur due to external factors such as company policies, technical constraints, sociopolitical climates, feedback from Japanese fanbases, and other similar elements.
A lot of these localization changes aren't strictly reserved for text however, they also include aspects such as cover art, titles, marketing, voice acting, game mechanics, and supplemental material like game manuals.
Furthermore, different companies have different intentions, policies, and methods of localizing certain content, some for malicious reasons, others out of genuine interest in appealing to their new target audience. This in combination with the general subjectivity of how certain things can be translated has been the basis of fierce debates on the internet for decades.
That said, my personal opinion on localization is mostly divorced from my interest in studying and researching this stuff. I may not like or agree with how some people translate things, like with how many people like to use a localization job as an excuse to promote their own political views, but it's still interesting to learn about what the original Japanese script says, and why a particular change was made. Especially with a lot of the more earnest localization projects that allow me to better compare and contrast both scripts and see specifically how they tried to adapt the original work.
I've always been someone who enjoys reading through hundreds of Wiki articles and scraping the bottom of the barrel for information in regards to how my favorite games changed from region to region. I recall vividly how, as a child, I would eagerly compare the Japanese versions of my favorite games and passively pick up some Japanese terms and phrases through my research.
Aside from just dialogue in these games, some elements that I find the most interesting are the more overlooked aspects. For example, there's the Nintendo Entertainment System. As most people may know, the system was designed to distance itself from the standard video game console. Following the video game market crash of the early 80's, there was a stigma against video games in the market. They feared that if it was branded as such, no one would buy it in the West. The design was modeled after a VCR, and it was referred to as an Entertainment system rather than a game system. However, since this crash was mostly limited to the West, none of this applied to the Japanese Famicom, which the NES was adapted from.
Another example is with certain art styles, as in Japanese, it's common for games such as JRPGs to use anime-styled art to advertise their games in parts like cover art, sometimes commissioning popular manga artists such as Akira Toriyama in the case of Dragon Quest. Unfortunately, in an era where anime wasn't as big in the West as it is now, and the risks involved with potentially putting off potential consumers, a lot of this anime art was replaced with more Western D&D-inspired art style.
Over time, as the Western demographic has slightly adapted, many of these types of changes have also evolved, with adaptations that often align more closely with the Japanese versions. Regardless of one's opinions on these changes—whether they were beneficial, necessary, or otherwise—I find it intriguing that such alterations were even made in the first place.
Japanese Writing Systems
In any case, before talking about the localization of FE11, I feel it is important for you, the reader, to have at least a basic understanding of Japanese as a language. This will not only facilitate clearer explanations but also lay a solid foundation for comprehending various translations and interpretations of specific terms.
First, let's talk about Hiragana. Hiragana is a phonetic lettering system, a syllabary comprising characters representing syllables, and serves as the basic script for native Japanese words. The term itself literally translates to "common" or "plain" -kana. Its primary usage includes grammar particles, verb and adjective endings, and to spell out more complex Kanji characters in a system called "Furigana."
With a few exceptions, each mora is represented by one character, which can be a vowel, like /a/ (あ in hiragana), a consonant followed by a vowel, like /ka/ (か in hiragana), or the singular nasal sonorant /n/ (ん in hiragana). Notably, since the kana characters don't represent single consonants (except for the ん character), they are referred to as syllabic symbols rather than alphabetic letters.
In the table below, you'll find the kana that make up the hiragana writing system.
Next, we have Katakana, which translates to "fragmented kana." Similar to Hiragana, it is another syllabary comprising characters representing syllables, including the five main vowels, a consonant followed by a vowel, or a nasal sonorant. The key distinction lies in the fact that Katakana characters are more angular and sharp in nature, such as the character for /a/ represented as ア in katakana instead of あ.
The most notable difference, however, is its applications. Katakana is primarily used for foreign terms, names, technical or scientific terms, names of plants or animals, and similar contexts. In Fire Emblem, every character has their name written in Katakana, including the traditionally Japanese names found in Fates, such as Ryoma and Sakura. In these games, Hiragana and Kanji are reserved for NPCs (Old Man/おじいさん) or characters whose names are more akin to titles (The Immaculate One/白きもの).
Below, you'll find the kana that make up the Katakana writing system.
Lastly, we have Kanji, which, unlike Hiragana and Katakana, is a logographic system adapted from Chinese characters, and plays a major role in the Japanese writing system. Seriously, you don't know Japanese if you don't know Kanji. There are several thousand Kanji characters, each representing a word or a meaningful part of a word. Kanji is generally used for nouns, stems of adjectives and verbs, and to convey complex or specific meanings.
For example, in Fire Emblem, Marth is often referred to as "Prince Marth." If you wanted to write the word "Prince" in Kanji, you'd use 王子 (pronounced as Ōji). The term consists of the kanji 王 (Ō), referring to a King, Monarch, or Royalty, and 子 (Ko), referring to a child or young person. From this example, you can observe that kanji characters don't follow the same pronunciations in every application. Given the extensive number of characters, a table of every character in the system will not be provided.
Because of the context behind each writing system, the system a particular term is written can play a role in the way certain terms are translated or expressed when brought into English.
A system that is less important for practical use but will be helpful in my explanations of Japanese terms is the romaji system. The term itself comes from the words 'ji,' meaning letters, and 'Roman...' meaning Roman. Romaji pertains to the Romanization of Japanese characters, or in other words, the representation of Japanese sounds using the Latin alphabet. This is especially useful for people who are not familiar with or only have a basic understanding of Japanese scripts.
Romanization is the process of transcribing non-Latin scripts into the Latin alphabet. In the context of Japanese, it involves converting hiragana, katakana, or kanji characters into Roman letters, making it accessible for non-Japanese speakers to read and pronounce.
For example, below, I've provided a table expressing the term 'Inu,' which translates to 'dog' within different systems.
In the context of Fire Emblem, a lot of the characters do have official romanizations, these interpretations are seen in material such as artbooks, certain Japanese promotional merchandise, and sometimes in the credits of the Japanese games. It's important to understand that a lot of these names are straight interpretations or appropriations of the Japanese text without carrying over much of the same context if you aren't a native speaker.
For example, a character that we won't be talking about later on is called (シーザ Shīza) in Japanese, which is officially romanized as Seazar. However, the intention is that it's a Japanese spelling of the Latin name "Caesar".
Dakutens and Handakutens
The next thing I wanted to discuss is the usage of Dakuten and Handakuten. A dakuten, represented with a tenten ( ﾞ ) on the top right of a kana, is a diacritic commonly used in Japanese kana syllabaries to signify that the consonant of a syllable should be pronounced voiced.
For instance, the character カ is pronounced as /ka/, but with a dakuten added, it transforms into ガ, and the pronunciation changes to /ga/.
The standard pronunciation changes are as follows:
Kﾞ → G
Sﾞ → Z
Tﾞ → D
Hﾞ → B
(*One exception is the character "Shi" with a dakuten is sometimes pronounced as "Ji" rather than solely just "Zi")
On the other hand, a handakuten, represented with a maru ( ゜) on the top right of a kana, is another diacritic used with kana for syllables starting with 'h' to indicate that they should instead be pronounced with a 'p' sound.
For instance, ハ is pronounced as /ha/, but with a handakuten, it becomes パ, and the pronunciation shifts to /pa/. The standard changes are as follows:
H゜→ P
In the context of Fire Emblem, especially in older entries, the devs commonly used dakutens and handakutens to modify the pronunciations of weapons or magical tomes, assumingly to make them sound cooler or stand out more. A notable example is Osain's axe from Thracia 776, Vogue, which, when rendered in Japanese, would be spelled out as 'Buuji.' However, instead of using a dakuten to change the Hu sound to a Bu sound, the developers chose to use a handakuten to change the Hu sound to a Pu sound, spelling the name 'Puuji' (プージ) to add a special touch to the weapon. Among the English fanbase, this led to the spelling "Pugi," causing confusion for fan translators for years.
Chiisai Kana, Sokuon, and Chōonpu
Chiisai kana (or small kana), as the name implies, are represented by kana that are smaller than usual, but it's not just for stylistic purposes; they serve a functional role. Small kana like "ya," "yu," and "yo" are used to create compound kana, pronounced as a diphthong, a syllable with two vowels. An example of this is found in the cat sound 'Nya.' If written as にや, it would spell out 'Niya.' To accurately depict 'Nya,' a small 'ya' is utilized, written as にゃ.
Additionally, small versions of a, i, u, e, and o are often used in loanwords to express foreign pronunciations not native to Japanese. A prime example is the title "Fire Emblem" itself. In romaji, "Fire Emblem" would be written as "Faiaa Emuburemu." However, since there is no character for "Fa" in the Katakana table, the character "Fu" is used along with a small "a." Together, they form the compound kana "Fa," completing the title.
On the topic of small things, there is also the small tsu, chiisai tsu, or a sokuon (っ in hiragana, ッ in katakana). Unlike other small kana, this doesn't represent a syllable sound, it instead represents a "clogged sound", which essentially means a double consonant sound for the upcoming kana. It serves multiple purposes in Japanese writing, but the common use is for foreign words or titles.
To illustrate its practical use, consider the number six, which is expressed as "Roku" in romaji and written as ロク in katakana. Now, imagine discussing your favorite rock band with a Japanese person. You wouldn't use "Roku" because that means six. Since 'rock' is spelled with a hard 'C,' you'd say 'Rokku.' To represent the '-kku' sound, a sokuon is added, and it's spelled as ロック.
The last noteworthy element is the dash symbol “ー,” also known as the chōonpu (not to be confused with the Kanji character for one, Ichi). This symbol is primarily utilized to signify a prolonged vowel sound from the preceding kana. It is predominantly used in katakana and sparingly in hiragana. In romaji, the sound is usually denoted by a dash above it (as in ā).
A long 'a' would produce more of an /ah/ sound, a long 'i' would result in an /ee/ sound, 'e' would yield an /eh/ sound, 'u' would bring about an /oo/ sound, and 'o' would create an /oh/ sound.
These elongated vowel sounds are common in katakana because Japanese lacks a direct way to articulate sounds like /ar/ or /or/, as seen in words like 'car' or 'error.' Therefore, long vowels are used to convey such sounds, essentially prompting the pronunciation of 'car' as 'kā' and 'error' as 'erā.'
So his name could realistically be translated in many different ways, such as Pokey,
Pohky, Poki, Porky, etc. Since his connection to pigs wasn’t clear until Mother 3,
his name in Earthbound was rendered as Pokey.
Miscellaneous Differences
Now, one of the most talked-about differences between English and Japanese is the representation of the letters L and R. Even if you don’t know anything about Japanese, you probably know about this, as this is where the term “Engrish” comes from, and it's even joked about in a lot of pop-culture media like South Park.
Not every language uses the same sounds or combination of sounds; for example, Khoisan languages use a variety of clicks that don’t exist in the English language. So, a common challenge is how to write non-English sounds in a way that English speakers can say and learn. Japanese doesn’t have a clear L or R sound but something closer to a blend of L, R, and D.
Many native Japanese speakers can’t even hear the difference between English Ls and Rs, so when Japanese take in a loanword from English, like “Line” (or ライン Rein), for example, and have to render that word back into English, it comes down to a guessing game of whether to use either L or R.
They made the wrong guesses.
Another thing I find interesting is how the letter V is represented in Japanese. Japanese doesn’t have a native way to represent “V” sounds, and depending on the word, either a sound B is used (Like the word 'Victory' being spelled as ビクトリー Bikutori) or a U is used (Like the name 'Volo' being spelled as ウォロー Uoro).
However, in recent times, there has also been the addition of the character ヴ, which is a /u/ with a dakuten, which is also used to represent /vu/ sounds. This can be seen in Sacred Stones, with the villain character Valter (ヴァルター), whose name uses the same character in Japanese. However, this is not very commonly used.
When a term is spelled using a /u/ or a /vu/ the translation for it is usually pretty straightforward, but when a b sound is used, it can lead to a similar guessing game on how it's written in English, just like the usage of L or R.
The name of Samus’ famous Varia Suit, actually comes from
this V and B quirk. In Japanese, the name is バリアスーツ Baria Sūtsu,
and likely meant to be "Barrier Suits," but was misinterpreted as “Varia Suit.”
The next point of discussion is how /th/ is interpreted. As you can surmise, Japanese lacks a native way of rendering /th/ sounds found in words like "Thunder." Depending on the particular word, a multitude of different sounds are used to appropriate this. In the case of the word "Thunder," an /s/ sound is used, hence the pronunciation "Sandā."
In another instance, you have the upgraded thunder tome, known as Thoron, which almost completely disregards the 'h' and is spelled as "Toron" in Japanese.
And with the popular series, Mother, the 'th' in that title is represented with a /z/ sound, and uses a spelling which would be written as "Mazā" in Romaji.
The discussion of Aerith vs Aeris comes from this.
Another noteworthy aspect is that the Japanese language lacks a native /uh/ sound, as seen in terms like 'Firegun,' 'Ulster,' or 'Munster.' The standard Japanese 'u' makes a sound similar to the /oo/ in 'food' or the /u/ in 'rude.' To convey the 'uh' sound, an /a/ sound is used as a substitute.
In the given examples, the pronunciation would be closer to 'Faiagan,' 'Alster,' and 'Manster.' Some astute readers may have also observed that in the preceding section, I spelled 'Thunder' as 'Sandā' and not 'Sundā,' as the same rule applies in that case too.
In Touhou 1, if you take too long in a stage, the game tells you to Harry up
instead of Hurry up.
