Sekiro Proofread - Translation Fixes and References Restored

Original Japanese

Wolf: 行ってください

Kuro: そなたは…

Wolf: 為すべきことを、為すのですを

(Roughly)

Wolf: "Go."

Kuro: "But what about you?"

Wolf: "I will do what must be done."

Activison: 

Wolf: "Leave Us"

Kuro: "Who are you?"

Wolf: "Go do what must be done."

Lots of people have complained that Sekiro's story feels shallow or confusing compared to many of the souls games, and I blame it heavily on the translation. The plot of Sekiro and the backstory is rich and vivid, but constantly sabotaged by confusing translation choices and just plain old mistakes. No, that Centipede guy isn't named "Giraffe". Historical and mythological references are ignored or abandoned in some places, and in others unexplained to the point of confusion. Terminology is rarely, if ever, consistent - there are many items or ideas referred by different names throughout the game for some reason, even though they're the same in Japanese. It seems a very slapped together effort with multiple translators who didn't have a competent editor, and weren't communicating with one another.

I went through the English and Japanese scripts with some of my Japanese friends, and we came up with more fitting terms, fixed grammar and translation mistakes, and restored a lot of the historical references that were lost in the original. I won't say that every change I made is objectively the best, and I'm open to suggestions and discussion. If you're a history or mythology nerd that has any suggestions - please, I'm all ears.

Some examples of changes include:

Divine Dragon -> Sakura Dragon, the original Japanese title for the dragon, reinforcing the connection between the dragon and the tree.

Lady Butterfly -> Phantom Butterfly, the original Japanese title. The phantom butterfly is a real creature, and all the Shinboi in the story (Wolf, Owl, Orangutan, Kingfisher) are named after animals. Keep it consistent.

Fountainhead Palace -> Minamoto Palace. This is a little difficult. The Japanese character "源” is both the title of a famous Noble house in Japanese (The Minamoto Clan) and the term for a spring or source of water. So there's a double entendre here, where the Palace both belongs to the clan and is also the source of the waters. The fact that it's a royal house is important to the story, and explains why Ashina isn't very hands-on with them and why they're so isolated from the rest of the world. Japanese History nerds will also notice the extreme Heian influences in the Minamoto architecture. I've chosen to leave the term as Fountainhead when they're explicitly referring to a source of water (Fountainhead Waters) and change it to Minamoto when referring to the location or the people who reside there. 

So give it a shot, play through the game again, I