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FLOR: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is an action-adventure video game developed by FromSoftware and published by Activision. Set in the closing years of the Sengoku period, this 2019 Game of the Year depicts a withered yet vivid world spawned from a reinterpretation of Japanese-inspired aesthetic, where the battle unfolds for a solitary shinobi, bound by code to protect his master.
ALE: Yes, I love this game. The characterization of ancient Japanese culture in this game is flawless. From the shinobis’ code names, such as Okami, the main character, and Fukurō, his master, to the mythical, colossal, and majestic Sakura-ryū, Sekiro has all the qualities you’d expect to see in a Game of the Year winner.
FLOR: Yeah, but these names may not ring a bell to you since they were localized and adapted for different markets. And today, we are going to discuss some of the cultural challenges you can face when localizing a game like Sekiro.
ALE: We want to focus on some of the characters’ names in the game. So, for starters, we have the word “Sekiro” (隻狼). As the name of the game implies, it’s actually a contraction of “Sekíwan no ōkami” (隻腕の狼), that translates to “one-armed wolf” in English. So, the name of our main character Okami, who is missing an arm, was translated just as “Wolf.”
FLOR: Yes. And we also have the Shinobi master. The Shinobi master, just like his student, takes on an animal-themed code name. So, following the localization strategy Ale just mentioned, “Fukurō,” which means “owl,” was translated as “Owl” in all languages.
ALE: Now, another character, though he doesn’t play a big role in the story, actually triggers some major events in the game. We’re talking about Sakura-Ryu, or should I say Divine Dragon for us western players? When we reach the boss fight, we can see that the dragon is clearly associated with the Sakura tree. Even if we don’t know about his original name in Japanese, which literally is Cherry-Blossom Dragon, we can see the connection.
FLOR: Yes, absolutely. But why do you think they changed the boss’ name? I mean, could it be due to the fact that western players wouldn’t have understood the importance that Sakura trees have in Japanese culture? So they just made it sound epic and godly enough for players to understand that the dragon was a big deal?
ALE: Yes, I believe so, Flor. I mean, cherry blossoms in Japanese culture go back hundreds of years. Their magnificent but brief lifespan is a reminder for all Japanese that human life is also short and beautiful. So for Western players, the boss’ name was localized into “Divine Dragon” in an attempt to portray the importance this ancient symbol has for the Japanese culture.
FLOR: Hmm, interesting. What do you guys think about this? Was the Sakura tree reference important to you in the game? Did any other cultural aspects or even imagery stand out for you? Let us know your opinion in the comments below.
ALE: And that’s all for today’s LocFact, everyone. See you next time!
FLOR: See you!
FLOR: Today we have a very special guest with us. Her name is Belén Agulló. Belén is a compulsive life learner. She holds a BA in Translation and Interpreting Studies, an MA in Audiovisual Translation, and a PhD in Translation and Intercultural Studies. But her experience in the localization industry goes beyond the theory. Belén has worked in the game localization industry for more than five years in different positions, as a Project Manager, Training Specialist, Marketing Strategist and Copywriter, Translation Manager, and Quality and Innovation Director. She combined her years in this industry with her true calling: training others. She has been teaching game localization and subtitling technologies in several MA programs and workshops in Spain, UK, and France for more than five years now. As a continuous learner and a passionate trainer, Belén now leads Nimdzi’s e-learning program with a design-thinking approach aimed at providing the best learning experience to Nimdzi’s partners. As an academic with hands-on experience in the media industry, she thoroughly leads the research for the media localization landscape. Apart from all the studying and work, Belén loves binge-watching a good show with good company, and cares about the environment and animal welfare. Belén, welcome to this new episode and thank you so much for being here. How are you today?
ALEX: Welcome.
BELÉN: Thank you so much. I’m super excited and super happy to be here. When you invited me, I was super happy to have the opportunity to be in this videocast and to share this conversation with you guys. And yeah, thank you. And I’m good. Thank you so much.
