Trails in the Sky’s Line About Gender Roles in Japanese

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A Legends of Localization reader recently asked a very short, simple question:

Hey love the site and was wondering if you could find out what this line says in the Japanese version of Trails in the Sky FC.

Sometimes wild goose chases like this can be a fun challenge, although very time-consuming

It took some digging but I did manage to locate this line in YouTube videos without any details to go on. Here are the Japanese and English scenes side-by-side:

I've learned that games with huge resolution and tiny fonts don't work well with books, but this is the first time I've had to worry about it with computer monitorsI've learned that games with huge resolution and tiny fonts don't work well with books, but this is the first time I've had to worry about it with computer monitors

And here’s the text for comparison:

Japanese Version (basic translation)English Version
“Casting off sexism! Freedom from gender!”‘End sexual discrimination! Be free of gender roles!’

So it looks like the Japanese line is indeed the same as the English line.

Of course, it’s always important to look at the context of individual lines too. You might notice that the line is in quotes – this is because the scene in question is about students wanting to hold a school play, but with all the characters’ genders swapped. Here’s more of the scene in English for reference:

Jill: It’s a famous story, set in a time when there are nobles and commoners. A princess is courted by both a knight of royal blood and a commoner. In spite of their different social classes, the three have been friends since childhood. As you can imagine, this leads to complications between the nobles and the commoners. And there’s a great happy ending to the whole thing.

Estelle: Hey, that sounds like fun. ♪

Joshua: So then… Why are the girls playing the guy roles?

Hans: It’s just something to make the production more interesting this time. Having guys and girls switch roles, that is.

Estelle: Really…? Wow…and the teachers are okay with this?

Jill: ‘End sexual discrimination! Be free of gender roles!’ Put in that light, the teachers loved the idea. Personally, I just thought people would get a kick out of it! ♥

From this, we can see that the line in question is used as an appeal to convince the teachers to authorize the gender-swapped play.

Hopefully this clears up any mystery about this line and this scene in the game. I haven’t played the game myself but it looks to be a strong JRPG made by and for JRPG fans.

If you liked what I've covered here and know any other fans of Trails in the Sky, I hope you'll share it with them. People rarely seek out localization articles, so sharing really helps me a lot!
10 Comments
  1. Oscar

    Trails in the Sky is an excellent JRPG. You should play it!

  2. Zunar

    I agree with Oscar. It’s my absolute favorite game of all time and I seriously cannot recommend it and its sequel enough. I could gush about it but I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of other people do it so I’ll save you the headache :p

  3. leoboiko

    My daughter’s school has a gender-switched dance festival for the teenagers. Participation is optional, of course, but they seem to have a lot of fun with it.

  4. Nanashi

    If anyone is wondering, the difference between the two English screenshots is due to one being from the PSP release and the other from the PC release. XSEED mentioned on one of their localization blogs that technical limitations prevented the PSP version from supporting normal quotation marks so those brackets were used as a workaround.

    The western PC release had a lot of technical improvements over the original PC and PSP releases, to the point I’ve seen 日本語 websites cover how to Frankenstein in the original script from the original releases files to the Steam release (It apparently breaks achievements but otherwise works fine).

  5. Magic

    I’m sure this screenshot will lead to no controversy in the comments.

    (To be fair, the comments have been civil so far.)

    1. Steve

      Mato has some of the most mature fans on the internet. Even the Twitch chat is helpful and polite!

  6. Zaero

    Yes, the game is very good. When I did a review of it, I saw it as a solid 8/10. That said, it’s an old fashioned game with some fun twists on the formula – and a really developed story.

    1. Zaero

      Plus, I should’ve mentioned that the Localization team for these games has discussed how they localized this game in excruciating detail throughout the process. They really brought it for this one.

  7. Let

    Ah, Trails in the Sky. Both FC and SC were solid titles. I can’t wait to play Trails of Cold Steel II in fall.

  8. N7Kopper

    Seems like a fairly solid satire to me. A nice kids-eye view of the world.