Does anyone have knowledge about how much Japanese Byuu knows? The only thing I remember is that his byuu.board.org used to have a subforum for Japanese language learning.
This is Byuu's profile page on Romhacking:
https://www.romhacking.net/community/16/
He has a total of 3 projects which he headed and 12 he contributed to:
Bahamut Lagoon: Translated by Tom
The 2002 DeJap Bahamut Lagoon translation has the translation credited to "Tomato." Same person?
A truncated list of features (so as not to take up the entire page):
A brand new script translation from a native English speaker with Japanese fluency far beyond the JLPT N1.
I assume you are talking about Tom? Based on what little I remember reading on Byuu's Japanese subforum I highly doubt Byuu has above JLPT N1 skills.
Der Langrisser: Translated by D
Further credits in the readme:
Programming: byuu
Translation: Derrick Sobodash, Eddie Stemkowski, Hsing Chen,
Benjamin Whitting, ElfShadow and Haruka
Editing: John Grathwohl, Derrick Sobodash, Tyson Anderson and
Eric H. Krieger
Graphics: Derrick Sobodash
Typefaces: Derrick Sobodash
Byuu is the programmer/hacker and there is an entire team of translators (of which Byuu is not a part of).
Dragon Quest V: Translated by SpSpiff
Further translation notes in the readme:
4) Notes about the translation
The translation was done by spSpiff. He has revised the scripts several times, and i have revised it once to remove
the few remaining typos. This is a very literal translation, it is done in a way to preverse as much of the original
meaning as possible, while still allowing the script to be readable, and contain individual character emotions.
Some things we could not leave in their original japanese form, the only _main_ thing was the spell names. In japan,
dragon quest has its own unique names for spells that are made up, they have no english translation. an example is
hoimi. it is the Heal spell in english dragon warrior games, and everyone recognizes the name heal, but if we were
to leave hoimi, it could get difficult for one not famaliar with the series to understand what the spells were.
Therefore, the english dragon warrior spell names were used here. everything else was done as literally as possible.
I assume "he" refers to spSpiff, and "I" refers to Byuu. So spSpiff done most or all of the translation, revised it several times to a pretty good state. And Byuu "revised" it (whatever that means) one last time to remove typos?
In all 3 projects in which Byuu is considered the leader, Byuu is credited for the hacking/programming, not translation.
For the rest of the projects Byuu has contributed to, all of them are hacking related except 1: A puzzle game called Magical Drop where Byuu has translation credits along with Xeur-of-yore.
Translation Description:
It seems that everything is translated in this, which must not have been a super-duper feat since the only text is the menus and the intro. :-)
Even taking into account this translation was from 2002 where translation software wasn't as good as today's, this is the rom translation version of a participation trophy. They needed 2 people to translate 1 page (at best) of simple text?
A review of the 2021 Bahamut Lagoon translation:
An absolute masterpiece.
Reviewed By: Autumn on 01 Jul 2021
I put off playing this game for years. Due to recent circumstances, I knew that now was finally the time to play it. Not only for myself, but also to honor Near’s life.
The presentation of this game is gorgeous. Each menu, each line of dialogue, was carefully crafted. So much thought was put into this translation. The localization is beautifully made. I found myself tearing up many times through my play-through, although that could have been due to the recent events. Playing through this game made me feel, a lot.
As I played through this game, I began to realize why this was Near’s favorite game. This game has a different feel to it than the other games of its era. There is so much sorrow presented in the story of this game, and many lines of dialogue really make you stop and think about life. The story can be viewed as a metaphor of the human condition. So much so that it hurts.
This game is Near’s swan song. It’s tragically beautiful. I am so thankful for this translation as it’s helped me cope with the loss of someone I greatly admired.
Thank you so much, Near.
Do you mean Tom's swan song? Do you mean, thank you so much, Tom?
I'm going to ask the same question from the beginning of this post: How much Japanese does Byuu really know?
And why does nobody talk about Tom in the same breath they talk about the 2021 Bahamut Lagoon translation? I'm not a hacker so I'm not qualified to speak on Byuu's contributions but I'm sure he did a good job of hacking the game, resizing the menus, designing the game font, removing bugs etc. I don't mean to take away from any of Byuu's contributions. But why is everyone ignoring Tom, the elephant in the room?
My conspiracy theory:
In real life, Byuu was constantly being bullied at school and abused at home. Withdrawing to the emulation community online, he initially found friends and had good relations in the scene. But because of Byuu's mental issues/personality and because of the autism inherent in online communities like the emudev scene, their relations turned toxic, leading to Byuu alienating his peers, his peers alienating him, or probably both. His history of depression, promises of going offline/disappearing from the Internet, wiping his online history, and suicide threats are well known.
Credits
Contributor Type of contribution Listed credit
Near Hacking Programming and design
Tom Translation Script translation
FlashPV Graphics Ending graphic
dev_urandom Design Italic font design
Blargg Original Work Optimized base56 coder
ContraryMotion Script Editing/Revision Script proofreading
Ballz Script Editing/Revision Script proofreading
Lord Nightmare Script Editing/Revision Script proofreading
So why not toss the poor dog a bone? Let's all give him something that he can be proud to call his own. Sorry Tom, even if you are just as valuable to the project, if not more, let's just give Byuu the spotlight. Imagine the headlines in the mainstream media!
"Byuu's Swan Song"
"Byuu's 21 Year Achievement"
"Bahamut Lagoon: Byuu's Legacy to the World"
"An absolute masterpiece." (Reviewed By: Autumn on 01 Jul 2021)
"Truly A Labor of Love" (Reviewed By: Eldrethor on 29 Jun 2021)
"Beautiful" (Reviewed By: InAnotherCastle on 29 Jun 2021)
"Thank you so much, Near/Byuu."
So what if everyone is under the mistaken impression that it was Byuu who translated the whole game from Japanese to English. An undeserved credit is a small price to pay to give Byuu a smile on his face. There's no way he'll ever think about killing himself after this positive attention right?
Narrator: Byuu killed himself that same year.
