Abstract
In this thesis we will examine the localization of the American RPG-title video game Undertale, a video game created and published by Toby Fox in 2015, in the context of language phenomenon in Japanese fiction and translation called yakuwarigo (i.e. role language in English), and character/attribute language. Yakuwarigo and character/attribute language are virtual languages that are not used in real life, but are used in fiction and translations in order for the reader to more easily identify the characters with the help of stereotypes. In translations into Japanese it seems to be more common to translate the conversation of all female characters or male characters into conversation that are overly feminine or overtly masculine irrespective of their personality, background, age, and social status. However, the analysis of yakuwarigo and character/attribute language used in the Japanese version of Undertale shows that the Japanese version uses abundant yakuwarigo and character/role language to differentiate and therefore create the characters in the video game. This, in turn, makes the game more fun to play. It is hard to say what a good localization is, but the way to a more successful localization into Japanese seems to be the abundant use of yakuwarigo and character/attribute language, which, ironically, is very different from how real people talk in Japan.