Why is Idia bothered by Ortho calling his name in Book 7?

“The full main plot that I was to share with Disney seemed linear and uninteresting, so I submitted character details and sub-plots at the same time.”
– Toboso Yana (2023 Apple Store Interview)

But it is possible that Aniplex USA are not in the know.

The English-language translators can only work with what they have, and it’s possible they haven’t been told what points are going to be recurring, etc., so changes that they make to the localization that would be innocuous in any other situation are turning out to be important later on. And we have seen this before, also with Idia:

Idia is often repeating the line “Leave it to your big bro (nii-chan),” which is extremely important.

We see that he used to say it to human-Ortho when they were children, and it uses the nii-chan variation of “big brother,” not robot-Ortho’s “nii-san.”

That means that every time Idia says it, he is invoking human-ortho.

But it seems Aniplex USA might not have known this about the character until the same time as the players: when they got to Book 6.

As a result there are earlier instances (Book 5 and Ortho’s ceremonial robes vignette) where Idia says his oft-repeated line and it was either rewritten or just removed entirely from EN.

And this is possibly what has happened with Ortho’s “nii-san”: While robot-Ortho has been programmed to refer to Idia as “nii-san” (and chooses to continue doing so for himself after Book 6), human-Ortho would use “nii-chan,” in what seems like a throwaway character detail that is actually so important it was practically a plot point in Book 6 (more here ->)

That is what confuses Idia in Book 7: A humanoid he doesn’t know has appeared calling him the “nii-san” version of older brother, which no one else does.

But Aniplex USA possibly didn’t know how important this was going to be. Ortho was localized to say “Idia” every time he says “nii-san,” so that is what this scene became: Idia wondering why someone is doing what everyone does (call him “Idia”), possibly making it seem odd that it bothers him.

And that is why it seems that Idia is confused by someone referring to him in the same way that most all the characters do.

It is possible that the translators don’t know where the story is going and are just doing the best with what they have, ending up in curious situations as new content is released that compromises changes they have made, catching them by surprise.

And we have seen this happen before, with the word “imagination:”

In a line that was retained on EN Ortho explains to Malleus himself, “Magic is powered by imagination, so you can’t manifest or defend against what you don’t know.”

Silver suggests this about Malleus as well when wondering why it is that Malleus cannot interfere in Lilia’s dream, and connecting it to how Lilia’s dream is from before Malleus was born: “The source of magic is imagination. What if Malleus has trouble controlling things he doesn’t know about and can’t imagine…?”

The concept of imagination powering magic is a significant plot point throughout all of Book 7, not only due to it being one of Malleus’ rare weaknesses but because it is the basis for the construction of the dreamscapes that trap the rest of the cast.

Idia repeatedly comments on how the strength or weakness of a person’s imagination directly influences the depth of their worlds and the likelihood of awakening them, and in the original game it is a concept that was established as early as Book 1.

On EN, however, the word “imagination” was removed until Book 6, which is possibly when Aniplex USA received the scripts for Book 7 realized that it was important?

This is also possibly what happened with Ace and Epel having their dialogue changed from “Housewarden” to “Headmage.”

Did Aniplex USA not know the significance of these two characters having issues with their housewardens, and decide on their own that Crowley made more sense?

And this happened again with the finale of Book 7 in the original game:

In Trey’s dorm vignette he originally explains that when Riddle’s mother discovered him at her house she lectured Trey’s entire family for five hours, in a scene that was faithfully recreated in the Heartslabyul manga. This history with Riddle was changed on EN to Trey getting lectured by his own family, instead.

Unfortunately for EN, this experience between Trey, his family and Riddle’s mother was confirmed in the main story.

Trey explains it happened when he and Chenya were 9 or 10 years old, with Cater providing the details that his mother scolded Trey’s family for five hours, as Cater was the person Trey was talking to in his vignette where Trey first told the story in the original game.

EN has since updated Trey’s dorm uniform vignette to reflect an accurate translation of his dialogue where it is Riddle’s mother who lectures his family, not his family lecturing him.