On their own, all of these differences may seem simple enough. However, many translation challenges arise from the combination of these scenarios, not having a full grasp of the context and meaning, and other general human errors that can lead to mistranslations. For example, in Fire Emblem, you may be familiar with a class called "Lord." In Japanese, this class is spelled as ロード Rōdo, and if you strip away all the context, knowing what we know about Japanese, it's not an easy feat to understand what this is meant to convey.
Transliterating the saying, you have "Rodo," but that's not a word, so you guess again. "Lodo" is also not a word, so you drop the "o" at the end. With that, the term can realistically translate to Rode, Lode, or even Wrode. Similarly, because of the similar pronunciation, it can also be Road or Load. You then remember that a long "o" can be representative of a multitude of different interpretations, and of the ones that make up an actual word, Lord, Lowed, and Rowed are all options.
And just from the term ロード alone, you can extrapolate Rode, Lode, Wrode, Road, Load, Lord, Lowed, and Rowed. It all depends on context to determine which one is representative of the original intention of the writer.
In Breath of Fire 2, there’s an enemy who’s meant to be called LordSlug but got mistranslated as RoadSlug
Another common phenomenon that applies mostly to gaming is space and file size. If you've noticed, in Japanese, you can usually convey more information with fewer characters than you can in English. For example, the mid-game armor knight you recruit, Macellan, is spelled with eight characters in English. Meanwhile, in Japanese, Macellan (called Mishelan in Japanese) is spelled as ミシェラン, using only five characters. And that’s just one character name; it’s not uncommon for the entire script of a game to be two or three times as long in English as it is in Japanese which can cause problems when dealing with limited ROM space.
Fan translations just barely can fit his entire name, and
even then. His name causes issues with other menus with stricter
character limits.
Typically, it's common for localization changes to be made solely to work around the constraints of a game's file size. It was especially common in older games where many terms and phrases would have to be majorly truncated.
The last thing I wish to discuss is Japan’s speech styles. English has various dialects, in the sense that you can distinguish where a person is from based on the way they talk. Japanese is similar to that, but a bit more complex.
One notable thing is the difference between the way men and women speak in Japanese. Not just audibly, but they use different sentence structures, wording, and phrases. If you read Japanese text in a game without looking at any portraits or anything, you can still tell the gender of the speaker.
In addition to gender, the age of the speaker plays a factor in the way they speak, as well as the level of politeness they use. In Japanese classes, they teach you “standard" and "polite” language, but there are many other levels of formality. These typically indicate both one's personality and their relationship to their conversational partner. The tone can range from super polite, to more casual or outright rude.
Lastly, there are dialects, which are easier to understand. Like every other country, the location you grew up in will have effects on how you speak and what word choice you use, and Japanese is no different. Despite being a small country, there are about 20 different kinds of dialects used all over the region. In a fantasy setting like Fire Emblem, dialects are often used to convey a character's archetype based on stereotypes or connotations associated with said dialect. For example, a lot of ruffians and thieves may speak using Kansai-ben.
In localization, all of these factors are considered in writing aspects of a character but can’t be portrayed well enough in a one-to-one translation. In English, we have regional dialects and formal/informal speech, but for a lot of other more nuanced speaking patterns, like gender, age, or the numerous variants of first-person pronouns, some creativity is needed on the part of the localizers to convey the same kinds of tone.
For instance, there are two shopkeepers, one is an old man who sells weapons, and the other is a younger woman selling potions and magic.
I can’t help but notice how much the guy on the left looks like Hardin.
They both effectively say the same things. But, they use slightly different wordings to greet you and welcome you to their shop selection. In the official localization of FE11, this was addressed by giving them certain speech patterns, by making the man sound more formal and professional, while the woman sounds more casual and laid back.
Starting the Game
With that out of the way, let's get right into the real meat and potatoes of analyzing the localization of FE11. I'll start by examining the game's title. In Japanese, the title is ファイアーエムブレム 新・暗黒竜と光の剣, which can be translated as “Fire Emblem: New Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light.” For both of the DS games, they both happen to be remakes, and as such, they introduced the kanji 新 (or "New") to signify their status as remakes. It's not too dissimilar from something like New Super Mario Bros.
Considering the original version was not globally released by the time of this game's launch, the localization likely chose to omit the "New" from the title to prevent potential confusion. Additionally, "Dark" was altered to "Shadow," and the “-and the Sword of Light” portion was omitted, possibly for brevity and simplicity.
The title of this remake is quite straightforward, but things get a little kinky when you add FE1's title to the mix. In Japanese, FE1 is simply called Fire Emblem: Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light (ファイアーエムブレム 暗黒竜と光の剣 lit. Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Ken). However, Falchion's epithet as it appears in in-game dialogue is spelled "Hikari no Tsurugi," in Hiragana. Meanwhile, as part of the game's subtitle, it's pronounced as Hikari no Ken.
In English, the official name of FE1 was referred to as Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light, as of Fire Emblem Heroes version 4.7.0. However, in Super Smash Bros for 3DS and Wii U, the Fire Emblem Fates website, Smash Ultimate, and older versions of Heroes, it was called Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, using the term "and," rather than an ampersand. In Blazing Blade's official website and in Super Smash Bros Brawl, the name is erroneously referred to as Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragons and the Blade of Light. This is wrong because there is only one Shadow Dragon that appears throughout the entire Archanea Saga.
Additionally, the way that the English word, "Fire" is spelled in this title, and in every other Fire Emblem game's title, deviates from what the standard spelling of "Fire" in Japanese. In Katakana, the title of the games uses the spelling ファイアー (Faiā), while normally the spelling of the word "Fire" is ファイヤー (Faiyā). Furthermore, items like the Fire tome and stuff use this non-standard spelling used in the game's title.
Furthermore, the Japanese spelling of the term Emblem (エムブレム lit. Emuburemu) is also unorthodox. In many English loan words, it's common for /m/ sounds to be swapped out for an /n/ when followed by a consonant. Like in terms such as "Combat," "Hammer," or "Emblem" they would commonly be spelled as "Konbatto," "Hanmā," and "Enburemu." But the spelling of Emblem in the Japanese titles of Fire Emblem ignores this rule and uses /mu/ instead.
The next thing is the difficulty modes present in the game, as most people know there are six difficulty modes. Normal mode, then the following five hard modes. In English, these hard modes have names ranging from Hard, Brutal, Savage, Fiendish to Merciless. However, in Japanese, these modes quite literally are just called Hard Lv1, Hard Lv2, Hard Lv3, Hard Lv4, and Hard Lv5. Which I find pretty funny, considering that most of the Western fanbase uses a similar terminology (i.e. referring to the hard modes as Hard 1 - Hard 5)
Location Names
FE11, along with FE1, 3, and 12, takes place in the continent of Archanea. The Archanean series of games draw significant inspiration from Greek mythology, featuring locations named after locations in Greece. In the Japanese versions, many locations are directly named after their Greek counterparts. In the localized versions, however, the names are tweaked slightly to maintain a connection to the reference while avoiding an exact match.
Initially, I was puzzled about the reasoning behind these changes. However, with some thinking, I believe it's a method to prevent potential immersion breaking for worldwide players. By adjusting the names slightly, the game retains the feeling of a fantasy world loosely inspired by our own, without directly mirroring real-world locations.
Starting off though, we have the continent itself: Archanea. In Japan, Archanea was called アカネイア and romanized as Akaneia. Akaneia is a corruption of the name Acarnania (Ακαρνανία), a region in west-central Greece that lies along the Ionian Sea. In the localization, “Ak-” was changed to “Arch-.” The prefix “Arch-” comes from Latinized Greek and is used to designate something that is first, highest, or high ranking, which is shown in terms such as “Archbishop” or “Archenemy.” Considering Archanea is the pivotal continent of the game, that little change in spelling adds a nice little sense of importance to the nation.
Additionally, the PAL versions of FE11 use the name “Akaneia” as well. However, the PAL version of Fire Emblem: Echoes and subsequent PAL releases would end up using the “Archanea” name instead.
Another interesting fun fact is that in early planning, Archanea was going to be called Altesia アリティシア before the final name was decided.
Also, this is probably more commonly known, but there is an unused Super Smash Brothers Melee stage called “Akaneia.”
And--andandandandand! One last fun fact about Archanea's name is that there's unused text in the title screen of FE1 that romanizes the Japanese name as "Acrnear."
Our next major waypoint is Macedon, the region that all of my favorite characters are from. In Japan, this region was romanized as Macedonia (マケドニア lit. Makedonia). Macedonia (Μακεδονία) refers to an ancient kingdom in Greek antiquity, which was also referred to as Macedon. I assume the name Macedon was chosen over Macedonia in the English versions to make it clear that it was referencing the ancient kingdom that was ruled by Alexander the Great.
Moreover, in the PAL versions of FE11, Macedon underwent a name change to Medon, a contraction of Macedon. This alteration might be attributed to the historical dispute between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia over the name 'Macedonia,' which persisted from 1991 to 2019. Macedon is a region in Greece, but the term 'Macedonians' also referred to Slavic people. Originally not an independent country, Macedon gained independence after the breakup of Yugoslavia.
The people of Greece took issue with Macedonia adopting this name, fearing it would create confusion with the Greek region of Macedonia. Additionally, they felt that the sun flag symbolized the Slavic Macedonians appropriating Greek heritage. As a result, Macedonia had to adopt the temporary name 'Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia' for nearly 30 years. However, in 2019, a treaty with Greece led to the country adopting the name 'North Macedonia.' This agreement facilitated North Macedonia's entry into NATO and potentially the EU in the future.
The next nation is Grust, the homeland of Camus, Lorenz, and the royal kids, Yuliya and Jubelo. In Japanese, this region is romanized as Grunia (グルニア lit. Gurunia), which comes from Gournia (Γουρνιά), a palace complex located on the island of Crete-Greece. The localization change to Grust is one of the bigger departures from the Japanese name. Grust is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in southwestern France. I'm not sure why they changed the name so much, but if I were to guess, I'd assume it had something to do with the similarities between the nation and France, though that's highly speculative.
Marth’s homeland, Altea is often romanized as Aritia in Japanese (アリティア lit. Aritia). "Aritia" has no real-world equivalent, however, Aritia may just be a corruption of “Altea”, since Altea is the name of a city in Spain. (Ironically, it’s located in the Valencian Community, Valencia being the Japanese name of the main continent in Fire Emblem Gaiden and Echoes, which was renamed Valentia in localization).
It's also worth noting that the name "Altea" was actually first used in Super Smash Brothers Melee.
Another thing worth noting is that the old fan translation of Final Fantasy II referred to the nation of Altair as “Altea.” Another fun fact is the fact that the home planet of Princess Allura from the mecha anime series Voltron is also called “Altea.”
Next is Lefcandith, which was officially romanized as Lefcandy in Japanese (レフカンディ lit. Lefkandi). The name comes from Lefkandi (Λευκαντί), a Greek village on the island of Euboea notable in archaeology.
One of the more interesting names is the Capital of Archanea. The capital goes by different names, sometimes it’s simply referred to as “The Palace”, other times it's the “Millennium Court," and sometimes it's “The Ageless Palace." In Japanese, the location is called (王都パレス) The Royal Capital of Palace. The strange thing is that the term Palace is used as if it's a proper noun, rather than a common noun. The Japanese game would even use the names パレス城 (Palace Castle), or even sometimes パレスの王宮 (The Palace of Palace.)
パレス can be translated as Palace, but it can also be translated as Pales. It would be possible that the term was meant to be based on the Roman deity, Pales, but considering that it was almost always romanized as Palace, makes me believe that's not the case. That said though, the fan translations did use the term “Pales” to describe the capital city.
The next location on our list is Pyrathi, which is romanized as Peraty in Japanese (ペラティ lit. Perati). This name may come from the region of Perati (Περάτη), a small settlement near Livek in the Municipality of Kobarid in the Littoral region of Slovenia. The name "Perati" may also come from Perateia, a small territory of the Trapezuntine Empire located on the Crimean Peninsula. As the rest of the empire was on the other side of the Black Sea, the name Perateia is believed to come from Peraia (περαία, "land across, opposite"), a word indicating an island territory across the sea, which parallels the coastal nature of the in-game nation.
Now, trace a line around the continent's northeastern plains, and you have Aurelis. In Japanese, this region's name was romanized as Orleans (オレルアン lit. Oreruan). Orleans comes from Orléans, a French city located southwest of Paris, the French naming origin is also why the 's' is silent. Orléans is most known as the site of one of the first battles of Jeanne d'Arc. The city of Orléans was originally called Cenabum in ancient times. However, during the 3rd century AD, an emperor named Emperor Aurelian rebuilt this ruined town of Cenabum and renamed it after himself. The new name was “Civitas Aurelianorum” (city of Aurelian). Over time, the name of this city would evolve from Aurelian’s to Orléans. And the name “Aurelis” came from the old name of this city, and the name of the former emperor, Aurelian.
The minor location, Menedy, has the same name in both languages, except with a slightly altered spelling (メニディ lit. Menidi). The name Menidi (Μενίδι) comes from a former municipality in Aetolia-Acarnania, West Greece.
Another minor location is Chiasmir, an island north of Grust. In Japanese, this location is romanized as Cashmere (カシミア lit. Kashimia). If this location isn’t named after the fiber material used to make yarn and wool, it would make me think this location is named after Kashmir, the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent.
Next is Thabes, in Japanese this location is romanized as Thebes (テーベ lit. Tēbe), which references Thebes, (Θῆβαι) a city in Boeotia, Central Greece. This location is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It can also refer to the location in Egypt, an ancient city along the Nile River. The English name Thabes is merely just a corruption of the name Thebes.