FLOR: Thank you for joining us. So we have a couple of questions for you because we wanted to learn more about your background and what you’re currently doing. So, Lore, do you wanna go first?
LORE: So happy to have you here. It’s really fun to get to chat with you and pick your brain a little bit more, obviously. So to start off with, would you mind sharing with us exactly what Nimdzi is?
BELÉN: Of course, that’s a very good question, and I have a hard time explaining it, because we do so many things that it’s difficult to summarize it for me, but I will try. So basically, Nimdzi offers research and consultancy service for the localization industry, and research and consultancy services materializes in different shapes and forms. What we do is… so all sorts of things. So for example, we publish yearly research, yearly studies, such as the Nimdzi 100, with the list of all the biggest LSPs in the market and how the industry is doing, some forecast and so on and so forth. We also publish the Language Technology Atlas, which it’s a compilation of all the technology that is relevant for the language industry. And we have also the Interpreting Index, where we talk about companies in the interpreting sector. So we have these general reports that we share every year. But then we also have a lot of custom research commissioned by our clients. We do all sorts of research with end users. For example, we… or for specific verticals. If a client wants to know, is it good to go with this specific market with videogames localization, can you give me some insights so that I can better make my decisions on my strategy for my company? We do this kind of things as well. We do a lot of consultancy engagements, for example, localization audits. I really enjoy these projects because some companies, usually enterprises, they want to make sure that their localization structure is functioning alright and that they are optimized, so they come to us and we analyze it and we provide insights. We also carry out change management audits. We help people change because changing is so hard.
FLOR: Oh, yeah.
BELÉN: Right? So when, for example, a company wants to implement a new tool, a CAT tool, they’ve never used a TMS in their entire life, and they want to implement that, and that goes between different departments. So we help them to succeed in that change. And, yeah, and now we also have a training offering. Hopefully next month, we will release in the Nimdzi Learning platform, and we think that’s also an added value to the industry, because we believe that people need a continuous learning, and specifically now that we are all at home, unfortunately.
FLOR: Absolutely.
BELÉN: You don’t get to learn from the people sitting by you because they are not there anymore, and you cannot just speak there, “What are you doing?” or “How would you do that? Because, I don’t know. I’m not sure.” We don’t have that anymore. So we believe that this continuous learning experience is important, and we are aiming to release that next month.
FLOR: That’s amazing. Well, I look forward to see what you have in store for us.
LORE: Yeah. I don’t want all of our brains turning to mush.
FLOR: So, yeah, and we wanted to also know more about the e-learning program, because I know that it’s coming next. But what subjects are you going to tackle through that program and who can actually access to it?
BELÉN: Okay. So as I said, this product is born in the middle of the pandemic, as many, I think, babies will be born in a few months, because the pandemic gave us all this free time to do stuff. So it was born during this time because we…
FLOR: Your brainchild, isn’t it?
BELÉN: Exactly. Exactly. It’s my brain baby. So, yes, we wanted to provide this continuous learning to the industry. We wanted to make it remote because now everything needs to be remote. And also to have a bigger reach, because, until now, Nimdzi has been offering in-person workshops, and we still do, but of course, no one can do in-person workshops.
ALEX: No one can attend.
BELÉN: Exactly. So it was the right moment to do that. And also the… My dog does work, too.
FLOR: Hi!
BELÉN: And also the format that we want to have for these courses is short, to the point, very practical and video-based. So we are not giving like books and things to read. Of course, we can share some of that as a support material. But what we want to do is to have short videos for each lesson. So it’s very straightforward because, let’s be honest, we don’t have time to spend 10 hours every week learning stuff, because, even if we want, we don’t have the time. We are working, we’re busy, we are doing many other things at the same time. So we want something that is quick and it’s accessible. That being said, the type of content that we are releasing for now, we have a few courses on like general skills, management skills, such as strategic decision making, change management. We also have a general course on the Business of Translation by Renato Beninatto, the Nimdzi Insights CEO, and the author of the General… co-author together with Tucker Johnson, the other Nimdzi Insights CEO, of the General…
FLOR: Translation Theory. Yeah.
