kay 🇨🇱 // AUTOFISTER 2026 retweetledi
There is something interesting to note here with Toby Fox's lie in his response.
The excuse he gave for the reason why there was only a Japanese version of Undertale localized in the first place is because he "actually know the language" and therefore, be more comfortable to work on it as it's conception.
However, it could be verified that Toby hasn't properly started learning Japanese until the next year after the official Japanese localizion of Undertale has released (August 16, 2017), and has only able to be proficient enough in the language to help directly with the translation by the time he worked on Deltarune.
With part of the process of the localization being officially stated: "Before Undertale's English release, Toby told me that he intended to release the game in Japanese sometime. He faced some big questions, though. How do you get a game translated and localized? And how do you ensure the final product is good if you don't even know the language yourself?"
And for a tweet: "Even back when I was translating Undertale, I actually mistook Toby for someone who was already intimately familiar with Japanese...That's how committed to the Japanese version he was, it was quite amazing. (And now, in the space of only one year, he's already become "intimately familiar" with it, to the point it blew me away...)"
Toby Fox is lying, most likely unintentionally, but it's still not exactly a white lie. The one excuse he has is faulty, and it leads to the truth of it seeming just out of favoritism. The personal interest that drove him to undertake that process for Japanese did not exist for other languages. This isn't bad in itself, but the excuse he uses frames him as more altruistic than what is actually the case.
And this also disproves the notion that the process of localizing other language couldn't be done without prior fluency, since his own Japanese localization proves it is possible without prior fluency.
Thai distinction wouldn't necessarily matter if it didn't make a difference, but that is tht opposite for the case. It puts him at a more favorable light even despite the actual logistic issues being valid for why he can't pursue it. It should be correct into the actual reason, I think, despite it being a less favorable framing because it locates the cause in his choices rather than in his circumstances, and it invites other overseas fans to ask why their community did not merit the same investment rather than accepting that the investment was simply never possible.
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