Another location is the Samsooth Mountains, or rather its colloquial name, the Devil’s Mountain. In English, this was changed to Ghoul’s Teeth. I’m not too sure why, but I always much preferred Devil Mountain, it sounds more threatening, and fitting as the location of where you get your first Devil Axe.
The last location that got a more than minor name change was Dolhr, the region of the Manaketes, and the Dragonkin Realm. In Japanese, this location is officially romanized as Durhua (ドルーア lit. Dorūa). I don’t believe Durhua means anything, nor does it have a real-world equivalent. The region was originally translated as Dolua in the English version of Super Smash Brothers Melee, and then the English version of Super Smash Brothers Brawl used the name Doluna. Doluna would be the name that the PAL version of FE11 ended up using, while the US version would use Dolhr.
As far as I know, none of these names have any meaning and are just made-up location names, but it’s a good example of how one term can be rendered in many different ways. While there isn't much else to say, an interesting thing to note is that "Dolluer" is yet another possible interpretation, as it was used in some unused strings of text in FE1.
Weapons
When it comes to weapons and classes, a lot of the localization changes did not originate from FE11 but are carryovers from FE7's localization. That said, I'm still going to cover a lot of these changes since I still feel it's necessary.
Something that I find interesting about weapons in Fire Emblem is that you may notice some of them are written in Katakana while others are written in Hiragana or Kanji. In particular, a lot of the more basic weapons, like an Iron Sword for example is written in Hiragana or Kanji and uses the Japanese words for "Iron" and "Sword." For example, the Iron Sword is called 鉄の剣 (Tetsu no Tsurugi) in Japanese.
However, some of the more special weapons, like a Killer Lance, are written in Katakana, and use a Japanese spelling of the English words for "Killer" and "Lance". For example, the Killer Lance is called キラーランス (Kirā Ransu) in Japanese.
That said, the first specific weapon I want to discuss is the Killing Edge, as that's the first one with a notable name change. In Japan, this weapon is very bluntly referred to as a 'Kill Sword' (キルソード lit. Kirusōdo). The Killing Edge doesn't follow the exact same naming convention as the other high-critical weapons, such as the Killer Lance, Killer Axe, and Killer Bow, and this is the case in both English and Japanese.
My speculation is that they wanted to retain the naming difference between the sword and the other variants, but also wanted a cool sounding name to make the weapon standout in English the same way 'Kill Sword' does in Japanese. Because, as cool as Kill Sword might sound in Japanese, it's a little clunky in English. For example, do you think "Korosu Ken" sounds cool? Well, it is, but it shouldn't. Because in Japanese, it's a lot less impressive as a name.
So their workaround for "Kill Sword" was changing the term 'Kill' to the same word in a different form, 'Killing,' and 'Sword' to another word that could mean sword; in this case, 'Edge'. Making the name sound cool and badass, retaining the different naming convention compared to the other high-critical weapons, and not having to change the name too much.
Also fun fact, there’s a book and a movie both named “The Killing Edge.” It’s not relevant to this discussion, I just thought it was kind of neat.
The next change is with the Thunder Sword (サンダーソード lit. Sandāsōdo) being renamed to Levin Sword. The term 'Levin' is just an archaic English term for 'lightning.' However, what makes this change interesting to me is the context behind it. As you can see, this weapon's name in Japanese uses a Katakana spelling of the English word for 'Thunder.' Normally in Japanese, you wouldn't use the English word 'Thunder' in regular speech unless it was the name of something special like a Western-based series or the name of an attack. In a regular conversation, such as talking about the weather, you'd use 'Ikazuchi' ( いかづち). So rather than translating サンダーソード directly into 'Thunder Sword,' they used a similarly less common word for lightning to represent the sword name, that being Levin.
Another thing I love about this weapon is that this naming theme is consistent amongst multiple games. In FE1, FE3, their respective remakes, Awakening, Fates, and Three Houses, all the games where this weapon is called サンダーソード in Japanese, it is translated as "Levin Sword."
However, in the rest of the games that this sword appears in, like Fire Emblem Echoes or Engage, in Japanese, this weapon uses the name Thunder Sword (いかづちの剣 lit. Ikazuchi no Ken), but using the more standard native terminology which is written in Hiragana. For a native Japanese speaker, this name would be quite a bit more standard, and this is actually echoed in English, as in those particular games, this weapon is translated as the more standard "Lightning Sword," and I love how the English version of these games carry over this distinction.
Next is the Wyrmslayer, which is in a bit of a weird boat. For one, in every Japanese Fire Emblem game, this weapon is called "Dragonkiller" (ドラゴンキラー lit. Doragonkirā), but in FE11 and 12, and only those games, it is instead called "Dragonsword" (ドラゴンソード lit. Doragonsōdo.)
The next thing I wanted to mention is that many of the effective weaponry, specifically the ones that end in '-slayer,' are instead referred to as '-killer' in Japanese. I'm not too sure why this change was made. Over time, I've grown to prefer the suffix '-killer.' Since '-slayer' is a common suffix used in many fantasy weapon names in other series, the term -killer gives these Fire Emblem weapons their own unique identity.
The last note is that, while I'll talk a bit more about dragons later on, a Wyrm refers to a type of dragon characterized by being limbless and wingless, almost like a serpent or snake-like creature. I'm not sure why they would change "Dragon" to "Wyrm" in this case, but if I were to guess a reason, I'd assume it was just because of space.
Now, let's talk about lances, but before that, I have some things to mention about the weapon type. You may notice that in Japanese, many of the standard lances are denoted using the Kanji 槍 (yari), which... isn't what I would personally call a one-to-one translation of "lance."
The Yari refers to a traditional Japanese blade (日本刀 lit. Nihontō) which is fashioned into the shape of a spear, particularly characterized by its straight-headed design. The yari has a rich history dating back to feudal Japan. Originally developed during the Kamakura period (1185–1333), the yari quickly became a staple weapon for foot soldiers and samurai alike.
Its design evolved over time, with variations emerging to suit different combat scenarios. As warfare transitioned from open-field battles to more confined spaces, such as castle sieges and indoor skirmishes, the yari remained a versatile and effective weapon. Throughout Japan's history, the yari continued to be used by various warrior classes and played a significant role in shaping military tactics and strategies. Even in modern times, the yari maintains its cultural significance and is still practiced as part of traditional martial arts like sōjutsu.
I bring this up because, in contrast, the lance gained prominence as a primary weapon for mounted warriors, and knights during the Middle Ages. It played a crucial role in the development of chivalric warfare and the tactics of cavalry charges. Lances were typically made of wood, often reinforced with metal tips or heads, and were wielded by riders on horseback during battles and tournaments. As warfare evolved and firearms became more prevalent, the use of lances on the battlefield declined, although they continued to be used ceremonially in cavalry units.
Now, due to the differing use cases and general designs of these two types of weapons, I believe that "Lance" isn't a very accurate translation for "Yari" in this context. I've always felt that "Spear" would be a much better translation for "Yari." Among all the weapons labeled as "Lances" in the English games, only a select few resemble actual lances, and these weapons are never exclusive to mounted classes.
That being said, this issue is actually addressed in some of the later Kaga games like Berwick Saga, where Yari (Spears) and Lances are actually classified as separate types of weapons, with the latter being exclusive to mounted classes.
With that out of the way, the first 'lance' I wish to discuss is the Javelin, which in Japan is simply referred to as "Hand Spear" (手槍 lit. Te Yari). This actually matches with the Japanese name of the Hand Axe (Te Ono), but I can understand how "Javelin" would get the same point across.
The next weapon we have is the Ridersbane, which was referred to as the Knight Killer (ナイトキラー lit. Naitokirā) in Japanese. I believe this was changed to make it more clear that it's effective against classes that ride horses, not specifically knights since the Armor Knight class is also called a "Knight."
Similar to the Levin Sword, the Ridersbane has also gone through multiple different names. In English, it's also been called Horseslayer and...Knight Killer. While in Japanese, in addition to Knight Killer, it's also been dubbed Horse Killer (ホースキラー lit. Hōsukirā).
The last lance to receive a different name was the Dragonpike, which was originally called Dragonlance (ドラゴンランス lit. Doragonransu).
Now, I will be skipping quite ahead because none of the axes or bows received any notable changes to mention in depth. A lot of them are translated directly.
That said, the ballistae featured have received more significant changes, starting with Arrowspate. In Japanese, this weapon is called Quincrane (クインクレイン lit. Kuinkurein). To explain the Japanese name a bit, the term Quincrane is an anagram of the word “Cranequin”, which is a mechanical device used to arm a crossbow.
A lot of older fan translations would misinterpret the Japanese name, and render it as “Quick Rain”, which is kinda funny. Arrowspate comes from “Arrow..." obviously, and “Spate,” a term that refers to a large number of similar things or events occurring in quick succession. Since rain describes water droplets that fall from the sky in quick succession, in the loosest sense of the word, "Quick Rain" may not be so farfetched.
Next is Stonehoist, which is called Stonehedge (ストンヘッジ lit. Sutonhejji) in Japanese. “Stonehedge” might be referencing Stonehenge, a famous ancient monument located in Wiltshire, England. Stonehoist on the other hand is a bit self-explanatory. It’s a big stone that’s being hoisted up in the air to hit the enemy.
The next weapon is Hoistflamme. In Japanese, this artillery is called Firegun. I can see why “hoist'' was used instead of “gun” since it makes it more clear that this is a ballistic catapult weapon. And flamme is just French for fire. Fun fact though, the Japanese version of FE1 and FE3/11 use different spellings for “Firegun''. FE1 uses Faiyagan (ファイヤーガン), while FE3/11 uses Faiagan (ファイアーガン).
The last notable ballistae is Pachyderm, which was originally called Elephant (エレファント lit. Erefanto) in Japanese. An Elephant is a heavy plant-eating mammal with a prehensile trunk, long curved ivory tusks, and large ears, native to Africa and southern Asia. It is also the largest living land animal alive.
Meanwhile, a pachyderm is a general term used to describe thick-skinned land mammals such as elephants and rhinoceroses. I’m not sure what the rationale behind this weapon's name is; I’ve heard it was named after an Elephant gun, which is a rifle gun, and other sources have said it’s because the weapon looks like an elephant in FE1.
An interesting fact however is the fact that in Japanese, the term Elephant was reused in Fire Emblem Echoes for a class that would be renamed to "Oliphanter" in English.
The dragon stones that appear in the game, more or less have one-to-one translations, the only differences being stuff like Fire Dragon Stone (火竜石 lit. Karyūseki) being shortened to just "Firestone" to save space, which applies to all the dragon stones.
Regarding the magical tomes, the first change of note is Swarm, which was called Worm (ウォーム lit. Wōmu) in Japanese. The spell is a swarm of bees or wasps being summoned to attack the enemy, so I believe Swarm would make more sense in that context. Though the name "Worm" was retained in Radiant Dawn.
The next change I wanted to mention is Blizzard. In the Japanese versions of FE1, 3, 11, 12, and 3H, this tome is spelled “Blizzar” (ブリザー lit. Burizā), while in every other game, it’s spelled “Blizzard” ( ブリザード lit. Burizādo). Interestingly, in the games that use the full name ブリザード, the tome appears as a long-ranged tome, so I assume this was to signify that these are different tomes. Unfortunately, this is lost in translation.
The most interesting tome I wanted to mention is Bolganone, which, at first glance, just looks like a made-up word. This localized name originated from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and is a direct translation of the Japanese name Boruganon (ボルガノン).
However, a theory I heard is that the name may be derived from the term "Vulcan" + "on." Vulcan is the Roman god of fire, volcanoes, deserts, and metalworking. This would actually align with how Thoron is named after Thor, the Norse god of thunder, strength, and protection of humankind.
Additionally, the spelling of Vulcan (バルカン lit. Barukan) is altered into the term Volgan (ボルガン lit. Borugan) by changing the /u/ to an /o/ and using a dakuten to change the /ka/ into a /ga/ for added flair, similar to what I mentioned earlier with the Pugi axe. The English version took this one step further by interpreting the V as a B.
This also parallels how, in Japanese, Thoron exhibits a similar corruptive property, as "Thoron" is spelled as トロン (Toron), whereas the spelling of the name "Thor" would be トール (Tōru).
Finally, in Boruganon (ボルガノン), the suffix "-on" is added at the end, possibly to signify it as the highest level fire magic. Thoron similarly has "-on" at the end, marking it as the highest level thunder magic. This is somewhat akin to how "El-" is added as a prefix to mid-level anima tomes.
While I’m at it, I’ll also mention that in FE3, tomes were followed by the suffix “の書“ (no sho) which translates to “Book” or “Tome”. So, whereas in most games, Fire is simply called “Fire”, in FE3, it would be called “Fire Tome”.
Staves and healing items are actually a bit more interesting from a translation standpoint. First, we have Heal, which is called Live in Japanese (ライブ lit. Raibu). My assumption is that “Live” refers to “Alive” or “Life” in the sense that you’re keeping someone alive, or adding to their life force by healing them. This was changed to "Heal” in localization as it conveys the same meaning, but “Heal” is more standardized in RPGs. Fun fact though, the Renewal skill in FE4 and 5 is also called “Live” in Japanese.
Next is Mend, which was romanized as Relive (リライブ lit. Riraibu) in Japanese. “Relive” just means to live through an experience again, however, I don’t think this was the actual intent behind the name. In addition, I've seen older fan translations of FE1 render the name of this staff as “Relieve”, which makes sense as a staff name, but was likely not the original intention either.
In any case, with Mend and the next few staves, I want to do a bit of an interactive exercise, so as I discuss the next few staves, I want you to take out a pen and pencil and see if you notice a pattern with the Japanese names.
