I still remember that one Learning with FGO page where the official translation edited a joke to poke fun at how they were obligated to use "Altria" even though it was weird.
(the original joke was confusing Western and Eastern name order and that wouldn't work with a localization that was already using Western for everything)
I always want to use the official thing, I get annoyed when other people do not use the official thing especially when they should or blatantly do know what it is, but sometimes it is very hard
cause it's SUPPOSED to be Artoria, like they ROMANIZE IT AS ARTORIA in japanese media, but because the first official translation for the FSN VN used Altria because it was basically a fan translation they just hired, they're now stuck with it.
Anyways I think my favorite version of this is D Gray Man and Bleach, though Bleach I've become somewhat used to though I will never really gel with "Ywach" instead of Juha Bach
TC
: they actually don't romanize it as Artoria, officially. when they have it's because there's no functional difference in Japanese. they used them interchangeably for a long time until Type-Moon decided to crack down on consistency and chose to stick with Altria.
Yeah, early fan and official translations used Arturia, a few things went for Artoria on both sides, but Altria was chosen as the one to use when they made localization rules uniform.
first there's Lenalee which was fantranslated as Rinali for a long time and that's fine whatever, then you got Lavi who used to be Rabi because character call him Rabbit and the mangaka kinda had a rabbit avatar so that's just a dead pun, and then there's this official from the Vatican who's name is Lvellie and used to be translated as Revelier/Rouvelier
And then there are the times where you get multiple official sources with different spellings so you go with the one that makes more sense (e.g. Cure Lemonade over Cure Remnerd)
thankfully with the game cancelled and the fact that no one else gives a shit about relights I just write it as Ange because she is transparently just saying that lol
(Actually correction but this book DID eventually get an official translation but in like. 2017. Like literal weeks after fgo finally came out in English. Original book release though was 2010)
But yes I remember when this first made the rounds in the fandom bc people who bought the book found it and were rightfully like “LMAO REALLY?? WHAT A DUMB SPELLING” and forgot it except for as a joke during Arturia vs Artoria arguments... and then 7 years later we were all like
(The joys of being an old guard fan with a memory that can’t remember phone numbers or birthdays in normal life but can remember all this bullshit with vivid clarity)
But yeah basically someone did this spelling in an official material book Once and now we’re all stuck with it bc idk I guess Nasu likes it, even though not only is it inconsistent with other English localizations it’s not consistent with other Japanese romanizations either
THIS IS ALSO OFFICIAL. I OWN THIS. IT WAS PRINTED IN A MAGAZINE DURING THE FATE/ZERO ANIME DAYS. AT LEAST A WHOLE ASS YEAR AFTER THE FIRST USAGE OF ALTRIA
Also shout outs to the melty blood localization team bc it looks like they made an effort to make it Artoria at first but then had to change it to Altria prob bc a higher up smacked them about it lmao
Also shout outs to xseed who also went “yeah nah” and only use Artoria in extella (and link) and probably only got away with it bc aniplex and delightworks/lasengle weren’t involved anywhere
--oh wait I misread when that book came out in English. June was the original jp release month, English release was March (so right between extella’s January release and fgo’s June launch) so there is.... an even higher possibility that we have that book being the most recently localized fate/ thing prior to launch to blame for all this
Anyway the actual moral of this whole thing is Japanese companies are Fucking Stubborn when it comes to this shit. No one will listen to why it’s wrong or even admit to it being wrong. The more a fate/ project has actual oversight from Japan (as fgo does) the more they are forced to use What They Say To.
It’s not even a matter of being stupid. They don’t see what’s wrong with it, and so won’t listen to the English speaking staff. This isn’t even just an anime localization only thing. They’re just stubborn as mules.
That’s why I kind of... idk I also tend to err on the side of official spellings and romanizations (including actual Japanese names like I’ll use Yosuke over Yousuke even though I know which one is technically actually more ‘correct’), but I also take a lot of it with a grain of salt sometimes
I feel with actual Japanese names, which system you use is a personal choice (Yosuke/Yousuke/Yōsuke are all right and as long as you're not going up to someone saying "um you spelled it wrong " you're good) and it's not quite the same as the official spelling VS fan term thing.
like some people always use whatever the official release uses, others stay consistent with one system like me (though i have been putting in effort to use whatever the other player is using in rp lately just because it's annoyed some people in the past)
I mean. On one hand I do agree to an extent (that extent being let people do what they want which is also what I hold for a lot of things like this whole Altria discussion like i ain’t mad if someone prefers Arturia or Altria) but I disagree that they’re... different?? Like we’re ultimately still talking about what’s official
Like it’s fine to have a preference and wanting to stick to a certain system but acting like it’s that different just makes you look kind of hypocritical
That’s probably more critical sounding than I intended bc at the end of the day you can do whatever you want, but I think in that case if you’re already going with preference over what’s official anyway then like... it’s probably ok to be looser with all these other “canon purist morals” or whatever then you know?
Like to me they’re ultimately all “romanizations the creators and/or localizers wanted” which is why I off hand mentioned it as an example (it wasn’t intended to start any debate or anything) so idk
You can tell because that spelling for Chrolo isn't used in official english translations nor has it been written that way romanized except in a Databook from almost 20 years ago and like alt collector volume covers that misspell everyone's name
Quwrofhaunts meThe Hunter × Hunter Character and World Data book spell his name as his name is Quwrof Wrlccywrlir.why