Japanese politeness registers: a choice English never asks you to make
An English line like I'll handle it carries no information about how formal the speaker is being. Translated into Japanese, the same line has to pick a register — and the choice changes not just the wording but what the line implies about the speaker and who they are talking to. This is one of the places where a straightforward, accurate translation still requires a decision English simply does not force you to make.
The three registers, at a textbook level
Japanese politeness works on a system broadly described in three layers. Plain form (普通体) is the bare dictionary-style conjugation, used with close equals, subordinates, or in a character's internal thought — it reads as casual or blunt depending on context.
Polite form (丁寧体), built on です/ます endings, is the default register for speaking to someone who is not a close intimate: a stranger, a customer, a colleague of unclear standing. It is polite without being deferential.
Honorific and humble language (敬語, specifically 尊敬語 and 謙譲語) go further: 尊敬語 elevates the listener or a third party by using special verb forms for their actions, while 謙譲語 lowers the speaker's own actions to show deference. This register is standard toward customers, superiors, or anyone the speaker owes formal respect — a shopkeeper addressing a customer, a soldier addressing a commanding officer.
Why English gives almost no signal
English marks social distance mostly through word choice and context (sir versus mate), not through grammar every sentence has to pass through. A line of English dialogue can be translated into any of the three Japanese registers and still be a literally accurate rendering of the words — the source text alone does not tell you which one is correct.
That means the register has to come from somewhere other than the line itself: the relationship between the two characters, the setting, and the character's personality. A translator working line by line, without that context written down, will make a locally reasonable but globally inconsistent set of choices.
Consistency is what actually matters
A single wrong register in isolation is a minor flaw. A character who is polite to their commanding officer for the first half of the game and then suddenly plain-speaks to the same officer, with no story reason — a promotion, a broken relationship, a deliberate act of defiance — reads as a localization bug, not a character choice. Players who read Japanese will notice a register shift faster than almost any other kind of inconsistency, because the grammar itself changes, not just the vocabulary.
This is the core practical point: the goal is not finding the single correct register for a line in isolation, it is keeping the register stable for a given speaker-listener pair across the whole game, and changing it only when the story gives a reason to.
Deciding registers before translation, not during it
The workable process mirrors what a voice sheet does for verbal tics: decide the register for each significant relationship — this character to that character — before bulk translation starts, and write it down. A relationship map covering the recurring cast (who speaks politely to whom, who uses honorifics toward whom, who speaks plainly to whom) removes the need for each translator to infer it fresh, line by line.
For minor or one-off characters, a simpler default by role (shopkeeper to customer: polite; soldier to commanding officer: honorific; friends: plain) covers most cases without a bespoke decision every time.
Reviewing for drift
Register drift creeps in the same way voice drift does: gradually, across many translators and many months, especially in DLC or seasonal content written long after the base game. A review pass that checks a character's lines against their documented register — not against a reviewer's memory of how they usually sound — catches the cases where a relationship's register quietly shifted without a story reason.