The next staff is Recover (リカバー lit. Rikabā), which is the same in both languages, so I’ll skip that and talk about Physic, which in Japanese, was romanized as Reblow (リブロー lit. Riburō) (which is sometimes fan translated as Libro), an odd name for a staff that can heal from far away with no apparent Japanese meaning.
Then we have Fortify, which is called Reserve (リザーブ lit. Rizābu) in Japanese. I think it can be assumed that "Reserve" refers to a reserved, closed-off, and protective person, which “Fortify” is probably meant to reference, as fortifying your army means that they are being protected.
Now, after hearing these four Japanese names of the staves, I want you to see if you've noticed the pattern I alluded to before. So, with the Japanese names of Mend, Recover, Physic, and Fortify, what do the Japanese names all have in common? (Take your time)
A.) They all end with a chōonpu
B.) They all begin with the リ kana
C.) They all have multiple Japanese meanings
D.) They all were completely renamed in English
Okay so, if you selected the second option, you were correct, every high-level staff begins with the リ (Ri) kana in Japanese. In fact, the tome called Nosferatu, which heals the caster upon attacking the enemy, is called “Resire,” (リザイア lit. Rizaia) which also uses the same Ri- prefix. I assume it would be hard to carry these same patterns in English, while also making all these names make sense in English, which is unfortunate.
Buuut, if I were to think of a way to retain this pattern, I’d probably rename Mend to “Relieve,” Physic to “Remedy,” Fortify to something like “Reinforce,” and either call Nosferatu “Respite” or keep it as "Resile." The French version already uses “Remedy” (Remède) for Physic, and the German version already uses “Reinforce” (Stärkung) for Fortify as well, so it's probably not impossible to retain this pattern, and the FE7 localizers were probably just being lazy.
The last staff to note is the Barrier staff, which was originally called Magic Shield in Japanese—often shortened as Ｍ・シールド (M. Shield). In most languages, this staff is still called “Magic Shield”, like in German, Italian, and Dutch. It’s actually only called Barrier in English and French (where it's translated as Bouclier), which is interesting. I always assumed it was changed just for space, but other languages have no qualms with abbreviating the word "Magic."
Items
For the items, there aren't too many items I want to talk about. In fact, a lot of the items I want to reference are their FE1 iterations.
The first item I want to talk about is the Pure Water, which in Japanese was called Holy Water (聖水 lit. Seisui), which was likely changed due to the religious connotations. There's not really much else to say about that.
With a lot of the stat boosters, any changes the English version received come down to semantic changes to either save space or sound smoother. These changes are Power Drop (力のしずく) -> Energy Drop, Spirit Powder (精霊の粉) -> Spirit Dust, Dragon Shield (竜の盾) -> Dracoshield, Member Card (メンバーカード) -> VIP Card, Master Proof (マスタープルフ) -> Master Seal, and Empyreal Whip (天空のムチ) -> Elysian Whip.
One stat booster I want to mention, though, is the Arms Scroll. In FE11 and the Tellius games, this item is called Arms Scroll, which in Japanese is referred to as the Technique Book (術書 lit. Jutsu Book) and romanized as "Manual." However, in FE1 and FE3, this item is called Manual in both English and Japanese (マニュアル lit. Manyuaru). I wanted to mention this because I feel the usage of Kanji and Katakana in the respective names does a good job of making it clear that these are two different items, and the localizations of these two items make sense. As the Manual boosts Weapon Level while the Arms Scroll boosts Weapon Rank.
In the same vein, FE1's 2020 localization renamed a couple of the items. Like the Knight's Crest (きしくんしょう) being renamed to Paladin's Honor, Dragon's Whip (ひりゅうのむち) being renamed to Skydrake Whip, and Thief's Key (とうぞくのカギ) being renamed to Master Key.
With the case of Paladin's Honor, because of the fact that Armor Knights can't promote in FE1, it specifically mentioned Paladins to make it more clear that only Cavaliers can use it to promote to Paladins. And with the Skydrake Whip, it's arguably more accurate than the common translation "Dragon Whip" since in ひりゅうのむち (lit. Hiryuu no Muchi), "Hiryuu" refers specifically to a flying dragon, hence "Skydrake."
However, the Master Key is a change I take issue with. In every prior game, the Thief's Key (とうぞくのカギ lit. Touzoku no Kagi) has always been localized as "Lockpick." In fact, in my fan translation of FE1, I used the name "Lockpick." But in FE1's localization, they chose to instead rename this item to "Master Key" as a way to tie it in with a separate item in FE11 also called the Master Key (万能カギ lit. Bannōkagi)
This change rustles my jammies because anyone who has played FE11 and used the Master Key will be confused when they see the "same" item in FE1, only to realize it's a completely different item only usable by thieves. I feel it causes unnecessary confusion and it isn't even accurate to the Japanese version.
Anyways, the rest of the items I want to mention are the Multiplayer Cards available in the PvP mode of FE11. There are many cards named after stats or particular skills. The only change I want to mention is that in Japanese, they use the suffix "no gofu" (の護符) which just translates to "protective charm." This suffix was dropped in English presumably for space.
Regalia and Holy Items
Concluding the items section, let's discuss the regalia weapons. First is Mercurius, the holy sword bestowed upon you by Est in Book 1 and wielded by Astram in Book 2. In Japanese, this sword is commonly romanized as Mercury (メリクル lit. Merikuru). However, the spelling Merikuru can be interpreted as something like Mericle, which is often misinterpreted as "Miracle." Hence why older fan translations often referred to this weapon as the "Miracle Sword."
Additionally, in FE1 dialogue, it bears a longer name, Mercury Rapier (メリクルレイピア lit. Merikuru Reipia). This perhaps explains why it's a Prf for Marth in that game, since this title presents it as a stronger Rapier, and the weapon icons in later games even match this.
The term "Mercury" is the common anglicized form of the term "Mercurius." Mercurius is a Latin term referring to the Roman god Mercury, the messenger of the gods in Roman mythology, and also representing the planet Mercury in astrology.
In addition, St. Mercurius was the name of a Greek soldier, who became a Christian saint and martyr. They are known in Arabic by the name Abu-Sayfain (أبو سيفين), which means "father of two swords." This is fitting since, in FE12 H4, the wielder of the Mercurius can also be seen as a martyr because he can be sacrificed and killed easily by generic thieves upon joining in order to give you the Mercurius.
As I said, the katakana spelling doesn’t exactly read as "Mercury," and instead appears more as a corruption of the Japanese rendering of Mercurius (メルクリウス lit. Merukuriusu), but with the last two kana omitted and ル /ru/ and リ /ri/ being swapped.
The next weapon is the holy spear, Gradivus, used by the two men who would be stuck in the Gordian knot of Nyna’s heart, Camus in FE11, and Hardin in FE12. In Japanese, this lance is romanized as Gladius (グラディウス lit. Guradiusu). The term Gladius comes from... gladius, the type of simple sword used by Roman Soldiers. However, it can also just be a Japanese way to spell Gradivus, as I stated before, it's common for /u/ sounds to be used to represent a /vu/ sound.
The term “Gradivus” itself comes from Mars Gradivus. In Classic Roman religion, Mars would be invoked under several titles, one of which being Mars Gradivus, a Roman god by whom a general or soldier would swear an oath before a battle.
Another important weapon, or rather staff, is the staff that was originally a Prf to Elice, Aum. In Japanese, this was called Om (オム lit. Omu). Om is a sacred sound, syllable, mantra, or invocation in Hinduism. And “Aum” is just an alternate spelling of Om.
The last weapon is Imhullu, in Japan, this was romanized as Mafu (マフー lit. Mafū), which is often fan-translated as Maph. The term is a Katakana spelling of the kanji 魔風, “demonic wind.” Meanwhile, Imhullu comes from the now-extinct Akkadian, “imhullu,” one of the seven winds summoned by Marduk to slay Tiamat in the Babylonian creation myth Enūma Eliš. Mafū wouldn’t really invoke any of the same feelings in an English audience, so instead of just straight translating it as “Evil Wind”, they went with the ancient Babylonian reference. While Imhullu probably still doesn’t have any real relevance to an English speaker, it does sound a lot more like a spell that an old evil wizard would use than Maph does, which just sounds like “Math.” And while math is equally as scary of a concept, I prefer Imhullu.
Classes
Next, we have classes. The first thing I want to discuss is Dragon Knight (ドラゴンナイト lit. Doragon Naito) being changed to Dracoknight in English. This itself isn’t really a big change, but up until Radiant Dawn, this class has always been called “Wyvern Rider.” Which, to me, isn't a good localization at all. Wyverns refer to a specific type of dragon that is characterized by only having two legs, a more slick arrow-like skeletal structure, and swift movements while flying.
The "Wyvern" Riders that appear in the GBA games clearly have four legs and features reminiscent of a general dragon. In addition, in FE8, they introduced the Wyvern Knight class, which features the unit riding an actual wyvern, and the design is notably different from that of the Wyvern Rider or Wyvern Lord classes.
I personally feel that since "Dragon Knight" or even "Dracoknight" refers to general dragons and not a specific type of dragon, that name would make perfect sense to use as a class name rather than renaming them to Wyverns when they aren't actually Wyverns.
On the left is a Wyvern, notice the lack of front legs, and on the right is a dragon, notice the broader-looking body structure.
However, I think the main reason why FE7 renamed Dragon Knight and Dragon Master to Wyvern Rider and Wyvern Lord respectively is to differentiate these dragons from the feral dragons that were fought in The Scouring in the Elibe games, then later games just continued this naming convention until Radiant Dawn opted to change it. In any case, the dragons that these units ride in both FE1 and FE3 do resemble actual Wyverns, so FE1's insistence to refer to this class as Wyvern Knight makes sense.
Another change is Social Knight (ソシアルナイト lit. Soshiaru Naito) being changed to Cavalier. According to an interview discussing the release of FE6, one of the devs explains that “A social knight is a term that refers to a knight who has a master to serve.” While a bit vague, my understanding is that “Social” in this context means to refer to a society or a community, similar to how it’s used in phrases like “Social Security” or “Social Services.” This means that Social Knights are knights who fight for a community, which is one of the primary codes of chivalry. Cavalier likely makes more sense to an English speaker, but strips away some of the uniqueness established by the Japanese devs.
Speaking of knights, one minor change is Armor Knight → Knight. I assume this change was made because specifying “Armor” would have been redundant since “Social Knight” was renamed to Cavalier, and there were "no other knight classes." I’m not a big fan of making the class name less specific, especially in FE9 where these classes got variants and the mounted classes were called “Sword Knight”, and “Lance Knight.” Nonetheless, I find it funny how English speakers still refer to Knight as “Armor Knight” anyway. Eventually, Fire Emblem Three Houses used the name "Armored Knight" in its localization, so that it would be more consistent with the Japanese class name.
Additionally, something I wanted to briefly mention is the General class. In Japanese, the General class has always been a transliteration of the English word General (ジェネラル), written in Katakana. This is the case for every game except for FE1, where instead the class uses the Japanese term Shōgun (しょうぐん), written in Hiragana.
The next class is Myrmidon. “Myrmidon” is what the legendary warrior people of ancient Greece were called, and because of the general Greek theming of Archanea, this class name fits. In most Japanese games, this class is simply called Swordfighter (剣士 lit. Kenshi), but in the Japanese versions of FE6, FE7, and FE13, this class was romanized as Myrmidon. This was actually because of the fact that these units hailed from Sacae, and were modeled after the various nomadic peoples native to the Eurasian Steppe region.
Real-world Myrmidons were believed to be one and the same as the Bulgars, a collection of Asian steppe nomads whose names were given to the capital of Sacae. And ever since the name was used in FE7's English release, 剣士 was always translated as "Myrmidon" regardless of what future Japanese romanizations used.
Now there are Priests (僧侶 lit. Sōryo) and Sisters (シスター lit. Shisutā), which are called Curates and Clerics in English. There isn’t much to mention, however. “Cleric” is a more common term in traditional RPG games, so I assume it was changed to be more familiar. In addition, “Sister” has a more religious connotation.
On the topic of Curates, FE1, and FE11 are the only English FE games that use “Curate” instead of “Priest”, a “Curate” refers to a clergy member in certain Christian denominations, often an assistant to a parish priest, so I guess they wanted to make it clear that this was a low ranking class... or something.
Next is Ballistician, they are called Ballisticians because they use and operate ballistae. In Japanese, they are bluntly called Shooters (シューター lit. Shūtā), because they shoot projectiles. I kind of prefer Ballistician, in the context of FE11, though in FE1, where they are tanks that shoot stuff from two tiles away, "Shooter" would make more sense. However, because I live in the US, the term "Shooter" has a very different connotation.
Next is the Manakete class, which is Mamkute (マムクート lit. Mamukūto) in Japanese. Fun fact, unused text in FE7 renders the name “Mamkoot” for the use screen of the Flametongue item. Anyway, I'm not sure why this class was renamed. Though, I personally prefer Manakete.
There’s a theory that this line was added in localization to
make the pronunciation of the Manakete class clearer.
The last class is Xane’s personal class, Freelancer. Freelancer comes from the concept of freelance employment, in reference to the fact that Xane can change his “job” or class temporarily by transforming into another unit. In Japanese, this class is romanized as Command (コマンド lit. Komando), which can simply just be the English word "Command," as in a directive to perform a specific task, which in this case is transforming into somebody else.
The older fan translations rendered this class name as "Commando," which is a soldier trained to carry out raids. While it has more relevance in the context of warfare, it still isn’t really fitting for Xane’s class in my humble opinion.
