{"id":48991,"date":"2025-06-13T13:05:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T04:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=48991"},"modified":"2025-06-13T13:05:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T04:05:20","slug":"nier-automata-creators-deny-rumors-of-square-enix-imposing-character-design-restrictions-on-them-its-a-huge-mistranslation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/nier-automata-creators-deny-rumors-of-square-enix-imposing-character-design-restrictions-on-them-its-a-huge-mistranslation\/","title":{"rendered":"NieR: Automata creators deny rumors of Square Enix imposing character design restrictions on them. \u201cIt&#8217;s a huge mistranslation\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In celebration of the official PC release of Shift Up\u2019s action-adventure <strong>Stellar Blade,<\/strong> a live discussion featuring directors and producers of Stellar Blade, Goddess of Victory: NIKKE and the NieR series was broadcast on June 10. In the livestream, NieR producer Yosuke Saito made a comment which got misinterpreted and shared on various news sites and social media, causing both him and Yoko Taro to publicly deny the rumors of Square Enix imposing character design restrictions on them. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following the broadcast, news articles misinterpreting Yoko and Saito\u2019s comments about NieR\u2019s design conventions started spreading among English-speaking fans \u2013 causing many to believe that NieR publisher Square Enix was putting restrictions on the developers in order to comply with global standards. However, when asked to confirm this rumor, Yoko Taro commented on his X account: \u201cI\u2019ve never heard of such a thing happening\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"ja\" dir=\"ltr\">\u305d\u3093\u306a\u8a71\u805e\u3044\u305f\u3053\u3068\u306a\u3044\u3067\u3059\u306d\u2026\u2026<br><br>RT: <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/felixmtz9830?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@felixmtz9830<\/a><br>\u30b9\u30af\u30a8\u30a2\u306f\u3082\u3046\u81ea\u7531\u306b\u30c7\u30b6\u30a4\u30f3\u3055\u305b\u3066\u304f\u308c\u306a\u3044\u306e\uff1f\u305d\u308c\u3063\u3066\u672c\u5f53\uff1f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/kC1KQGzEfO\">https:\/\/t.co\/kC1KQGzEfO<\/a><\/p>&mdash; yokotaro (@yokotaro) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/yokotaro\/status\/1933044002095575201?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 12, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Furthermore, Yosuke Saito commented that the things he said in the livestream were largely mistranslated, because the NieR team doesn\u2019t have any restrictions at all when creating their games. He also mentions that he\u2019d like to clarify the situation in a future livestream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"ja\" dir=\"ltr\">\u3042\u3042\u3001\u306a\u3093\u304b\u77e5\u3089\u306a\u3044\u3068\u3053\u308d\u3067\u8aa4\u89e3\uff1f\u3055\u308c\u305f\u4e0a\u306b\u30d5\u30a9\u30ed\u30fc\u307e\u3067\u3055\u308c\u3066\u3044\u305f\uff01\uff08\u8aa4\u8a33\uff1f\u306b\u3082\u307b\u3069\u304c\u3042\u308b\u2026\u3000\u3064\u3046\u304b\u3001\u30cb\u30fc\u30a2\u306a\u3093\u3066\u4f55\u3072\u3068\u3064\u5236\u9650\u306a\u3093\u3066\u3064\u3051\u3066\u306a\u3044\u3084\u308d\u304c\uff01\uff01\uff01<br><br>\u305d\u3093\u306a\u8a33\u3067\u3001\u30aa\u30fc\u30c8\u30de\u30c8\u30f3\u3055\u3093\u3001\u3042\u308a\u304c\u3068\u3046\u3054\u3056\u3044\u307e\u3059\uff01\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/maBK7TBBNd\">https:\/\/t.co\/maBK7TBBNd<\/a><\/p>&mdash; \u9f4a\u85e4\u967d\u4ecb\u3000Yosuke Saito (@SaitoYosuke_Z) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SaitoYosuke_Z\/status\/1933182412844114207?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 12, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In the livestream, former Sony executive Yoshida Shuhei asked the developers about their approach to character design and visual presentation, to which Yoko Taro replied that he was aiming to create characters that would not overlap with the ones already existing in the market. \u201cOur concept is always to do something that\u2019s \u2018not like anything else\u2019 [\u2026] If Western sci-fi is filled with marine-like soldiers, we might go in the opposite direction and use Gothic Lolita outfits, for example. We tend to take the contrarian route.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yosuke Saito then chimed in to clarify. \u201cThere are certain things that are ethically or morally inappropriate \u2013 even if they\u2019re just aspects of a character. We try to draw a line by establishing rules about what\u2019s acceptable and what\u2019s not.\u201d The nuance of this statement seems to not have been properly understood by the audience, as he was referring to general rules that most Japanese companies must abide by \u2013 rules about representation of various forms of cruelty, discrimination and age-inappropriate content is something that most media companies enforce to a degree. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"GODDESS OF VICTORY: NIKKE | Producers&#039; Creative Dialogue Special Livestream\" width=\"1160\" height=\"653\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EezDZURfSfk?start=1816&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>His follow-up statement was mistranslated in the English subtitles: \u201cWhile certain things might be acceptable in Japan, they could become problematic in certain overseas regions. These are the kind of situation we usually try to avoid creating.\u201d This translation could lead to his words to being easily misunderstood as \u201cIf the content is okay in Japan, but viewed as problematic in the West, we\u2019d have to change it in compliance to Western standards to avoid it getting the content banned.\u201d However, what Yosuke Saito actually said in Japanese is that, if the content is acceptable in Japan, they will try their best to push it as it is, without any restrictions from overseas publishers. The \u201csituation they try to avoid\u201d is, in this case, censorship by overseas publishers. It is, though, understandable why his statement may have got mistranslated \u2013 the original phrase in Japanese is [\u30c0\u30e1\u306b\u3057\u306a\u3044\u3088\u3046\u306b\u3057\u3066\u3044\u308b], and as a double negative, it could be a little tricky to translate, even for an advanced Japanese speaker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NieR creators Yoko Taro and Yosuke Saito state their comment from a recent livestream has been mistranslated and misinterpreted online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":48993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-48991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>NieR: Automata creators deny rumors of Square Enix imposing character design restrictions on them. \u201cIt&#039;s a huge mistranslation\u201d - 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