BELÉN: Exactly.
FLOR: It’s like the Bible for us.
BELÉN: That’s great because Renato just turned that book into an e-learning course, and it’s great.
FLOR: Oh, really? I didn’t know that! And we can access to it through Nimdzi’s website, right?
BELÉN: Exactly. Yeah. And we will also release a couple of more courses on sales for LSPs, for example, customer profiling, how to sell in online events. And my colleague Miguel Sepulveda is developing a course on UX and localization, designing a good UX for a global market. Which is pretty awesome. I have already watched some of the videos, and it’s very interesting. And who can access this? Okay, it will… Every course, we have two parts. The first part will be accessible for everybody. Everybody who signs up with a free Nimdzi account, you just need to sign up with your name, your email, and that’s it. You don’t need to pay. And the second part of the courses will be only for Nimdzi partners. At the same time, there will be some courses that will be completely free. We are deciding which content, because we want this to be like, I don’t know, like a crowdsourcing kind of thing. I mean contact with external… For now, all the courses are developed by Nimdzi members, but we want external people to contribute as well, because we believe people have so many things to say, so many knowledge stored, but they just don’t have the time to, you know, go out there and create a course. Or they don’t have the time to talk to universities and help them update their curriculums because, yeah, we’re super busy. So with this quick format, we are aiming to help these people who have so many things to say to the industry and so many value to add to the industry, we want to help them with our platform. And yeah, we hope, if anyone is interested, please reach out to me.
FLOR: Yes.
ALEX: Yes, we will be doing that.
FLOR: Absolutely. I can’t wait to, especially, check out Miguel’s course, because it sounds super interesting. And he actually was one of our guests. So we look forward to sharing that episode with everyone, too.
ALEX: Yes. I can see why it’s hard for you to like box what Nimdzi is, and also the amount of things that you do, Belén. But maybe you could tell us a little bit about the Immersive Accessibility project. Can you please elaborate a little bit on what that is like?
BELÉN: Sure. So I participated in this European-funded project. It was called, because it’s finished now, Immersive Accessibility, ImAc for short. And basically my PhD is based on that. So this project, the aim of this project was to bring accessibility to immersive environments, meaning virtual reality. Virtual reality glasses is what we had at the moment. So we realized that this type of content was not accessible for people with disabilities, for deaf people or blind people, or hard of hearing people or people with no vision, and so we wanted to make this accessible for them. And the project lasted two years and a half. And basically my focus on this project was to research how to implement subtitles in this type of content, in 360-degree videos, specifically. And my colleagues, for example, were working on audio description, how to implement audio description for the blind in 360-degree content. We also worked with sign language, how to implement sign language interpreting in this type of content. And in the project, there were many companies participating, universities, software developers, broadcasters from Spain and Germany. So it was like a consortium of different companies. And yeah, and I think we were quite successful. I hope.
ALEX: But wait, you mentioned subtitles in 360 in VR.
BELÉN: Mm-hmm.
ALEX: I want to know the challenges. What was that like? Because I’m guessing that it’s not something easy to implement, but incredible to do it, right?
BELÉN: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when we started the project, there was very little research on this topic or basically nothing. Only the BBC was already doing something around it, but there was really nothing there, so we didn’t know what to do. Like, how would we implement subtitles?
ALEX: Well, you’re pioneers.
BELÉN: Exactly. I’m very proud because of that. So what we did is we took a user-centric approach. So we started having focus groups with the end users, with deaf people and hard of hearing people. And we asked them, like, what do you need? What…? How would you imagine having subtitles? How would you like to have subtitles in this type of content? And then, from there we gathered their feedback, their needs, and then we started to say, okay, now we can start working on that. So basically the main challenge was… There were two main challenges. The first one was how to position, where to put the subtitles in a 360-degree sphere.
ALEX: My first question was that, where does it go?