In the PAL version of FE11, as well as other languages, Xane’s class is called Chameleon. Which refers to the lizard species famous for being able to change its skin color to camouflage in its environment. Which makes sense considering his ability. This also has the added connection to his Manakete origins, as they are both reptiles, but that may be a stretch.
Playable Characters
Now, I’m going to get right into talking about character names. Specifically, the ones that received notable name changes. Firstly, I’m going to talk about the pivotal character of this game, the poster boy of the series, and the Prince of Altea, Marth!
In Japanese, Marth’s name is commonly romanized as... Marth (マルス lit. Marusu). The name itself comes from the Roman God of War, named Mars. "Marth" is a corruption of said name, taking advantage of the common method of using /s/ sounds to approximate /th/ sounds.
However, I wanted to amend something I mentioned in the previous version of this write-up. I previously suggested that the English rendition of the name "Marth" was possibly chosen over "Mars" in FE11 because its first non-OVA debut was in Super Smash Brothers Melee, which adopted the Japanese romanization without context and popularized it.
While this isn't entirely incorrect, the way I worded it might've suggested that "Marth" was chosen over the more accurate "Mars" on a whim in Melee, and then the localization of FE11 had to adhere to it. In reality, though, it's more likely that choosing "Marth" over "Mars" was an intentional stylistic choice.
In the Japanese games, including the Japanese version of Melee, art books, and trading cards, the consistent romanization has always been "Marth." The only time his name has been romanized as "Mars" in Japanese is in the internal debug menu and file names in Melee, Brawl, the two DSFE games, and the Fates artbook. However, even then, aside from the artbook, all parts of these media that are actually intended to be seen by the player spell his name as "Marth."
Additionally, it's not uncommon for characters in these games to have names derived from corruptions of mythical names. Considering the fact that the more common way to render the word "Mars" in Japanese is マーズ (Māzu), it leads me to believe that "Marth" was the intention.
So choosing the name "Marth," to me, was less of a localization change, and more of choosing to stick with the common Japanese interpretation to stylize the more literal interpretation.
The next unit is Draug, the first armor knight introduced in the series. The name Draug is derived simply by spelling the word "Guard" backwards. In Japanese, his name is romanized as Dohga (ドーガ lit. Dōga).
This might seem like a significant alteration at first glance. However, the name originates from the English word “Guard,” which is represented as ガード (Gādo) when written in katakana. When you reverse the kana in this term, you get ドーガ, or Dōga. Furthermore, in other languages, his name is also a play on the word for "Guard" in those respective languages.
Next is Caeda. In Japanese, her name is romanized as Sheeda (シーダ lit. Shīda). This is one of the more commonly discussed name changes, but the explanation behind it is actually quite straightforward. In Japanese, there isn't a native kana character specifically used to represent the /si/ sound, so the シ kana is typically utilized for this purpose, which is pronounced as /shi/.
When rendering the name シーダ, the choice was made to pronounce it as Sii-da rather than Shii-da. Additionally, 8-4 opted to adjust the spelling to resonate better with English-speaking audiences. Consequently, the pronunciation of /Sii/ was represented in the spelling as "Cae," similar to its appearance in the name "Caesar" in most Romance languages.
In many other languages, the name Caesar is commonly pronounced as /Kai-sar/ rather than /See-zur/, and as a result, a lot of people mispronounce Caeda as /Kai-da/ or /Kay-da/, which is why I believe that the name Caeda was only used in the US version, while the PAL version as well as other languages all used the name "Shiida," which is closer to the straight romanization.
In any case, one interesting piece of trivia I learned is that her name is spelled "Sheda" in the English dub of the OVA.
After Caeda, there's Wrys, who was called Riff (リフ lit. Rifu) in Japanese. Unfortunately, there isn’t much to say here, his name was likely changed mainly just to sound more interesting to the new target audience. As stated by one of the lead translators, a lot of the changes weren’t done with too much rhyme or reason if their names lacked clear meaning in Japanese.
The next change is the renaming of the axe duo from Saji (サジ lit. Saji) and Maji (マジ lit. Maji) to Bord and Cord. Like with Wrys, I feel these were done to sound more appealing in English. I guess I can see how "Bord and Cord" gives off more of a humble woodcutter feel. In Japanese, both their names were chosen to sound the same as one another, so in English, they retained this by making their English names also sound the same as one another.
A funny thing about Cord though is that in Japanese, his name Maji (マジ) is spelled very similar to the katakana rendering of the word "Mage", which is spelled as Māji (マージ). So it's a common theory that the reason behind his elevated magic growth is because of this.
Concluding the axe fighters is Barst, the blue one. Whose name was changed from Barts (バーツ lit. Bātsu) to Barst, but this is once again a stylistic change.
The next character is Castor, who I do have a lot to say about. In Japanese, his name is romanized as Kashim (カシム lit. Kashimu). This is a transliteration of Cassim (قاسم, qāsim, 'divider, distributor'), a figure from Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.
Spoiler Warning: in the folk tale, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Cassim was the rich and greedy brother of Ali Baba who was killed by the Forty Thieves when he was caught stealing treasure from their magic cave.
The name Castor comes from “Castor” which was one of the Dioscuri (also known as Gemini in Latin), and the half-twin of Pollux in Greek Mythology. The mythical Castor was commonly depicted as a horseman, which fits in the sense that, outside of FE1, Castor's promoted class is the Horseman class. Personally, though, I prefer the name Kashim/Cassim over Castor, as I feel it better represents the character and fits him more, as Castor's character is depicted to be primarily eager to obtain money, either out of greed, or genuine concern for his family.
The next change is less of a change, but more of a difference in interpretation. The character commonly known as Navarre in English is romanized as Nabarl in Japanese (ナバール lit. Nabāru). Nabarl likely comes from Nabal (נבל), an individual in the Bible who was punished by God for questioning and denying King David.
"Navarre" is a location in Spain, but I doubt that was the intention behind this rendition of the name, and it is likely to simply be a stylistic choice. That said, the US versions of FE11 would be the only language to use the name "Navarre," as every other language opted to use the name "Nabarl."
Other names that Navarre has gone by include the US version of Super Smash Brothers Brawl transliterating this name as "Nabaaru" in the game’s sticker collection, and the OVA's English dub calling him "Navahl."
In chapter 4, you recruit the mage named Merric, or Marich (マリク lit. Mariku) in Japanese. This is less of a change and more of just altering the English spelling since the romanization of "Marich" made the pronunciation a bit unclear, at least to me. That said, "Merric" makes the pronunciation more clear while also looking prettier as a name.
Next is Matthis, his name wasn’t really changed too much, he just went from Matis (マチス lit. Machisu) to Matthis. If you've read my previous character analysis on Matthis, this may all sound familiar, but Matis is likely a Japanese rendition of the name "Matisse" a name of French origin.
"Matthis" on the other hand has multiple origins. The first one is that it can be read as a straight interpretation of his Japanese name, as sometimes /t/ sounds are translated as /th/ sounds. With that in mind, it's easy to see Matthis coming from Matis. The second possible origin could be that Matthis is a corruption of the name Matthias, a name of Greek origin, fitting for the Greek inspiration of the setting. The names Matthias and Matisse are both derived from the name Matthew, which in itself comes from the Hebrew name "Mattityahu" (מַתִּתְיָהוּ), which means "gift of Yahweh" or "gift of God."
In addition, fan translations commonly referred to this character as "Machis." This is because the kana for /Chi/ チ can also be used for /Ti/ sounds, though using the compound kana ティ (A /te/ followed by a chiisai /i/) is much more common.
One tidbit of trivia that I wanted to mention however was the fact that Lt. Surge from the Pokémon series shares the same Japanese name マチス or Matis. This is because in the Japanese versions of Gen 1, all the gym leaders are named after plants, which was changed in the localization to where everyone but Erika was renamed. That said, Surge gets his Japanese name from the Clematis genus of plants, coincidentally giving these two characters the same name.
Next is the Wolfguard, which is the section where I rant about the clerical mess their naming is. Firstly, let’s start with Hardin. Hardin has the same name in both Japanese and English, but the difference lies in the little epithet he has. In Japan, he's colloquially referred to as the "Wolf of the Plains" (草原の狼 lit. Sougen no Ōkami), however, this was changed to “Coyote” in English. The reason this was changed was likely because of the character, Wolf.
In Japanese, Wolf's name is just a Japanese spelling of the English word for wolf (ウルフ lit. Urufu). Meanwhile, Hardin's title is the actual Japanese kanji for wolf (狼 lit. Ōkami). And despite the two terms translating into the same word, they carry different meanings and connotations.
A similar example is Queso vs. Cheese. Queso is just the Spanish word for cheese, but in the context of the average US citizen, it's often used to refer to a hot melted cheese dip and specifically used in Tex-Mex and Mexican dishes, like quesadillas, nachos, and burritos. Meanwhile, cheese is just cheese, without much of a similar connotation.
In the context of Hardin and Wolf, Hardin's title of Wolf of the Plains carries the connotation of him being a portrayal of strength, loyalty, and courage, and is also associated with Japanese folklore. Meanwhile, Wolf's name is literally just the English word for wolf, without any similar connotation.
This would cause confusion, and this confusion would extend to the title of “Wolfguard.” In Japanese, these units are called the Wolf Knights (狼騎士団 lit. Ōkami Kishidan). Notice how this phrase uses the character 狼 (Ōkami), which implies that these are Hardin’s personal order of knights.
In English, the name Wolfguard would imply that they are Wolf’s guards, but since the Wolf, in this case, is now a Coyote, “Wolfguard” has a completely different meaning from the original Japanese intent. Now it just comes off as a group of knights named after Wolf. While "Wolfguard" is a cool name, I dislike the rift it causes in interpretations. Additionally, it feels slightly out-of-character for someone as passionately loyal to Hardin as Wolf to name a group after himself and not Hardin. I believe this was a genuine oversight rather than a creative liberty because later on, Fire Emblem Heroes ultimately retconned the name of this group to Coyote’s Men.
As mentioned, Wolf's name remains consistent across both languages. Similarly, Roshea's name technically remains the same, yet it's romanized as Roshe (ロシェ lit. Roshe) in Japanese. In Japanese pronunciation, trailing 'e's are enunciated differently compared to English. For instance, the Japanese term 'moe' is pronounced as /mo-eh/, while in English, it may sound closer to /moh/ like the name. I'm sure if you've watched a lot of anime, you know this already.
To address this, typically an é is used to denote the sound. For example, it distinguishes between "Poke" as in poking someone, and "Poké" as in something related to the Pokémon series. However, in Roshea's case, instead of simply using 'Roshé,' the English localization adds an 'a' at the end of the name as an attempt to clarify the pronunciation. I like the creativity, but from how many people I've seen mispronounce the name, I don't think the attempt was successful.
Vyland and Sedgar are the two characters to receive bigger changes though. First is Vyland, whose name was romanized as Biraku (ビラク lit. Biraku). It's likely that "Biraku" is a mistranslation or corruption of one of the Slavic family names meaning wolf. Some of the closest names are: Biryuk/Biriuk (an East Slavic surname derived from a nickname literally meaning "lone wolf"), Wilk (a Polish surname meaning wolf), or Vlk (a Czechoslovak surname meaning wolf)
Vyland on the other hand comes from the English surname, Viland, which is derived from the word villein, a type of serf in the feudal system, just slightly above a slave. They were generally looked down on for their social status, with the name becoming a derogatory phrase. It is from there that the word evolved into the modern “villain.” Which actually kind of fits with his backstory of being a slave before being rescued by Hardin.
Last is Sedgar, whose name is officially romanized as Zagaro (ザガロ lit. Zagaro) in Japanese. The name Zagaro likely comes from "Zagallo," Zagallo being the surname of Mário Jorge Lobo Zagallo a professional Brazillian football player who had recently just passed away. During his career, he was nicknamed "The Professor" by his players throughout his coaching career, due to his tactical awareness and commanding presence on the bench, in addition, they also called him Velho Lobo ("Old Wolf") due to his surname "Lobo", which means "wolf" in Portuguese.
In any case, with the name "Sedgar," like with other characters, this change seemed to be a stylistic change to make it fit the fantasy setting more. However, one fun fact is that in the French version of FE11, they would use a variation of the Japanese name, Sagaro.
This was because of Draug’s French name. Since Draug is Guard backward, Draug’s name in other languages would also be a play on the words for “guard” in those respective languages. In French, Guard is spelled as “Garde”, and Draug’s French name would be an anagram of that, being “Edgar.” Since “Sedgar” and “Edgar” sounded too similar, they decided to rename Sedgar to Sagaro.
Going back to Wolfguard/Coyote's Men though. The idea of Hardin being the Wolf of the Plains, and his subordinates having names that are plays on the term "wolf," was completely lost in English, which makes me upset. An alternative localization idea I had was renaming Wolf to something else which is derived from the term "wolf," and calling the group the "Wolf Pack." That would include the double meaning of it being a pack of wolves, referencing their name origins. It would also make Roshea's arc in Book 2 paint him as a "lone wolf."
With the second thief you get, Rickard, he often refers to his mentor, Julian, as 兄貴 (aniki), which literally translates to “Big Brother.” Aniki is usually used to denote someone who is considered one's senior and doesn’t necessarily have to have familial undertones. To retain this meaning, “aniki” is changed to “Chief”. It also rhymes with “thief!”
One very minor change is with the character Radd. In Japanese, his name is officially romanized as Radei (ラディ lit Radi). The fan translations rendered this name as Raddy which I very much prefer over Radd, it had more personality and suited him more, I felt.
