The VG Resource

Hello! I'm looking to add a Japanese only 3DS game to the Sprite Resource, but I'm unsure what the title should be.

The original title is Go!プリンセスプリキュア ・ シュガー王国と6人のプリンセス!, the romanji version is Go! Princess Pretty Cure - Sugar Oukoku to 6-nin no Princess!, and the translated version is Go! Princess Pretty Cure - The Sugar Kingdom and the Six Princesses!.

Personally I would rather go with the translated title, but I figured I should check in and get the OK before submitting it. Should the translated title be used, or should the romanji title be used instead? Thank you!

I’m not sure if we have a standard for this yet but we really should. Let’s wait for some other staff to chime in with their thoughts and go from there.

If the game doesn't have an officially localized title (e.g. Trials of Mana or Earthbound Beginnings), then you'll want to use Romanji for it instead (I believe the site doesn't check Japanese in titles for sorting, so it would end up being listed under "#" otherwise). Manually-translated game names tend be inconsistent based on who you ask, so those are not always the best choice.

This is just my take on this:

If it has an official English title even if it came on other systems (e.g. Trials of Mana, Castlevania Chronicles, Spy vs Spy: The Island Caper), it can be used.  There is one SNES golf game where it does have an official English title in the ROM but doesn't appear in the game itself, everywhere else seems to use the romaji transliteration.

If it's a licensed game that only came out in Japan but... does have an official English translated title used in other forms of media e.g. Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro on the MSX, it can be used. This also helps regarding searching too because it would be easier to find.

but...

Anything else that doesn't fit into those categories, the romaji transcription is used.

Romaji has what I call a transcription problem because there are multiple ways a word can be translated and even different readings of the kanji. Similar thing to other ways of writing e.g. Chinese kanji, Korean hangul, any transliteration of Cyrillic based languages. 三 can mean san or mi. Even regarding names is tricky. e.g. Ōshima, Ōtsuka, dropping the accents Oshima, Otsuka or even adding a h Ohshima, Ohtsuka.

Then there's the issue of the names itself. Using the Lupin example (only because of familiarity and because the likes of both Lupin and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure have inconsistency regarding translation of characters/episodes/chapters to the point where the Lupin episodes ended up being Part X Episode X just because of the many names, worse in the manga when entire chapters got renamed even in its native Japanese again ended up using the Chapter X system), places like no-intro translate it as Lupin Sansei which is a half hearted transcription. As in Lupin is translated but not Sansei. If it was fully romaji, it would be Rupan Sansei or in the case of another manga/anime Bishōjo Senshi Sērā Mūn (Sailor Moon).

I've thinking of two ways regarding romaji outside of the licensed game problem (because of the translated name and the romaji)... One would be to use the no-intro (cartridges) or redump (discs) names that I think people do use... The other way would be to get the Japanese name and use RomajiDesu to give us the romaji with the latter keeping the accents.

Thank you Random Talking Bush and Yawackhary for your takes on the matter! The season that the game is based on starts with an English letter, so it should be sorted into the G category. Plus the original Japanese logo comes with English text below the katakana text, so that should be preserved in the game title.

There also exists an official English logo from Toei USA, but (to my knowledge) the season has not been aired overseas to actually use it. It uses Pretty Cure instead of Precure, but I would rather stick with Precure as that is what the Japanese logo uses.

The game's subtitle does not have an official translation, as it's an original concept/story created for the game. The subtitle of the .3ds file I've been extracting sprites from is Sugar Oukoku to 6-nin no Princess!, while RomajiDesu gives the subtitle as shugā ōkoku to 6 nin no purinsesu!. The RomanjiDesu version preserves the lengthened dash letters and original spelling of English words, but I do like the capitalization from the .3ds file name…

Overall I think the title should be Go! Princess Precure - Shugā Ōkoku to 6 nin no Purinsesu!. Is that OK, or should the exact subtitle from either source (.3ds file and RomaniDesu) be used instead?