BELÉN: Exactly. So during my research, I found out that The New York Times, they had these 360-degree videos and they were trying to promote these, because this content is very suitable for journalistic content, because, you know, to make people feel like they are in the middle of a war or in a specific country or something like that. So it’s very moving and very engaging. So they already have a few videos, and some of them had subtitles because there were people speaking other languages, right? So they were in English, but with foreign speakers. So what they did is, they positioned the subtitles in three different positions, fixed positions, in the 360-degree sphere. So when you put your glasses on, you know, you are in a 360-degree sphere, and then you can look around and you see what things are around you. So what they did, they put one subtitle here, one subtitle here and one subtitle here, for example. And they were fixed. That was a possible solution, but we talked to the… we tried it with the users, and they didn’t like it so much because they were missing information. Like, I want to look at this now, or I want to look down. And then I’m missing the information in the subtitle. So it’s not a bad solution, but it was not optimal. So then what users wanted, they wanted to have fixed subtitles, like if they were watching the TV, to be honest. So they wanted to have, and the subtitle would move with you. Sorry I’m gesticulating so much, but it’s…
FLOR: No, no, but please. We’re super excited and passionate about what you’re telling because I wouldn’t know where to start with that. And that’s actually one of my main concerns. Where to start with VR subtitling?
BELÉN: Exactly. So, yes, then we tried different positions, fixed position. At the beginning, we had troubles because, for example, I wear glasses and I have myopia and astigmatism.
FLOR: Same here.
BELÉN: Okay. So for some reason, I saw like double, I had double vision. So I saw the subtitles twice and it was, “No, this is not working. Sorry.” So we had to, like, manage to make the subtitles farther from… It’s difficult to explain because it’s very technical and I was not the actual engineer doing this, but actually, if you put the subtitles too close to your eyes in the 360-degree sphere, then it looks off. But you can put them in this…
FLOR: In the distance.
BELÉN: …distance with more depth, and then it works. So we tried that with the users and, and we got… My PhD was basically doing tests with end users, gathering feedback, seeing if it was immersive or not, which subtitles were more immersive. We tried the three fixed-position subtitles and the ones that move with you, and the ones that move with you were more immersive, some people preferred them better. That was the first challenge. And the second challenge for deaf people was to indicate where the sound comes from. Because if you’re in a 360-degree and you’re lacking the auditory cue, then how would you know where you have to look for the person speaking? So we, again, tried different options, such as arrows close to the subtitles, or a radar, more like in a video game type of thing. And we tried these different solutions and, at the end, people preferred the arrows because it was more like straightforward. And for… But that’s for 360-degree content, cinematic content. But I think for video games, for example, I hope someone keeps researching this, we will have more options. We can combine fixed subtitles with moving subtitles with radars and arrows, because in a video game, you have many more options.
ALEX: To have to be, for the gamers, to be able to identify where to go, where to look. Yeah, totally.
BELÉN: Exactly.
ALEX: Wow. Super interesting.
FLOR: Yeah. There’s so many aspects to have into consideration.
ALEX: I know. I didn’t know up until now.
FLOR: Yeah. Same for me.
ALEX: Thank you, Belén.
BELÉN: I’m glad it’s interesting.
ALEX: Yeah.
FLOR: And I have another question for you, because I wanted to know, from your experience as a researcher, are there any languages or markets in particular that are more challenging than others when localizing your app or game?
BELÉN: Good question. Yeah. I think, specifically for… Well, my focus is more video games, but at the end of the day, some video games are… from the development point of view, are kind of similar. One thing that we’ve been hearing from gaming studios is that implementing Arabic, due to the left to right support, it’s quite challenging for the development team. So sometimes they just drop this language because it’s too hard for them to implement this. And, of course, the market is not as, you know… maybe the original investment in those markets is not as big as in other markets. So that’s one challenging language. Another challenging language, but from a different perspective for me, is Japanese, or Japan as a country, because it’s so culturally different from the Western countries that it’s so difficult to sell a game there, because sometimes either you adapt it or you cannot sell the game there because no one is going to play. Like, who’s going to play Call of Duty in Japan? Very few people, to be honest. So sometimes companies have challenges marketing the games in Japan because what they want is super different from… or the tastes, it’s different. At the same time, I think Japanese users are much more demanding and they require a really different user experience. So for example, from the marketing perspective, you would need to be more detailed, more, you know, focused, giving more information. They care a lot about quality. They wouldn’t accept a sloppy translation, for example. It’s like, “Well, okay, this is not Japanese, let’s forget about it.” So I think it’s a very challenging country and very interesting at the same time. It’s funny that the other way around, we love Japanese stuff in the Western countries, right? So since we were kids, we’ve been watching anime and reading comic books from Japan, or the ones who are nerds like me.