The next change is Linde, who was originally Linda (リンダ lit. Rinda). This might seem just like a letter swap, but the name Linde is the original form of the German name “Linda”, created as a shortening of longer names such as "Sieglinde."
Now, we have Dolph and Macellan. First, I’ll talk about Dolph, who is officially romanized as Tomth (トムス Tomusu) in Japanese. Fun fact, he shares the same name as a character in Tear Ring Saga which the fan translation referred to as Thomas.
Translating this name would cause minor issues, however. In the exact same chapter, you get a recruitable level 8 archer quite literally named Tomas, who is officially romanized as Thormas (トーマス lit. Tōmasu). With similar names, 8-4 opted to rename one of the two units to avoid potential confusion from the player, and the one that was renamed was Tomth, who would become "Dolph." The name is a masculine name of German origin that is a shortened form of the name Adolph, meaning "noble wolf."
Next is Macellan, in Japanese, his name is officially romanized as Mishelan (ミシェラン lit. Misheran). Though, I believe the name is meant to be a Japanese rendition of the French name "Michelin" as, in French, "ch” is pronounced as /sh/. Michelin is a surname made most famous by the Michelin company, a tire manufacturer. In Japan, there's actually a bit of a meme relating to this character and tires. The name "Macellan" likely comes from a corruption of the surname "Magellan."
Additionally, something I learned was the fact that there’s an auto parts factory called TOM’S, and Dolph’s Japanese name, トムス, is spelled the same way. So, it’s very possible these two knuckleheads were intentionally meant to be named after automobile companies.
Boah’s name is the same in both English and Japanese, but I wanted to point out a tidbit with the German version of FE11. In that version, Boah was renamed to Boran, this was likely the case because the term “boah” is the German equivalent of the exclamation "whoa!" That makes sense, if I were German, I'd probably be yelling “Boah!” too, if people started exclusively blaming me for what happened in the sequel game. 😞
Nextly, Astram was called Astria (アストリア lit. Asutoria) in Japanese, but this isn’t a major change. The name Astria is likely based on Asteria, a Titaness in Greek Mythology, as Astria is an alternative spelling of that name. Meanwhile, Astram comes from "astra" meaning star.
Making up the Whitewings is Palla, her name is almost the same in Japanese, but spelled as Paola (パオラ lit. Paora). Paola is an Italian name which is the feminine version of the name Paolo. It is also the equivalent of the English name Paula. Ironically, her name in the Italian versions is spelled as “Paula”. In English, this was changed to Palla to keep the name similar but also make it sound more fantasy-like by adding a reference to Pallas Athena, an ancient Greek Goddess.
Catria received a bigger change, her name being romanized as Katua (カチュア lit. Kachua) in Japanese. Like with Matthis, チ is used to represent a /ti/, in this case, it's changed by a chiisai /u/ to make a /tu/ sound. This is why some Japanese sources may render her name as Kachua. Once again, this change was likely done so the name sounded more appealing to an English audience as if she needed to be more appealing.
Est has the same name in English and Japanese, but her name would be changed in the Italian version of FE11. In that version, Est would be renamed to Esther, the titular Jewish queen of Persia in the biblical book of Esther. This was probably changed as “est” is just a common word in a lot of languages. In French, "est" means "is" or "east," while in Spanish and Portuguese, it translates to "is." Similarly, in German, "est" is the third person singular form of the verb "sein," meaning "to be." Hell, Est sees more use in these languages than she does in her games.
The Shapeshifter Xane has a notably different name in Japanese, that being Cheine (チェイニー lit. Cheinī). A lot of the older fan translations referred to him as Chainy, but his name likely comes from Lon Cheney Sr., a silent film actor whose ability to transform himself via makeup earned him the nickname "Man of a Thousand Faces." As much as I like the name "Xane," I would have much preferred it if they kept the reference intact. However, this name was likely changed in English due to the possible audience connection to former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, which is a shame.
The next character is everyone’s favorite divine dragon, Tiki. She has the same name in both English and Japanese, though some fan translations did call her “Chiki.” I actually kind of prefer Chiki more, but that’s not important. What is important is the way Tiki addresses Marth and Bantu. When you recruit Tiki she refers to Bantu as “おじいちゃま” or Ojīchama, which translates directly to Grandpa.
Like with Rickard to Julian, Bantu isn’t Tiki’s biological grandpa, it’s just an affectionate way to refer to her caretaker. As such, the localization changes this to “Ban-Ban”, a cute affectionate nickname for the character.
Similarly, Tiki refers to Marth as おにいちゃん or Onii-chan, which translates directly to “Older brother.” Again, Marth isn’t Tiki’s brother and it’s just a cute way to refer to him, as such, this was changed to “Mar-Mar” in localization.
Next is the guy that you can’t search up without getting results from Fire Emblem Three Houses, Lorenz. In Japanese, his name is spelled as Rolence (ロレンス lit. Rorensu) a variation of "Laurence". Lorenz is a German form of the ancient Roman name "Laurentius", the root of the more common name "Laurence." This particular name likely comes Thomas Edward Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia. He was a major player in the Great Arab Revolt, in which the Arabs challenged their Ottoman rulers, similar to how Lorenz revolted against Grust and challenged Dolhr's rule.
After him, there's Ymir. And while neither him or any of the other new characters were renamed in localization, in the epilogue, Ymir’s title is グルニアの戦士, which translates to Grustian Fighter. In English, this was changed to Gravel-Yeller, and in the PAL version, it was changed once again to No Monster.
Similarly, Nagi’s title, 神竜王の化身, which means Divine Dragon King's Avatar, was changed to Dragon Ruler in English, and Holy Avatar in PAL regions.
Next, we have Sister Elice. Her name in Japanese is romanized as Elice (エリス lit. Erisu), same as in English. However, just like her brother, her name was derived from a mythological deity and a corruption of that deity's name, at that. Her name comes from Eris, the Greek Goddess of discord and strife. In Greek Mythology, Eris was the sister of Ares, Ares being the Greek equivalent of the Roman God, Mars.
The last playable character to receive a name change was Gotoh, who simply went from Gato (ガトー lit. Gatō) to Gotoh. Not too big of a change, but worth mentioning.
Generic Units
In FE11 and 12, the games have a unique mechanic where if you lose too many units, the game gives you generic units to fill out roster space. These units have no distinct characters or dialogue, they only have generic names, and only use the generic portrait of their current class.
In Japanese, the generics follow the naming scheme of German numbers, then German days of the week, then the months of the year. The English version uses a naming scheme of pseudo-Latin numbers from one to twelve, then devolve into variations of derogatory terms like Lucer (Loser), Wymp (Wimp), and Auffle (Awful), then the last few names are just regular names. Each version of FE11 uses very different schemes for the names though.
What I find pretty funny is that while the Japanese version of FE11 uses German numbers for its generic units, the German version of FE11 uses Japanese numbers for their names. Likewise, while the English version waits a while before it starts insulting you via the generic names, the Spanish version insults the player right off the bat.
There are too many generic names to go over, so below is a picture of the name chart of the generic units from the Fire Emblem Wiki.
Bosses
Now, we have the bosses. With Gomer, in Japanese, he was named Gomes (ゴメス lit. Gomesu). Gomes is a very common name used for many bandit bosses in numerous other Kaga games such as Thracia 776 (called Gomez in Lil' Manster), Berwick Saga (called Gomez in Aethin's patch), and Vestaria Saga I (called Gormes in Dangen's official localization).
I don't think the name change to Gomer had any particular meaning, but the name Gomer includes an added biblical reference to the eldest son of Japheth and grandson of Noah in the Hebrew Bible.
Next is Hyman, he virtually has the same name in Japanese, but in the PAL version he was renamed to Reynard. Possibly because of the hilarious jokes that would spawn from a character whose name is similar to hymen.
Next, is Emereus. In Japanese, this boss is known as Mariones (マリオネス lit. Marionesu), which I always said as "Mario NES," because I like Mario. In fact, I'm a little bummed that his name wasn't localized as Mariofamicom instead. In any case, the name Mariones is likely a corruption of Meriones (Μηριόνης) a hero from Greece and one of the invaders of Troy in The Iliad. This was likely changed in English to avoid potentially portraying the character in a positive light.
The boss of Port Warren is Kannival, who was called Canaris (カナリス lit. Kanarisu) in Japanese. Possibly named after Wilhelm Canaris, a German admiral who was initially supportive of Adolf Hitler but later turned against him after the start of World War II. This will be a common trend, but a lot of the bosses tend to be named after World War II generals but were renamed in English to either remove or muddy this connection. Most likely to avoid the potentially offensive nature.
In the same vein, the boss, Zharov, was originally known as Jucaph (ジューコフ lit. Jūkofu) in Japanese, although I affectionally referred to him as Jack-Off when playing the older FE3 fan translation. Anyways, Jucaph is a Japanese rendition of the Russian name Zhukov, as the compound kana ジュ can be used to make /Zu/ sounds in addition to /Ju/ sounds. In addition, The name Zhukov (Жуков), when spelled in Russian, ends with a в, which normally makes a /v/ sound, but when it's at the end of a word or before voiceless consonants, it represents the voiceless /f/, hence why the Japanese rendition uses an /f/ sound. In any case, the name is most famously borne by Georgy Zhukov, a Marshal of the Soviet Union. As such, this name was changed to Zharov (Жаров), a different Russian surname.
The Manakete boss Khozen was originally Shorzen (ショーゼン lit. Shōzen) in Japanese, there isn’t much to say, they just changed the first letter of the name for unknown reasons.
The next boss is Heimler who was originally Himmler (ヒムラー lit. Himurā) in Japanese. This name is, of course, a reference to Heinrich Himmler, an infamous Nazi general in WWII. I like how with Canaris -> Kannival they changed his name completely, and with Zhukov -> Zharov they went from one Russian name to another, but the most recognizable name was almost kept entirely intact aside from just ever-so-slightly changing the pronunciation.
The elephant-taming ballistician boss of Chapter 13 was renamed from Gigashu (ギガッシュ lit. Gigasshu) to Grigas.
Hollstadt is a bit interesting, his name is the same in English and in Japanese. However, between FE1/3 and FE11, the spelling of his Japanese name was changed slightly. In Japanese FE1 and 3, his name is spelled as "ホルスタット" (Horustatto), in FE11 however, assumingly because of the reduced space for character names, his name was shortened to the spelling "ホルサード" (Horusādo). I believe he is the only boss to be renamed between Japanese games.
Next is Morzas, in Japanese his name was officially romanized Moses (モーゼス lit. Mōzesu). However, the name can be translated as Morzes as well, so it’s unclear if this really is a 'change' or not.
One of the knights apart of the Sable Order is Sternlin, who was called Starone (スターロン lit. Stāron) in Japanese, and I affectionately referred to as “Sylvester Stallone.” Stāron is likely a corruption of the name "Stalin," coming from... Joseph Stalin. The localized name, Sternlin, is essentially a different corruption of the name Stalin, leaning into how スター can be read as “star” and changing it to the "Stern," which is German for star.
After that is Camus, whose name likely comes from the French author Albert Camus, hence the silent "s." His English name has always been consistent; however, in Japanese, the spelling of his name alternates between Kamyu (カミュ) and Kamiyu (カミユ). Kamyu is used in elements like menus and battle text in FE1 and universally in FE11. Meanwhile, Kamiyu appears in dialogue and the Chapter 20 title in FE1, as well as universally in FE3.
Additionally, many people note that Camus bears a striking resemblance to Char Aznable from the Gundam series. To add to the Gundam references, the main character of Zeta Gundam, Kamille Bidan, has his name spelled as Kamīyu (カミーユ).
The next boss is Orridyon, in Japanese his name was spelled Ordain (オーダイン lit. Ōdain). Just a variation of the name.
One of my favorite villains is Michalis, in Japanese his name was romanized as Misheil (ミシェイル lit. Misheiru). Michalis is a transliteration of the Greek name Μιχάλης (Michális), a male given name used in modern Greece meaning "resembling God." It’s also derived from the Hebrew name “Michael."
Misheil is likely a transliteration of Michel or Michele, names used in various languages, and are also variants of the name Michael, which shares the same root as Michalis.
NPCs
Now with all the bosses out of the way, we have the bald tactician, Malledus. His name in Japanese is romanized as Morodof (モロドフ lit. Morodofu) I assume this name is meant to be based on the name "Molotov" but altered slightly, changing /to/ into /do/. The name Molotov was carried by Joseph Stalin’s right-hand man Vyacheslav Molotov. Which likely dissuaded the localizers from leaving the name as Molodov. Fun fact though, in FE1, the name is accidentally misspelled as モロゾフ (Morozofu) on one occasion.
The next character we have is the shopkeeper, Larabel. In English and Japanese, her name remains as Larabel, but in the PAL version, they renamed Larabel to Aimee. This was done to keep it consistent with FE9 and 10 since the character’s likeness was used in those games but referred to as Aimee.
Next, we have the King of Grust, King Ludwick. The name Ludwik is a Polish form of the name Ludwig. In Japanese, he was referred to as Louis (ルイ lit. Rui) the French form of Ludwig. He was also likely named after King Louis, specifically Louis XVI, as they were both seen as weak rulers. Fun fact about King Ludwik though, all mentions of his name were completely scrubbed out of the Italian version of FE11.
(New) Mystery of the Emblem
Even though Mystery of the Emblem and New Mystery of the Emblem are completely different games from Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon, there is some localized content from those games that doesn't particularly warrant its own separate write-up.
First, there's the playable character Roderick, who was originally called Rody (ロディ lit. Rodi). Likely changed to make the name sound more formal or fancy.
