Downplaying Eclecticism: Traumatic Transnational Adaptations in Japanese Video Game Music

Japan is known worldwide for being one of the most prolific countries in video games production. But sometimes, in the struggle of making the games enjoyable by the widest audience possible, Western localisations of those products differ significantly from the original version – even in terms of music. As a matter of fact, there are several examples of Japanese video game soundtracks being edited, rearranged, or entirely replaced in Western editions. In this paper, I explore a selection of case studies of what I call “traumatic adaptations” of Japanese video game music in the West, focusing on how the typically Japanese trait of stylistic eclecticism gets lost in translation, usually to accommodate more “standard” or “Hollywoodian” choices. I thus address changes that can be as little as differences in the mixes of two versions of a track (e.g. the theme song ‘Kuroi Uta’ from Drakengard 3), or as big and comprehensive as in the cases of entire soundtracks being rearranged (e.g. Crimson Dragon) or even replaced with non-eclectic Western music (e.g. X-Kaliber 2097). This, I argue, configures eclecticism as an eminently Japanese-sounding musical trait, that sometimes ends up being disguised to create a final product sounding more familiar to Western listeners.