This is a “lecture” (really more of a presentation) on approaches to literary translation, using an analysis of TV-Nihon’s translation of Kamen Rider Den-O as a jumping off point. This is all from a very “casually informed layperson” sort of perspective - I’m not an expert in any academic sense, but I think I know my way around the topics well enough to be able to not talk out of my ass. You’ll find the video and the accompanying lecture notes below.

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Riot Games was always going to be fighting an uphill battle trying to win me over. I have never liked a single one of their games, I have zero investment in the characters or shared universe they’ve built off the back of League of Legends¹, and their long-awaited entry into the fighting game space has been marred by all the problems associated with a decade-long development cycle that included at least one full rewrite of the game concept, as well as the future problems associated with free to play monetisation that will undoubtedly cause the game to slide off my brain as if it were coated in teflon.

In 1986, a man named Yu Suzuki, along with a small handful of developers at SEGA AM2, would release an arcade racing game called OutRun. Suzuki had previously made some fairly successful motorcycle racing games for SEGA by way of Hang-On and Enduro Racer, and with OutRun, he sought to create a racing game predicated primarily on allowing players to enjoy the experience of driving and, in his words, “feel superior”¹. With incredible graphics for the time, a stellar soundtrack and shockingly well-realised driving physics, OutRun was a huge hit in arcades throughout the late 80s and even early 90s, and is one of the most influential and important games in the genre.