this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2026
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Why does text on VN's take up less space in JPN than ENG? (feddit.online)
submitted 2 weeks ago by animemann80@feddit.online to c/gamedev@programming.dev
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When I compare between visual novels that are originally developed & written in Japanese first before localization into English, often or not: the information density is different between the two. As in, the original text only comprises of like 2-3 sentences while the translation feels like reading a 4-5 line paragraph in English. Is it because translators who managed to secure the rights can't cram all the information in a limited UI?

For example, Aksys Games is the one who does the translation while the IP holders from the source material is Otomate. They only focus on the text rather than re-doing voice acting for the English release. Lip sync is another issue since both JPN & ENG have different speech patterns, how would you even find the right casting pool in English that can deliver the same performance & emotional impact as the original JP voice actors?

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[–] BigPotato@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago

In Japanese, a single katakana can be like three letters long. ツツツ vs Tsutsutsu. 動物の森 (four 'characters') translates to Dōbutsu no Mori (thirteen characters, two spaces) but that's just romanization - it translates to Animal Forest (twelve characters, one space) which is localized to Animal Crossing (14c 1s).

Of course, sometimes it works the other way - ありがとうございます、先生 becomes thank you, sensei (but, this is just respectful thank you so could also be localized as 'sir' instead) you'll notice there's only 13 characters though, so you'll need 16 total spaces to directly translate the text.

TL;DR - information density.