I’ve been playing Final Fantasy VII in Japanese and English at the same time, and I’m noticing a trillion tiny differences. This is part four of my video series comparing the two versions of the game.
Today, we follow Cloud and Aeris as they chase after Tifa into Wall Market, a nighttime city of sex and danger. This is one of the most famous set pieces in the game (it’s the part where Cloud has to dress up as a girl), and maybe one of the most important video game set pieces in general. The English version misunderstood or obscured much of the cultural nuances of this place, so I had a lot to work with. If I tried to solve every mystery of Wall Market, we’d end up being stuck here for 10 more episodes of this series. So let’s just unravel a few choice mangled gags about male sexual performance anxiety, speculate as to what sort of farm the translator might have lived on at some point in his life, and generally have a darn good time in this goofy fun zone.
If you want to check out the previous episodes, they’re all here in this convenient playlist.
As always, a warning: any Japanese you learn over the course of this video might never be of any use whatsoever to you.