Next is the cleric Malliesia (マリーシア lit. Marīshia), throughout many different fan translations, she's gone by a multitude of different name spellings. Malliesia was the name used in many Japanese artbooks and supplemental content. This is where the original FE3 patch got the name from, however, in gameplay, it is shortened to Mallesia because of space limitations.
After that, the FE12 fan translation changed the spelling to Malicia to make the name more appealing to an English-speaking audience. Then in 2020, the Legacy of Archanea artbook officially localized the name to Marisha, which is essentially a direct interpretation of the katakana spelling, but an i is omitted.
After that, there is Yumina (ユミナ lit. Yumina) and Yubello (ユベロ lit. Yubero) which were renamed to Yuliya and Jubelo respectively, also via the 2020 Legacy of Archanea artbook. The name "Jubelo" originates from an allegorical tale found within Freemasonry, which is also recounted in Samuel Pritchard's Masonic work, "Three Distinct Knocks." In this allegory, Jubelo is one of three ruffians (alongside Jubela and Jubelum) who, having failed to obtain the secrets of the Master Masons from Hiram Abiff, commit to murdering him in King Solomon's Temple. That said, the name change is more of a change in spelling to make the reference more clear.
Yuliya is a female given name, the equivalent of the Latin Julia. The name "Yumina" itself doesn't have a widely recognized meaning, but there's a possibility that it may come from the Arabic name "Yumna," a name meaning "blessed" or "fortunate."
Nonetheless, a funny little in-joke with Yumina is the fact that her name contains the word "Yumi," which is Japanese for "Bow," so there is old Cipher card art that depicts her as a Sniper.
The pretty boy Samto (サムトー lit. Samutō) was renamed in English to Samuel, which is a boring name change, but I can understand why it was done. The name Samto is essentially a portmanteau of the Japanese words 寒い (Samui) meaning "dull", and 刀 (Tō), meaning "sword." All together, you have this poor-quality imitation of Navarre with a name referencing a poor-quality sword.
The name Samuel is a name which comes from the Bible and means "heard of God" or "God has heard." It is derived from the Hebrew name "Shemu'el" (שְׁמוּאֵל), which combines the elements "Shema," meaning "to hear," and "El," which refers to God in Hebrew. What I find interesting though is the fact that the biblical story of Nabal that I mentioned previously appears in the 1st Book of Samuel Chapter 25.
Arlen is another character who has received multiple names. In Japanese his name was always romanized as Ellerean ( エルレーン lit. Erurēn), which the FE12 fan translation would shorten to "Elrean." That said, all these names are all just variants of the German surname "Erlen."
While this next name isn't a "localized" name since this character is never mentioned outside of FE12 in English officially, Beck's horse is named Bonnie (ボニー lit. Bonī) in Japanese, but just "Pony" in the English patch of FE12. And from the naming, it's hard to know whether or not this was an intentional change or a legitimate mistake. To spell the English word "Pony", you spell it as ポニー (Ponī). The only difference between the two spellings is that Bonnie is spelled with a dakuten, changing the pronunciation of the kana to a B, while Pony is spelled with a handakuten, which changes it to a P. On a tiny DS screen, an error like that is pretty common.
Next is the Chapter 3 boss, they for whatever reason had official art, which was included in the 2020 Legacy of Archanea artbook, and as such, the name was localized. In Japanese, he's called Rucke (リュッケ lit. Ryukke), in English this is spelled as Lykke, which is a common Danish surname. Looking at the names, it's not really a change, just a Japanese interpretation of the same name.
Next is the Chapter 19 boss, who inadvertently had his name localized because his name appears in an unused text string in FE11's ROM. His name is "localized" as Nehring, which comes from Walther Nehring a Nazi general during WWII. In Japanese, his name is romanized as Nering (ネーリング lit. Nēringu) and has been called Nerring and Nailing amongst different fan translations.
The characters Reese and Clarisse were originally called Eine (アイネ lit. Aine) and Kleine (クライネ lit. Kuraine) in Japanese, a reference to Mozart's serenade Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. I wish they kept their Japanese names because I like the reference. I am unsure if Reese and Clarisse mean anything together outside of the fact that they rhyme.
The boss character known as Roro (ローロー lit. Rōrō) was renamed Legion in English. The name Legion comes from a demon described in the Bible as being multiple entities in a single form at once.
Lastly, the tome known as Shaver (シェイバー lit. Sheibā) in Japanese would get localized as "Cutting Gale" as it reappears in Fire Emblem Three Houses.
Groups and Factions
With the groups and factions, there's quite a bit of info I wanted to cover. The first thing I wanted to mention is that in most Fire Emblem games, you may notice that many enemy units that are nameless or faceless are just referred to by the name of the country or army you fight for. For example, many of the late-game enemies in FE11 are simply referred to as "Dolhr." This is slightly the same in Japanese, but slightly more context is added. Refer to the image below for an example.
This is a Gra soldier from Prologue 1, however, you may notice that his name doesn't just spell out Gra (グラ lit. Gura), there is an extra Kanji at the end. This Kanji 兵 (lit. hei) translates into "Soldier" or "Troop," designating the full name as "Gra Soldier." Many other enemies are named similarly in Japanese, and I assume this was changed in localization because of space.
With that in mind, one group that received a slight name change was the Black Knights (黒騎士団 lit. Kuro Kishidan) being renamed to the Sable Order. Sable is a shade used to describe a dark, blackish-brown color, often used in heraldry to represent black. And Order just refers to an Order of Knights. I believe this was simply a stylistic choice not only to sound more appealing but also to distance itself from the other more well-known Black Knight (漆黒の騎士 lit. Shikkoku no Kishi) who appears in FE9 and 10.
Next are the bandits who appear in Chapter 3, who are called Samsians (サムシアン lit. Samushian) in Japanese and retain this name in other non-English and PAL versions. In English, they're instead called Soothsires. Both names come from the location that the chapter takes place in, the "Samsooth Mountains," where the Japanese version takes the prefix Sam- to designate the bandits, while the English version takes the suffix -sooth to do the same.
After that, we have the Allience (同盟軍 lit. Dōmeigun), which is a misspelling of Alliance. This name was changed to "Archanean League" in the localization, and many fan translations simply used "Allied Army."
Now, there are the Whitewings, who are called White Knights in Japanese (白騎士団 lit. Shirokishidan) a stylistic choice aimed to add flair to the original name, while also making it clear that the group is a group of fliers.
The last faction I want to talk about is Michalis' personal group called the Dragoons. These troops were called Dragon Knights (竜騎士団 lit. Ryūkishidan) in Japanese. As you can see, this group name is written in Kanji, which differentiates it from the Dragon Knight class, that said, if you translated them directly, you'd have both the Dragon Knight class and the Dragon Knight faction, which would cause confusion. This potential confusion was essentially curbed by renaming the class "Dracoknight," and the faction, "Dragoons."
Additionally, as I mentioned before, the Wolfguard in Japanese is called the Wolf Knights. What's worth noting though is that it follows the same structure as the other military groups in Archanea. Wolf Knights (狼騎士団), White Knights (白騎士団), Black Knights (黒騎士団), and Dragon Knights (竜騎士団): they all are a single descriptive Kanji followed by the word for a chivalric order or retinue of knights, 騎士団/kishidan.
Chapters
To begin with the chapters, I’m going to talk about Prologues 1-4. In Japan, Prologue 1 is called 序章 起 (Prologue: Introduction). Prologue 2 is 序章 承 (Prologue: Development). Prologue 3 is 序章 転 (Prologue: Twist) and Prologue 4 is 序章 結 (Prologue: Conclusion).
These are the four phases of a narrative with the kishōtenketsu structure. A writing structure that originated in China and was called qǐ chéng zhuǎn hé (起承轉合) and used in Chinese poetry as a four-line composition.
The next change is Chapter 3’s title. The colloquial name of the location in which this chapter takes place was changed from "Devil Mountain" to "Ghoul’s Teeth." As such, the chapter name Devil Mountain would make no sense. However, instead of just calling the map “Ghoul’s Teeth” the English version adds a pun in the chapter title, “A Brush in the Teeth.” It should be noted, however, that the 2020 rerelease of FE1 did refer to this chapter as “Ghoul’s Teeth.”
Following that is Battle in the Lea, the chapter’s name didn’t change much, but the wording in Japanese is what’s important. In Japan, this chapter is called Battle of the Plains (草原の戦い lit. Sōgen no Tatakai). This is actually a reference to Hardin's title, Wolf of the Plains (草原の狼 lit. Sōgen no Ōkami), as you'll notice that the 草原の (Sōgen no) kanji reappears in this chapter name. However, as Hardin's title was changed to Coyote, this reference was lost.
The next map is 6x, In War’s Grip. The English name uses more decorative wording, as in Japanese it’s simply called “Between War.”
Next is Port Warren, in Japanese this map is called Port Town Warren, this change was done due to space, but the most interesting part is how the PAL version completely renamed this chapter to Coastal Skirmish. A common trend with the PAL version is how a lot of the chapters that are just named after the location the chapter takes place in would be renamed to more interesting names.
The next map is The Pyrathi Dragon, in Japanese this was The Fire Dragon of Peraty, and in the PAL version, this was renamed A Wyrm King’s Wrath. Once again, due to space, the mention of the dragon being a fire dragon was dropped in the US version. Meanwhile, the PAL version would rename the chapter altogether.
Next is Knorda Market. This chapter's name remains the same amongst all languages, however, in the Japanese versions of FE1 and 3, this chapter was called Knorda Slave Market, whereas Japanese FE11 removed the mention of slaves.
The following map, The Ageless Palace, was called Akaneia Palace in Japanese. Once again, this was likely changed because one, the confusion with the name パレス (Paresu), and two, to sound more interesting and not just name the chapter after where it takes place.
Chapter 12x is called “The Worth of Betrayal” in Japan while it is called “A Traitor's Worth” in English, another simple stylistic change.
Chapters 13 and 14 are called The Wooden Cavalry and Land of Sorrow respectively, however, the Japanese version features the name of the country before the titles, such as “Grunia’s Wooden Cavalry” and “Gra, Land of Sorrow”. This was likely cut because of space.
"Khadein, Land of Sorcery" was renamed to "An Oasis of Magic", the mention of Khadein was dropped likely because of space, and Land of Sorcery was changed to Oasis of Magic possibly to give it a more enchanting sounding name.
Skipping ahead, we have Star and Savior. Star and Savior is a play on Lord and Savior, a popular saying in Christianity to refer to Jesus Christ when referring to how he is the one that saves us from danger or destruction, similar to how Marth did with Altea once he returned.
In Japanese, this map is referred to as Starlord Marth, Starlord being an affectionate term the citizens refer to Marth after liberating their country. It should be noted that the Lodestar class that appears in Awakening is called “Starlord” in Japanese. A lodestar is an actual star used as a navigational reference. It can also mean a guiding principle, like Marth's influence on the future of Archanea. Additionally, "lodestar" is phonetically similar to an inversion of the syllables of "Star Lord."
Chapter 17x is called Helena Castle, like with Port Warren, the PAL version renamed this map to Prisoners of Helena to add some flair. In Japanese, this chapter was called Makronisos Castle. Makronisos is an Island located in Greece, notorious for being the site of a political prison from the 1920s to the 1970s. In ancient times, this island was called Helen or Helena after Helen of Troy, the wife of Menelaus. So in essence, this is a similar deal with Orleans → Aurelis.
Chapter 18, kind of similar to the Wooden Cavalry, is called Grunia’s Black Knights in Japanese. The part mentioning the nation of Grunia was cut for space, and since the Black Knights were renamed to Sable Order, this map is simply called “The Sable Order”.
Likewise, the chapter title “Black Knight Camus” became “Camus the Sable” in localization. The following chapter, “The Lair of Fire”, was also renamed in PAL to “Men and Monsters.” Following the PAL version’s trend of not using location names as chapter names.
The map Sky-Riding Knights became A Knight-Filled Sky in English. This is a play on the saying “A night-filled sky.” as this is the map where you fight Michalis and his Dragoons.
The following chapter is called “Evil Bishop Gharnef” in Japanese, and “Dark Pontifex” in English. The part mentioning Gharnef was cut for space.
Chapter 24x is the map referred to as The Alterspire, which was renamed to A World Apart in the PAL version because of the same reasons Helena Castle and Port Warren were renamed in PAL regions.
Game Dialogue
Now, we can discuss specific terms, names, and phrases all day, but I wanted to move on to the game’s dialogue, as that is where a lot of the game’s localization efforts went. The game’s dialogue aims to portray the story in a descriptive and atmospheric manner, while also embracing archaic and formal language standardized in many fantasy stories. It often uses poetic prose, imagery, and depth to convey the essence of the Japanese version.
For my own sanity, I’m not going to sift through every single line of dialogue in the game. However, I will select a few examples and instances to discuss so you get the general idea. I’ll first provide the Japanese version of the dialogue, then the English version, and finally, discuss the differences and their significance in conveying the Japanese text. If applicable, I’ll also talk about how the differences are used to portray the conveyance of the Japanese text.
The first example I want to use is the opening narration for chapter 15, Oasis of Magic, and I'd like to thank my good friend, lthc_hiryu, for the translation of the Japanese dialogue. Anyways, without further ado:
In Japanese, the opening narration reads as such:
Before diving into the localized text, I want to highlight a few quick points. Firstly, the text here is color-coded, as is the localized text I'll soon provide. This better helps in portraying the parallels between the different texts. Secondly, as a translator’s note, the last line literally translates to “Khadein... could this be a cursed city of darkness?” However, my friend found this confusing in English, so they slightly reworded it to enhance clarity in conveying the text's meaning.
