Emil O W Kirkegaard

First of all, “hot chick,” is not a good translation for 美人. It's too vulgar. “Bijin” is actually a pretty nice term which is why in the Japanese version Nel does not chide Cliff for calling her pretty.

Ignore the English text and listen again at 5:47 in the Japanese audio video. Nel says: 美人と評してくれたことには素直に感謝するけどさ. This literally means, “I honestly appreciate you appraising me as beautiful.” At no point does Japanese Nel complain about Cliff's language.

Western gamers are blissfully unaware of the fact that localized games are FULL of this stuff. This is a big difference in characterization. English Nel has to get in her feisty dig about being called 'chick.' Japanese Nel takes the unsolicited appraisal happily and moves on.

The core issue here is the difference between translation and localization. With translation the goal is to explicitly convert the meaning of words from one language to another. With localization the goal is to adapt something to a different culture. These goals often conflict.

Japanese women are not likely to be annoyed about a compliment of their appearance. To demonstrate Nel's confidence and femininity, it makes sense that she would graciously accept Cliff's words in the same breath as threatening to kill him and Fayt.

To make the game feel more western it makes sense to make Nel more “Feminist.” She can't just take the compliment; she has to chastise Cliff for objectifying her. This makes her feel more familiar to westerners. It isn't some SJW conspiracy; it is good localization.

Remember this is just like, one or two sentences. There are several places in this scene where nuance is lost in translation. The English version is just way different.

Inaccurate translation can happen for many reasons. Sometimes it is because of localization. Sometimes it's just laziness or convention. Take any western superhero movie trailer for example. Watch the Japanese version. Here is one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET87HGsLEOk …