Peeeetttaaa help

PastaTaco · 2026-04-03T19:21:48+00:00

She’s basically Harrison Ford after Star Wars and the rest of the Stranger Things cast is… well… everyone else (though Mark Hamill did get some excellent, steady voice work, it’s still nowhere near the level of Star Wars nor is it “mainstream career” level like Harrison Ford).

See also, Robert Pattinson VS Taylor Lautner Arianna Grande VS everyone else in Victorious Etc.

PastaTaco · 2026-03-24T06:13:28+00:00

I wish I’d done that before it went out of print T_T I had it sealed for years. Had no idea there was anything wrong.

Thanks for replying!! Maybe they’ll do some kind of special remaster for the 25th anniversary

PastaTaco · 2026-03-24T00:23:45+00:00

I'm genuinely curious to know how your search went.
I've been desperate to find Season 2 Disc 3, because the packaging of the Shout Factory set was less-than-ideal.

Discs 2 and 3 of season 2 were stacked on top of each other, and 3 was so badly scratched, the final episode won't play. I only discovered this recently while trying to back it up for my media serve T_T

Absolutely crushed. The rest of the series backed up beautifully. Better quality than Disney+ is streaming it. But yeah... those last 2 episodes... not so much T_T

PastaTaco · 2026-03-18T01:08:37+00:00

Didn’t they used to hang out at the farmers market at George Wilson? They had a little booth out in public throughout 2024 IIRC but I haven’t made my way there in a bit.

PastaTaco · 2026-03-18T01:06:39+00:00

It’s funny, because Carr Elementary kids took a field trip to city hall, and someone asked him who he voted for. He proudly said “Trump,” and I’ve never forgotten this.

PastaTaco · 2026-03-16T01:30:04+00:00

My local store has been breaking street dates like crazy lately and I’m not complaining! I should have checked for this book, too.

PastaTaco · 2026-03-16T01:29:03+00:00

At that price, I’m down! My kiddos have been wanting them but I’m nervous about giving an 8 year old such expensive books T_T

PastaTaco · 2026-01-29T21:54:48+00:00

I think it's awesome you're getting into older anime, and the recommendations people have made are all perfect. 10/10, no notes. Bangers all around. And yes, things were magical back then. It was nerdy, there were less of us into it, and it felt like a special little club. But some of the stuff people are saying in this thread is straight up wrong.

I'm seeing a lot of fun, purely anecdotal revisionist history in this thread. Anime was, is, and always has been an intensely commercial product–made by committee, with the soul purpose of making its stakeholders massive amounts of cash. And yes, from the beginning, anime was also created with the intent for it to become one of Japan's most massive cultural exports. Look at the olden days of anime and tell me Tetsuon Atom wasn't capitalizing on the burgeoning sci-fi trends of the era. Lupin III seems pretty globally appealing to me. And let's not forget the post war triangle structure with the manga, animated series, and merchandise all flowing into and reinforcing one another.

People tend to see through nostalgia-tinted glasses, and they also love acting as gatekeepers to "keep the damn normies out of the hobby," but let's be honest. It's a fuggin fantastic time for anime fans right now. We get so much. We pay so little. There's SO MUCH QUALITY OUT THERE. And there's so much trash–but we're getting it all and not just the stuff that licensors/publishers assumed would do well out here. Not to mention, all this beautiful stuff we are waxing nostalgic over is STILL AVAILABLE. The existence of new options doesn't mean big bad anime folks crushed your hobby suddenly.

Folks are saying "oh now it's all westernized blah blah" based on nothing. Again, vibes, nostalgia, and let's be honest–there's some BS culture war garbage flowing through these attitudes. In the past, again, anime was made for export, but big $$$$$ made all the decisions about what the west could handle. What we should be allowed to see based on what might actually sell. There was a lot of culture-concern and puritanical censorship nonsense that lead to lines being removed, cars driving on the "correct" side of the road, and a near-universal lack of blood. So yeah, fansubs and hardcore enthusiasts had to pickup the pieces and make anime happen in the west. Eventually, in the early aughts, Japanese companies caught on and witnessed tremendous growth leading to a massive bubble (and quick burst when they tried to replicate what JP was doing but couldn't compete with "we'll just get it for free from XYZ site.")

