Localizing Drafts

I was formatting a draft story with working title “Guy on the Train” about a misunderstanding on a Japanese train. On a Saturday night, a young man (Kashoka) tries to run game on young woman (Akane) with a traumatic past. She ends up having a break down and he gets arrested. Overall, it is an anti-pickup-artist story.

While reading it, I noted my draft included some American slang or idioms that I wanted to make Japanese for flavor. Asking Copilot, Gemini, and Grok, I found Grok more useful for this task.

From dialogue by the cop in the draft, the following changes were made to give the story a more Japanese vibe:

“playing hide the salami” became “do some ‘H’”
the derisive “Mr. Gropey” became “chikan”
“special stupid” became “bakaboke”

Grok identified that in Japan the charge would be called “forced indecency.”

Also Grok explained the phrasing of what would be the Japanese equivalent of a Miranda warning on arrest.

As Google and Microsoft have been crippling their AI, I found Grok a useful alternative for understanding how another culture would express things differently. Previously, I had been happy with Copilot with aspects of Apache and historical Japanese cultures; however, this time was a little more sensitive as it involved naturalistic humor.