A Kingdom Hearts 3 Mistranslation Waters Down Riku’s Character Development

Six years after its launch, Kingdom Hearts 3 doesn’t have the best reputation. While I’m in the minority of people who do love the game, I can’t help but be annoyed by the mistranslations throughout.

They aren’t always game-changing mistranslations (unlike a certain Chain of Memories error), but they’re still enough to cause a disconnect between the Japanese and English versions. Riku’s character arc in particular suffers due to a mistranslation in an important scene in KH3.

While the general gist of his character development and motivations comes across in English, it’s a lot more vague than in the Japanese script because of how certain dialogue has been translated.

Strength To Protect “What Matters”

Early on in KH3, King Mickey and Riku are in the Realm of Darkness, looking for Aqua. Riku comments that he feels much more confident than the last time he was here. Mickey tells him that this is because he’s found the strength to protect “what matters.”

Riku then repeats “Strength to protect what matters…” in agreement. While the English still gets across how Riku feels and the strength that he’s gained, it’s vague. What is it that matters? What is he protecting?

The Japanese script, however, doesn’t leave you with a question – it’s crystal clear. Instead of “what matters”, the phrase used in Japanese is “taisetsu na hito” – an important or precious person.

In isolation, it’s frustrating that a phrase originally about a specific person has been turned into something ambiguous. However, when you realise that this exact phrase has been translated to more accurately reflect the original, not only in the exact same game, but in the cutscene that precedes this one, it becomes infuriating.

Right before this cutscene, Sora, Donald, and Goofy are leaving the Realm of the Gods with Hercules, and they ask Hercules why he doesn’t stay there with his family. In response, Hercules says, “If I stayed, I’d have to be apart from the person I love most… And that life would be empty.” Guess what Japanese phrase “the person I love most” comes from? Yep, taisetsu na hito.

“The person I love most” is a natural way to localise the phrase in English, and with the scenes being so close to one another, it’s obvious the developers want you to make a connection between the two of them, especially as the Disney worlds typically act as parallels and foreshadowing throughout the series. So why wasn’t Riku’s scene translated in a similar way? Even something like “someone important” would have been closer to the original intent than “what matters.”

The big difference between these two moments is the gender of the taisetsu na hito they’re talking about. Hercules is talking about Meg, whereas Riku is talking about Sora.

The Mistranslation Waters Down Riku’s Character Arc

While many people see Riku’s struggle with darkness and how he learnt to control it as the most important part of his character arc, another significant part of his character is how he has always strived to protect what (or who) is important to him.

In Birth by Sleep, Terra meets a young Riku who tells him about his dreams of leaving Destiny Islands. “I wanna be strong one day. […] I know it’s out there somewhere – the strength that I need.”

Riku’s battle with his own darkness prevented him from using that strength in the way he truly wanted to for a long time. Throughout the series, Riku slowly learns why he wants this strength and who he wants this strength for.

He grows from wanting to protect his friends in a general sense, to realising that he wants to protect Sora specifically, as shown by the ending of Dream Drop Distance. To achieve the secret ending of DDD, you have to answer three questions correctly as Riku.

His canon answer to “What is the one thing you care about more than anything else?” is “My close friends.” However, in Japanese, Riku uses singular language, and the phrase he uses translates more closely to “my precious/important best friend.”

Riku recognising that it’s Sora he wants to use his strength protect, and voicing it out loud in the scene with Mickey, is a pivotal part of his character development that directly follows on from his growth in DDD.

He even uses this strength later to protect Sora in the Keyblade Graveyard, sacrificing himself in the process, and this line is what foreshadows Riku having the ability to do that. The English translation dilutes this completely.

I don’t think having Riku say “the person I love most” like Hercules would have been the most appropriate translation either (perhaps something like “the person most important to me” would have fit better), but the disparity between how the scenes were handled is staggering.

People say their best friends are important to them all the time. Kingdom Hearts’ key theme is the strength of our connections. It wouldn’t have been out of place for Riku to say Sora is important to him. All I can take from this is that the localisation team wanted to (or were told to) tone down taisetsu na hito to prevent potential queer readings at the cost of Riku’s character.

OpenCritic

Top Critic Rating:
84/100

Released

January 25, 2019