ALEX: Or playing video games from Japan.
BELÉN: So it’s amazing. We love that. We love the kawaii style, we love manga, we love anime, we love video games from them. Nintendo is huge everywhere. But the other way around is more difficult. And the third country, more than language, country, that sometimes it’s hard for developers is India. Not because of the complexity of the language, but because they speak so many languages in India, that they don’t know which one to pick. They don’t know which strategy to follow. It’s like, I don’t know, let’s keep the game in English. The good thing is that in India, many like educated people, they have a very high level of English. So they just say, “Okay, we’ll release the game in English and that’s it.” But I think they are missing something there because the experience could be much better. But that requires research, right? Requires researching which parts they speak which language and which language is more widespread. And so that’s a challenge for many companies as well.
LORE: I have another one for you as well. I would love to know more about the technical aspects that we should be taking into account when we are internationalizing a product. I don’t… Personally, I don’t know that much about the tech side of it.
BELÉN: Okay. Yeah, that’s a very good question. I mean, I’m not an engineer, so my insights are more from a linguistic perspective or a project management perspective, where I’ve learned through the years. Specifically for video games, there are certain things that are like basics, you know? For example, when the player can be male or female, having variables for female and male characters is very important, because if you start the game, you know, and you can select, I’m a girl or a boy, okay? And you can select, but then in English, the adjectives are all the same. They don’t have different… they don’t have gender terminations or anything like we have in Spanish, for example, or Italian or German or all the other languages, the EFIGS and stuff. So we don’t have that, it’s very complex. We don’t have variables for masculine and female. It’s very complex then to localize the game and have a nice user experience, because sometimes what the developers ask is, “Okay, just try to keep it neutral.” Okay. But in Spanish, how many neutral adjectives do we have? Like 10, 20… Well, maybe more. But that fit in the context? Not so many, no?
FLOR: Yeah.
BELÉN: So, it’s difficult. So implementing variables for that is very important. Another thing is please don’t use concatenations. Concatenation is the enemy of internationalization best practices.
FLOR: Someone had to say it.
BELÉN: Exactly. It’s terrible because, again, in English, for example, you can combine nouns and adjectives and so on and so forth. And it works, it’s great because you save a lot of space in the game and it’s great for developers, in English, to keep the game as it is. But in the rest of the languages, that’s a huge limitation. It has a very negative impact on the outcome of the localization and then with the user experience, and it’s really bad. Like at the end of the day, the translations are poor and the user experience is not good, so please don’t use concatenation. And the third thing is like the character limitation. How do you design the interface? It’s another thing that we struggle a lot. Specifically, in this case, I’ve encountered more issues with games coming from Japan, because especially for, you know, portable consoles like Nintendo DS or these portable kind of devices, they have a limited interface. And in Japanese, you can say many things with very little space, but try to translate that into German, for example. I mean, it’s a nightmare. It’s a nightmare. And again, you need to use abbreviations, things are not easily understandable, and it has a very negative impact on the user experience. So try to design interfaces that are adaptable and that the boxes can be re-resized.
ALEX: Totally.
LORE: It makes sense.
FLOR: Great advice. And I have a last question for you, and this one is gonna be a bit controversial, because I wanted to talk about machine translation. And what are your thoughts on machine translation applied to videogames? And do you think that machine translation will ever replace translators?