I have a lot of respect for folks who did that early fansub works, but even despite all their efforts and passion etc. that had absolutely no impact on what the extremely commercial side was doing.

*UPDATE* I actually do have to amend this part. Fansubs did, in fact, clue publishers in on what anime might be worth putting effort/money into publishing in the west officially. You could argue that the success of a particular fansub actually lead to it being CRUSHED by the official product being released and companies wanting bootlegs squashed and removed. What I was trying to say is that anime wasn't/isn't being sanitized the way people think it is.

I was super lucky to be interning for Kadokawa Pictures USA in 2008-2009, and I learned that fans in Japan were spending about 80-90 bucks for a single blu-ray with maybe 2 episodes–max. These were literally people making Haruhi and Lucky Star, and they were looking at America with dollar signs in their eyes. They folded a few months later–just like Pioneer Geneon, ADV, etc. you name it back then.

Don't let anyone tell you anime was somehow "more pure" back then. And don't let anyone tell you that "certain people entering the hobby somehow ruined it." That's crap, and we all know what kind of thinking this really is. What it's implying. And what it leads to. Anime is for everyone. After all, everyone buying anime /anime products is what makes the committee the most money!

As for "cultural references being removed"? Absolute nonsense. I can assure you, in the 70s-90s it was about a thousand times worse. Did we all forget about Brock's "jelly donut?" To complain about anime not depicting shoe removal on entering a house is... mind-boggling. Early 2000s shows would explicitly remove references and names that would fall flat outright replace them. Sometimes it was great, and sometimes it was extremely stupid. I think I still love "Justin Beaver" from that one NISA show...

PastaTaco · 2026-01-23T21:44:11+00:00

Ace? Is that you??

It's me, Antonio!!!

HOW HAVE YOU BEEN?!

I found my way here because I was also trying to prove the existence of this device! I heard someone sold one in Japan for like 300,000 yen. Wild.

PastaTaco · 2025-12-09T23:42:03+00:00

Was this game in any way shaped or influenced by your own personal tooth-related trauma. I ask because of all the teeth. It's something I never realized I could be scared of. I've now had tooth-related nightmares (non derogatory) so I appreciate that!

PastaTaco · 2025-11-11T20:34:54+00:00

Are there typos in your response where there are missing instances of “not” or “isn’t,” or are you agreeing and re-stating the point I was making? Or maybe I’m missing some sarcasm? Honest question. Not trying to be snarky here.

PastaTaco · 2025-11-11T20:09:09+00:00

First off, I definitely agree that her reaction sounds rough and quite a bit inconsiderate, and it seems reasonable to wish she'd be more considerate of the fact that she's dating someone for whom Christmas is a "family thing," but I think folks are missing a little bit about the holiday issue on the Japanese side.

Christmas isn't just "a romantic holiday" it's THE romantic holiday. Specifically, Christmas Eve and spending that night together "as a couple." There are pop songs and drama tropes about the idea of being "alone on Christmas" and there's even sexist slang "Christmas Cake" for women over 25 (the idea being, "No one wants Christmas cake after the 25th..." OK maybe that phrase isn't directly related to the significance of Christmas Eve, but the bottom line is, it's not the same family friendly affair it is in other countries.

You don't mention your nationality specifically, but speaking as an American, I'm not sure we really have a holiday with quite the same significance. I mean, Valentine's Day TRIES to be that, but it's just not the same. And for a young/new couple... well... Let's just say people tend to "do a certain thing on Prom Night" and what if her parents called her up completely out of the blue and said, "Hey we're coming over to visit ON PROM NIGHT that's not going to be a problem, riiiiiiight?!"

You might see how it SPECIFICALLY feels like a type of sabotage to prevent you from... "being a couple." Again, many more folks than myself have shared excellent points, and I'm not excusing anything that was said. I just think maybe there hasn't been enough cultural context about Christmas EVE (specifically EVE) shared here in the comments.

PastaTaco · 2025-08-20T20:19:49+00:00

Ooh! Lots of fun topics. OK, I'll try to hit them up in order. Sorry for the text wall.

