Smash Bros. Byleth’s Reveal Trailer: Did the joke in the female Byleth reveal part change from the JP version?

Byleth recently joined Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as the latest DLC fighter. They had a reveal trailer in the style of Three Houses‘s cutscenes, featuring Sothis.

Multiple readers have reached out to me regarding said reveal trailer, often asking about one joke in it. An example question from one reader:

I saw comments on youtube and gamefaqs talking about that part where male Byleth comes back in the english trailer being different than japanese, or that a joke was removed or something. But I can’t find anyone clearly providing a source. Can you look into what the joke was that changed?

They provided some links to people discussing it, such as to a thread on gamefaqs. I could not find anyone clearly talking about the joke itself beyond hearsay, either, so decided to make this post to service as possible reference in case it is discussed in the future.

The short answer: Yes the joke plays out slightly differently in Japanese! But they both retain similarities in their double meanings and intent as well. I don’t think the joke was changed or removed entirely as one may say, but it was indeed slightly altered.

Let’s take a deeper look!

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FE Three Houses Localization: Byleth’s Name(s) in JP

A quick trivia post today! Some of you may have read a recent Life of Heroes chapter that revolved around this too, so I wished to note it for posterity.

This post only covers the spellings in JP and not the implications/reasons for the name, so is mostly spoiler free.

FE Three Houses Localization: Bernadetta’s ENG B Support Dialogue Change in the Patch

Spoiler warning: This article involves info about a B support conversation in Three Houses.

So there’s been news circulating around a line in Bernadetta’s English B support conversation with Byleth, and how it appears to be altered from how it originally appeared after an update.

A tweet from @Best_Lolicon stated:

So fire emblem decided it would be a great idea to censor Bernies support conversation in the last update, for seemingly no reason at all. Baffled at why they did this, the game was already rated and her character was handled really well, makes no sense. #FireEmblem pic.twitter.com/d1iArVdcwG

— Justin iZ Here (@Best_Lolicon) September 12, 2019

A thread on serenesforest by user Jedi also brought up this issue.

I was curious if the issue really was about potential “censorship,” and whether it was a case of the original Japanese having changed too (so the English changed with it), or if it was just the English that changed (to tone it down or alter it significantly).

The surprising result is… that the Japanese is the same as it was before, and that the new English ends up oddly closer to the (literal) meaning of the Japanese! Though with some subtleties lost, as may happen with literal translations.