BELÉN: I love this question. Regarding the second question, I love… The other day, watching Renato’s course, he says in this course, when machines will replace translators completely, we will have bigger issues to worry about.
FLOR: Oh, yeah.
BELÉN: So, I mean, that’s my reply for that. Sure, in the future, maybe. But then, yeah, maybe Skynet and things like that portrayed in the fiction movies. So, yeah. Yeah. Maybe, why not? Everything is possible in the future, but not at the moment. And I’m glad it is like it is at the moment. And regarding machine translation and video games at the moment, specifically, the other day I was talking to, well, I’ve talked to several heads of localization in gaming companies, and they all don’t see the value of machine translation at the moment. Like one of the heads of localization told me that machine translation… sorry, that game localization is the last bastion of machine translation, of human translation. Oh, my God, I said that quote so bad. So I’m going to repeat it. Game localization is the last bastion of human translation. And I agree. Because it’s so complex. Game localization is so, so complex, like, different type of texts, it has a huge impact on user experience. Every text. For example, I don’t know, player support text, maybe? Yeah. For that kind of stuff, maybe you can use machine translation because it doesn’t have a huge impact on the user experience. But like the interfaces, the voice-over of some of the games. Some of the games are very cinematic and they have voice-over. Marketing material. I mean, sure, you can use machine translation and post-edit it, but the actual time-saving at the moment is not really… is not really significant. So maybe in the future, sure, why not? And we are making progress in this field every day. So maybe tomorrow the landscape will be different. But at the moment, I don’t think… I mean, the people in general I talk to, they don’t see the value of machine translation at the moment for video games localization.
FLOR: So every translator out there working on video game localization can be rest assured that that is not gonna happen, not in the near future, at least.
BELÉN: For now.
LORE: As comforted as you can be, while also knowing that Skynet might be around the corner at some point in the future. But for now, we can be at ease.
ALEX: When you said “last bastion,” The Lord of the Rings, the battle for Helm’s Deep just came to my mind.
FLOR: Yes.
ALEX: All the translators with their laptops.
BELÉN: Yes, that’s a very good analogy. A very good picture.
FLOR: I love that. So, yeah, now we’re going to go to the fun part of this episode, because we asked you to share with us your favorite memes. Well, it’s the first one, and I absolutely love baby Yoda. I’m like a big fan. But let us, I mean, when did you actually start watching Star Wars? Are you a big fan of it? Or what happens to you with baby Yoda?
BELÉN: Okay. I have to say, I’m not the biggest Star Wars fan. I watched the movies. The first movies that I watched where the three in the middle. The worst ones.
ALEX: Ah, same.
BELÉN: With Jar Jar and all this stuff. Uff! And I enjoyed them. They were entertaining. And then I watched the good ones, the first ones with Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford, and I loved them. And actually, I only have seen the first one of the three new movies. So I still have two more to watch. But, yeah, but The Mandalorian is so amazing. Like I actually signed up for Disney+ only for The Mandalorian. Baby Yoda is worth my money, you know?
FLOR: Yeah.
BELÉN: And I think it’s so well-done, like apart from the extremely crazy cuteness of Baby Yoda, which is the best thing ever, that… I mean, we need more Baby Yodas today.
FLOR: Yeah.
LORE: Preach.
BELÉN: But I think the series is so well-done. Like, I love this vintage retro kind of vibe that it has. And, I don’t know, it’s so epic. I feel like a little child when I watch it. It’s amazing. I love it. And I love Baby Yoda.
FLOR: Yeah, we’re big fans of Star Wars over here, so we love that you brought this one. Okay. And now we have a Game of Thrones moment.
BELÉN: Yeah.
FLOR: How far are you of the series?
BELÉN: Okay. I loved the series. I haven’t read the book. Sorry, I’m the worst, but…
FLOR: No. Me neither. Do you actually have time for that?
ALEX: You have time to read the books?
