this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2026
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I think this is a cop out to be quite honest.
Just pick some translators, work with them and acknowledge that some things won't be perfect because language barriers exist. You could even communicate that to the fans when they select a language in the game with a message popup!
Seems like dipshittery because he doesn't want to do it and only did the Japanese one because he has a particular personal interest in Japan. The rest is work that he doesn't want to do and he's hiding behind this as an excuse not to do it.
not much social capital to gain from Latam unlike Japan so he doesnt care
Why not just say that? He's a video game guy, not an elected politician. That explanation looks like more work than it would take to work with some guy who wants to translate for you.
The explanation is like a week of effort and damage control compared to weeks if not months of translation work.
As for why? Guilt? Knowing deep down he's letting people down but still not wanting to do it?
It's totally bullshit saying he encourages people to do it for free instead while simultaneously not wanting translation to be bad.
I seriously doubt his Japanese is good enough to evaluate Japanese literary works. His Japanese is probably on the level of "Boku wa Toby Fox desu." He just needs to hire reputable translators, and if too many people complain about how the translations suck, he just needs to hire different translators to fix the mess.
Nah I think he's pretty fluent. Sakurai doesn't speak English much at all but Toby has had dinner with him hashing something out for a new game, I don't think that would work if he couldn't speak Japanese. He spends a serious amount of time over in Japan too, the dude wants to be Japanese.
Toby's the one with the dog over his face.
He did an interview with Yoko Shimomura in Japanese a few years ago if you'd like to judge his Japanese language skills yourself.