by Agrajag » Thu Jun 14, 2012 2:19 am
The main distinction I'm trying to make is between the weapons that are Japanese because they're legitimately based in Japanese culture, and those that are Japanese because the people playing speak Japanese. For instance:
Japanese cultural: Harisen Battle Fan, Sange, Yasha, Kamui, Demonic Muramasa, Demonic Shura, Muktengek(i).
Audience language: Ank Zag(i)za, Gur Hanab(i), Poron, Poron Poron.
The ones that are clearly specifically referencing Japanese can stay, much as the German, Latin, and Russian ones can. The ones that only seem to be named based on the language because the audience speaks it (Ank Zagza is a culturally-neutral weapon that is named after an adjective) are the ones that should probably be localized.
Japanese cultural ones can remain in Japanese, or be switched to English in extraordinary circumstances (primarily for weapons that were translated in previous versions). I'm not going to take an obviously-Japan-based weapon and give it a Latin name.
There's no way I'm going to use "T. Magat." anything, because it's just that ugly. If you can find something appropriate (seasons, directions, ???) that doesn't require me to abbreviate multiple words in one name (one of them a foreign nonsense word, unless a "magatatara" is a real thing) I'm all ears.