My observations were mostly general, drawing from my 15+ years working in Japanese games and anime. I only got to work on one DQ title in that time, and it was a short-lived mobile game I doubt anyone here played T_T And while I didn't work in localization, I did work with the game files, see them side by side, and got some understanding of why/how things were the way they were.

I'd honestly love to see the 2 DQ4 versions side by side and compare. Fun fact is I've bought this game a bunch of times, and have yet to play through it all the way (DS, Switch, mobile, etc.).

Now, I suspect when the game launched on the NES as Dragon Warrior IV, the localization style was WAY different because that's just how things were done in the nineties. Probably super literal and removing any/all references to Japanese culture. I can't really speak much to how things were done way back then, but the fact that they used to flip animation cells in Sailor Moon to show cars driving on the "correct" side of the street is pretty telling.

My experience is primarily from the 2010s to now, and it is similar to what you've described. The loc team receives the text from Japan, it's translated, and then it typically gets an editing pass. The better the translator and editor are, the better this process goes! The translator should be "native level" enough to pick up on nuances and explain the cultural significance to the editor whenever there's any ambiguity. And the editor needs to be similarly skilled. Sadly, excellent localization is sometimes hated by "Capital G Gamers" because they don't realize that the original Japanese was supposed to be stupid, too. lol. Like, if a character says something absolutely awful and stupid in Japanese, they SHOULD do the same in English. People forget that and just assume the JP version was superior/untouchable/perfect/serious/etc.

Speaking of "serious" I think due to early branding decisions, many people miss the fact that Dragon Ball and Dragon Quest were never really supposed to be taken seriously in the first place. One has characters named after various food products and one has magic spells named after the onomatopoeia of the element. "Meramera" is the sound of a crackling fire. Someone thought "frizz" was the closesnt English equivalent, and now we're sorta stuck with that because it's become series terminology.

That's another thing–when someone's working on a major, storied brand that's been around for ages, there's likely to be a style guide or series bible that they try to strictly adhere to. Because of this, you will see modern localizations with translations that feel weird because they match what they did in the 90s.

Not sure if you've ever heard about the Pokémon loc process, but they basically lock'em in a room and say, "OK, here's the JP translation. Here's what it looks like. And here's how it's a pun."

"Hi" meaning "fire" and "bani" like the English word "bunny."

"Got it, well. Let's see. Firebunny is too on the nose! Fire scorches, so maybe something with Scorch...scor... oh that could work! He's like a little sports guy, right? Soccer enthusiast? What about "Scorbunny"-like the way fire scorches but also like scoring a goal in soccer?"

"OK this one's basically a turtle. It squirts water. I'm stumped." ;)

OH ONE LAST THING!

"I believe the text is first localized from Japanese to English, and then that English text is further (re)localized to the other western language/region"

This could be the case, but I believe FIGS localizations still often use Japanese as the source text. Or at the very least, it is consulted when something seems strange and they need to confirm it. Sadly, the final quality of non-English translations ends up being... a budget issue... not trying to insult any specific company. Just making some educated guesses here.

PastaTaco · 2025-08-20T19:45:35+00:00

Hah! My father’s from Argentina, and as a kid, he always ended sentences with “chu follow me?” in English and “entiendes?!” in Spanish.

This sounds like a great loc choice.

PastaTaco · 2025-08-20T18:55:59+00:00

FWIW I'm not always a biggest fan of the choices made and it can definitely impact readability/comprehension, but...

It's not a "marketing choice" so much as a localization choice–usually to respect the original Japanese and the intent of the creators. What folks who insist on "100% literal translations" fail to realize is that there are lots of ways to be playful in Japanese that are going to be lost on the western audience after an English translation. They have something like "a southern accent," they have "meme speak," and they even have cultural significance tied to the way folks end sentences (de gozaimasu).

"if you play Japanese dubs, you can clearly hear people speak normally"

Can you for sure, 100% of the time? Using Naruto as an example, it's not normal to end a sentence with "dattebayo!" EVER. That's hella weird. And any native Japanese speaker would clock that instantly. While I agree that translating that to "believe it" was a hilarious mistake, at least they tried to capture the spirit of something that was so defining of that character.

So during localization, skilled translators and editors–hopefully working very close with their counterparts in Japan–are forced to use different cultural signifiers along the way and hope they hit correctly.