Now, in comparison, this is how the opening narration reads in the English localization:
Generally, the first thing you’d notice is the aforementioned prose and illustrative word choice 8-4 used to portray things stated in the narration. For instance, while the Japanese version states that Gharnef took over Khadein, the English version took it further and added that his taking over had caused the sands to "run red," alluding to the next lines describing how many soldiers had fallen against him, and how Khadein is now seen as a cursed city.
One thing you may notice is the red Kanji in the Japanese text, which my friend translated as "Dark Lord." The term 魔王 (Maō), referring to Gharnef, literally translates to "Demon King," which some older FE3 patches used to call him. However, the term more accurately denotes a supreme supernatural being, typically evil. It's a generic term common in Japanese fantasy settings, usually used to refer to a final boss or a notable boss. In fact, characters like Bowser, Piccolo, and Ganondorf are also referred to as Maō or Daimaō. Even within the Fire Emblem series, the Demon King Fomortiis and the Baron in Black Raydrik also use the same title.
English doesn’t have a solid, universal term for maō the way Japanese does. So, when translating, translators usually come up with something similar that fits. In the first line of the localized text, they opt to omit a mention of it, but later on in the narration, they use the term “fiend.” Fiend is actually one of the more common ways I've seen maō translated, but it shifts a lot in different media and contexts. In other lines of text in FE11, they just end up interpreting maō as Gharnef's more commonly used title, “Dark Pontifex.”
The next change is changing the phrasing from “holy land of mages”, to “mecca for the magically inclined.” The word “mecca” refers to a place regarded as a center for a specified group, activity, or interest. It has connotations linking to a desert valley in western Saudi Arabia, which is Islam’s holiest city, which parallels Khadein as being the main location and sanctuary for mages.
A few lines down you have:
“even the strongest of warriors stand no chance defending themselves. One by one… Brave soldiers become wounded and fall.”
Which was changed to:
“Many knights had tried to oust Gharnef, but what defense did they have against the mages the fiend had bent to his purpose? One by one the heroes fell to blades unseen and fires within their armor;”
The localization would use more elegant and poetic wording to add more depth and imagery to engage the reader more and better visualize how much of a threat Gharnef is.
Lastly, there’s the last line,
“Khadein… is there really no helping this cursed city…?”
Which is localized as
“and it was not long at all before Khadein’s wickedness outstripped its wisdom.”
Both these lines effectively convey that Khadein is in dire straits but in slightly different ways. The Japanese version conveys a sense of despair, while the English version presents it with a matter-of-fact tone. Additionally, the English version employs subtle wordplay to underscore Khadein's condition.
The next change I want to look at is the dialogue between Minerva and Harmein at the start of Chapter 7. The Japanese dialogue reads as such:
In the localization, this dialogue would be rendered as such:
Something I particularly appreciate about this exchange is how effectively the localization establishes the antagonistic relationship between Harmein and Minerva, as well as the contempt Minerva holds for the state of her nation. The obvious factor is her sister being held hostage by her corrupt brother, but even within this exchange alone, the dynamic between Minerva and Harmein is subtly conveyed.
In the Japanese version, Minerva addresses the General, saying, “Please allow me to confront our opposition directly, on my honor as a knight of Macedon.” The General responds by stating, “Princess, your Macedonian army suffered heavy losses in Aurelis.” Essentially, he merely points out the casualties incurred due to her tactics.
However, in the English version, Minerva still addresses the General with the same request, but the General's response carries a more passive-aggressive tone. He retorts, “Ah, you mean the same pride that cost us all those soldiers back in Aurelis? I think not, Princess.” This not only highlights the losses suffered but also underscores the disdain between the two speakers, particularly the lack of respect Harmein holds for his Princess. This tone is further emphasized in the subsequent mention of Maria's safety, which is delivered more mockingly in the English version.
Another subtle change worth noting is the concluding line spoken by Minerva. In the Japanese version, she states, “… I understand. I shall follow your orders…”. However, in the localization, this is changed to “Enough! …I will obey.” This adjustment effectively captures Minerva’s suppressed contempt. As the General continues to speak about her sister, Minerva reaches her limit and exclaims “Enough!” This not only signals her desire for the General to stop speaking but also portrays her stricter personality. Her terse declaration, “I will obey,” demonstrates her reluctant compliance with the plan, foreshadowing her subsequent withdrawal from the map.
In any case, the next comparison is the exchange between Merric and Wendell in Chapter 5, whereas in Japanese, the dialogue goes as such.
In comparison, in localization, this exchange would be read as:
I’d be lying if I said Wendell's line, “Well, hello, Merric! What a surprise! Good to see you haven’t blown yourself up yet.” wasn’t one of my favorite lines of dialogue in the game. Putting that aside, the first difference is changing the casual greeting into a casual greeting plus some banter between the teacher and his student. It does a good job of establishing the relationship between Wendell and Merric, while also pointing out Merric's recklessness when it comes to magic.
Similarly, the other lines in their conversation are changed to be a bit more casual, demonstrating each of their personalities a bit more and just overall sound a bit more decorative. For instance, in Japanese Merric simply claims that Marth will be "glad" to have Wendell fight for him, conversely, the English version uses the expression, "as pleased as pie," to describe Marth's reaction. Similarly, in Japanese, Merric simply refers to Wendell as "someone like you," while the English version makes what Merric is referring to clearer by stating "magic as robust as yours."
And rather than Wendell simply replying with "I understand," he compliments Merric's ability to present a compelling point, before letting Merric know to tell Marth that he is in his service. I feel that apart from making their personalities shine more, it does a stellar job of making these two more entertaining.
Next, I want to go over some of the dialogue that is present in the NPC houses and villages scattered throughout the game, starting with one in prologue 4. The Japanese text goes as such:
In localization, this house would be rendered as:
Something that the localization does, and the localization for most FE games do, is give civilians more of a country bumpkin way of speaking. This usually entails changing words like “anything” to “anythin’”, abbreviating terms like “faster than” to “faster’n”, or “name of” to “name ‘o” and intentionally misspelling words like “some” as “sum” or “your” to “yer”. It’s a small thing, but it does add to the general world-building and immersion that you’re talking to, well, a country bumpkin.
Committing to this, they also have the civilian use an in-universe analogy to describe how fast the enemy is catching up, “faster’n a bolt of Thoron,” similar to a saying you’d hear every day like “You’re as blind as a bat,” which does add a bit of charm. It’s similar to how the fan translation of FE5 added funny alliterations like “Natterin’ Nál” or “Thunderin’ Thrud” that in essence fulfill the same purpose.
Furthermore, the more casual bumpkin talk is better expressed by using the term “hightail” instead of simply saying to escape.
That said though, putting the speech patterns aside, it can be argued that this exchange in particular has a slightly different tone in Japanese than it does in English, as the Japanese version sounds more concerned while the English version sounds more apathetic. And with things like NPC dialogue, at least for me, whether or not it is a bad or unnecessary change largely depends on whether or not I feel the change is relevant to the game or not as well as the overall tone of the Japanese game. So I'll leave that judgment to you.
The next line I want to mention is another villager in chapter 4. In the Japanese version, he says as such:
It’s a pretty standard gameplay tutorial you’d expect from a game like this. In the English localization, what he says is
The English version very much says the same thing but adds a little joke at the end. It’s still a gameplay tip, but it’s also an obvious one, so they added a line poking fun at the obvious nature of this tip with the following line of the man awkwardly shocked and then playing it off as “Right, of course you did,” as if he knew that you knew the tip already. I feel like little things like that help in making in-game tips and guides more memorable. So later on in the game, you’d remember the amusing line and then the tip associated with it.
The last piece of dialogue I want to talk about is the end of chapter dialogue at the end of chapter 17, Star and Savior. In Japanese, the text reads as.
In localization, this scene is written as
One thing I want to note about this text is how Marth expresses the death of his mother, Liza. In Japanese, his sense of dread is expressed through pauses and ellipses, portraying that the death of his mother is so hard for him to handle that he can't get the words out. This is pretty common in a lot of Japanese media, where characters express intense emotions through ellipses, pauses, and leaving words out.
From my understanding, this isn't as common in Western media, and the localization expresses this similarly, although they have Marth bluntly say "she is dead" rather than having the reader infer that for themselves. Which I believe is him being heartbroken, and not wanting to mince words and dance around it and just quickly and simply stating what happened.
Aside from that, there is the standard poetic writing that is used to express certain phrases, in particular, lines like:
“To think… To think that… We made it… this far… Only to find that…”
Was changed to:
“I thought there would be something… some part of my old life I would be coming back to.”
Both lines effectively say the same things, the English version just has a more fancy way of expressing it, and makes this tumultuous patch in Marth's journey a bit more impactful, at least to me. I personally just feel the English text better portrays Marth’s sense of dread.
Miscellaneous Changes
I’ll begin this section by mentioning that the song which was called “In a Shiny Wind” in Japanese was renamed “In the Wind and the Light” in international versions. Speaking of music, when starting a new game, the game gives you a backstory on Medeus and the legend of Anri. In the Japanese version, the theme “Shadow and Light” plays during this narration, while international versions instead use the theme “Reclamation.” I’m not sure why.
Certain graphics featured in the game would be changed as well, as seen below.
Image taken from The Cutting Room Floor
The first image is the Japanese graphic and the bottom one is the international one. This is a common practice in a lot of localizations to make the text look more natural by turning off the Caps Lock key after the first letter.
Image taken from The Cutting Room Floor
Again, the wording is slightly changed here to make the English text match something someone would more commonly use for these commands in English.
Image taken from The Cutting Room Floor
The warp staff icon was changed between versions to remove the religious reference, as the JP icon resembles the star of David.
Wendell's base weapon experience was altered from Tome 135 (B) and Staff 0 (E) to Tome 105 (B) and Staff 30 (D). I believe this was done because otherwise, he wouldn’t have the rank to use the Barrier staff that he joins with. Speaking of Wendell, in the US version, the game’s epilogue accidentally misspells his name as “Wendel”.
In Japanese, Catria joined at level 3, while Est joined at level 5. In localization, this was swapped, presumably to make Est’s character of a self-conscious rookie Whitewing more convincing. Otherwise, talks like this-
Image taken from Serene’s Forest
-would lose potency if Est joined at a higher level than her more experienced older sister, Catria. It should be noted though that even though their join levels were swapped, their stats are unaltered.
Five multiplayer maps were added in the international versions of FE11, as well as a handicapping option and random map selector. There was only one multiplayer map in the Japanese version, but all these new maps were later included in FE12.
Two events were added to the Event Recap (the events themselves existed in the Japanese version, they just didn't have entries in the Event Recap).
FE11 has an infamous glitch called the Warp Staff Cloning Glitch where if you quickly skipped the warp animation, the game would create an invisible copy of the warped unit. The PAL version fixed this glitch, but it’s present in both the US and Japanese versions but functions slightly differently. In the Japanese version, the clone disappears immediately when the enemy makes a move. In the US version, it will remain for 1 to 3 turns and acts as an effective Light Rune or Shine Barrier from other games, blocking enemies off.
Another bug that was fixed in the PAL version was the total turn counts in the game’s credits. In the US version (and I believe the Japanese version), turns are stored as 8-bit unsigned integers, which means if your turn count on a map reaches 256, it would overflow back to 0 in the game’s epilogue. For example, if you took 546 turns on Chapter 2, for some ungodly reason, that would overflow twice, and in the epilogue, it would count as (546 - 256 - 256 = 34), so 34 turns. This was fixed in the PAL version, to where the epilogue would display the correct turn count, in this case being 546.
I actually found out that this was fixed in the PAL version because of this poor sap on Discord.
At the last screen of the game’s credits, the Japanese version has the text "Fin." This text was changed to "The End" for the international versions.
Also, in the epilogue where each character has their amount of battles "B" and amount of battles won "W", the US version has both "B" and "W" aligned to the left side of the margin. The PAL version has "B" and "W" more spaced out and has both "B" and "W" aligned to the right side of the margin.
In the Japanese version's in-game tutorial, there is a screenshot where a Vulnerary is shown to have five uses, similar to how they did in FE1. Vulneraries were probably planned to have five uses in this game as well, but they likely decided to change it later on in development but forgot to change this screen. This however was amended in the localization.
Last and certainly least, the first in-game tutorial refers to the “System Menu” as the “Map Menu” in the PAL version of the game.
Conclusion
Welp, I really appreciate anyone who stuck through this entire article and read everything I had to say. I know this one was a bit shorter than what I normally write, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless. I know for a fact, I’ve probably missed something important, so if I did, please let me know in the comments below.
I hope this write-up gave you some new perspective, knowledge, or at the very least some kind of entertainment. As long as you learned at least one new fact today, I’ve achieved my goal in writing this. And with all that said and done, I'll see you very soon, as the next battle has already begun!
References
The Cutting Room Floor. (n.d.). Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon/Version Differences. Retrieved from https://tcrf.net/Fire_Emblem:_Shadow_Dragon/Version_Differences
Fire Emblem Wiki. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page
Kantopia. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://kantopia.wordpress.com/
Serenes Forest. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://serenesforest.net/
NeoGAF. (n.d.). Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon |OT| Official Thread - "They're Not Ponies, They're Pegasi!". Retrieved from https://www.neogaf.com/threads/fire-emblem-shadow-dragon-official-thread-of-theyre-not-ponies-theyre-pegasi.343398/page-6#post-14797916
PegasusKnight. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.pegasusknight.com/
Nintendo. (n.d.). Q&A - Fire Emblem. Retrieved from https://www.nintendo.co.jp/n08/afej/q_and_a/page23.html
Legends of Localization. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://legendsoflocalization.com/
8-4. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://8-4.jp/
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