BELÉN: Exactly. So I watched the series. I really enjoyed it. I didn’t start right away when everything started. It took me like, a couple of years or three years. Then one day I was very sick in bed and I was like, “I’m bored. I have a fever. I don’t know what to do.” So I started to watch Game of Thrones and I was, “Wow, this is actually good.” I had started previously, but I didn’t like it. And then I loved it in the second attempt. But then I hated the last episode. I hated the last…
FLOR: Yeah, everyone did.
BELÉN: It was great… From a cinematic point of view, it was an amazing season, but like, it’s horrible. So I hate it. And I love Daenerys, and I love dragons. So I’m not gonna say anything else, but… And I love avocados.
FLOR: Yeah.
LORE: Yeah!
BELÉN: I eat at least one avocado a day, not only for guacamole, but like the actual avocado. I love it. It’s my favorite.
ALEX: Yeah, and I can totally relate to that feeling when you find the perfect one. Just like, just right.
FLOR: Yeah, I agree completely with that too. It’s like I have to check it out, the color, the texture, how it feels. And know when it’s gonna be ripe, because, of course, avocados, like the minute you turn away, it’s…
LORE: They’re done. Yes.
FLOR: They’re done.
BELÉN: Exactly.
FLOR: So, yeah, well, over here, we are on… we’re on the opposite… Over here, I’m in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and we’re starting summer. But I know the feel of both of you, Lore and Belén.
LORE: Yeah. And we’re also big “Office” fans over here.
BELÉN: Yeah. I mean, I don’t like… I live in a small town like by the sea, and it’s empty during winter and on fall, but then in summer, it’s packed with tourists and it’s super hot, super, like, humid. And I really don’t like summer at all. So everybody’s like, “Yeah, summer, it’s fun! You can go out,” and blah, blah, blah. But no, no, no. My favorite season is fall, and I love Halloween, but I’m sad because I don’t live in the United States for truly enjoying Halloween. Here Halloween it’s only dress up like provocatively and go out and get drunk. And I’m too old for that now, so I would love to have my house decorated and have little kids knocking at my door, “Trick or treat!” That’s my dream.
LORE: You are absolutely invited here. Any time.
BELÉN: Thank you, Loretta. I hope. Maybe in the future.
LORE: House is open, we’ll dress up in less provocative clothing.
ALEX: There’s a Gandalf costume.
FLOR: Yeah.
ALEX: It’s starting to become famous.
LORE: I know, I keep bringing it up. But yeah, we’ll give out way too much candy. It’ll be great.
FLOR: We need to see you in that costume, Lore. Okay. This one cracks me up. Look at that face.
ALEX: I mean, you cannot intend to say any other thing, right?
BELÉN: Exactly. You know what I mean?
ALEX: You’re ducking mad.
BELÉN: Yeah. I mean, this one is self-explanatory. I don’t think I need to explain this one.
FLOR: And this one. I mean… Every single time that I’m like, I try to, for example, whenever I’m playing Counter Strike or any, like, shooter game, I feel like super badass because I’m like a dude for everyone else, but it’s myself behind that mask.
BELÉN: Exactly. I just love The Lord of the Rings, like it’s my favorite fantasy adventure movies. And this is one of my favorite scenes. It’s like, so powerful, so feminist. It’s such an amazing scene. I love it. I really love it. Yeah. And this was so funny because this Pikachu meme…
FLOR: Yeah.
BELÉN: …with this face of amazement, it’s just… It makes me laugh every time. So I really like this one.
ALEX: It’s a good combination.
BELÉN: Yeah.
FLOR: Well, thank you so much, Belén, for joining us today. It was an absolute pleasure to have you on this show and to learn so much about what you’re doing. And I personally learned so much from you because I didn’t know anything about subtitling VR. And thank you for sharing that with us.
ALEX: Thank you so much.
FLOR: I hope that you had a great time with us today.
BELÉN: Yeah.
FLOR: And, well, we look forward to seeing you all on our next episodes. And stay tuned for more. Thank you!
BELÉN: Thank you!
ALEX: Bye, everyone! Thank you, Belén!