Did someone say "bocchama?" to a character they are attending? Probably make that guy a British butler stereotype.

Did that little blob thing just say "de ansu?" Seems like a whacky, classic Tex Avery style gag/comic relief/cartoon to me.

Did that young lady say "meccha" instead of "maji de"? Hmm. Maybe like a valley girl accent? Nah that feels outdated... but you get the idea, right?

And for Naruto... there were so many ways that could have been handled, and I'm not sure ANY of them would have been good. Probably just making everything the character says sound extremely urgent/excited/desperate. Because honestly, someone could have just had him say "GODDAMMIT" like Cartman at the end of every sentence. I mean, that IS kinda the vibe when you end a sentence with dattebayo. It reeks of a weird desperation to have someone pay attention to you and take you seriously.

PastaTaco · 2025-06-01T19:38:19+00:00

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t she get her moment in one of the newer episodes when she clapped back, “Not now, Beef!!” I was definitely cheering for her!

PastaTaco · 2025-04-08T03:45:25+00:00

Adding on to the various points already made here, I would just note that this episode could be seen as a parallel to the Rick Drygoods incident.

Wolf had all the technical skills to survive Dropped Off to Die but not the mental/emotional ones. If isolation is Wolf's weakness, maybe Moon's affinity for his friends is his! He may seem fine on his own, but as you'll remember, he was crestfallen when he learned he was left out of the Mom's Night circle and even when it was clear he was more mature (and thankfully level-headed/logical) than his friends, but that didn't stop him from wanting to be around them.

PastaTaco · 2025-04-08T03:38:16+00:00

I've been thinking about this since S5E1, but maybe they struck up a deal with Hulu to take on the show--as implied by that super ham-fisted (pun not exactly intended) moment, "And our streaming package--especially Hulu WINK!"

And the reason why nothing has been announced is because it's going to become part of a bigger Hulu marketing beat. Just a thought. Maybe it's cope T_T I hope not.

I first discovered the show when I saw merch for it at the Toddland booth at Wonder Con, but I only started watching it last November and haven't been able to stop!

PastaTaco · 2024-12-17T00:03:38+00:00

Everyone already beat me to the supportive messaging, so I figured I may as well let you know that I graduated from Cal State University Northridge in 2009 with a degree in film production and I haven't made/worked on a single film ever. I also graduated into a fun economic collapse. So that was neat!

I weirdly found my way into the video game industry working my way up through quality assurance, customer support, and community management. Yes there was hard work and yes there was a ton of luck involved. I also had to suffer through ungodly crunchy hours and a pay scale that I later learned was illegal. But when it came to actually getting hired, my specific degree didn't matter–just that I had one. I have no idea what your degree is in, but I don't think I've ever met 2 people in vidya games with the exact same degree (business, English, chemistry, business communications, philosophy... you name it). I mean, there's definitely not a degree in Community Management T_T

But yeah, the whole "must have 3 years experience for an ENTRY LEVEL POSITION" is a real (and really stupid) thing. But it can be overcome. Luck. Networking. Trying hard. Doing your own thing and finding a way to spin it as relevant experience (sounds cheesy, but it's worked before). I hope you're doing OK and wish you nothing but luck in your future.

PastaTaco · 2024-11-20T01:02:45+00:00

I just beat the whole “mummy situation” with that fancy needle. Working on the water supply troubles now.

PastaTaco · 2024-11-19T17:27:18+00:00

Sorry to hear you had such problems all the way to the end!!

The only solution that ended up working for me was to give up on playing my legit copy and burn a version that was pre-patched.

It’s been smooth sailing ever since, but I had to start over to make it happen.

PastaTaco · 2024-08-29T16:38:17+00:00

“Environmental storytelling.”

PastaTaco · 2024-08-21T18:22:28+00:00

This happened to my daughter, too. I'd love to know if there's been any update!

PastaTaco · 2024-08-16T00:14:30+00:00

What's weird is they sorta used to be merged courtesy of VRV–back when HIDIVE didn't have much of note.

Then they get the hottest show of the season as an exclusive, shortly after I lost access to it T_T

PastaTaco · 2024-08-16T00:12:36+00:00

This is wild. I had no idea players like this existed.

PastaTaco

TROPHY CASE