Lee Pai Long
Monkey magic.
Fighter title
| My translation | Arcade translation | Home translation |
|---|---|---|
| The Legendary Clawed Acrobat | The Legendary Doctor of Death | The Legendary Taloned Acrobat |
Arcade sourced from The Arcade Flyer Archive, maunal sourced from Rage Quitter 87. Thank you!
Hyper-literally it's "legendary acrobatic claw", but that sounded weird no matter what I did with it.
The arcade drops that in favor of playing on his profession, which is pretty good. I like it. Meanwhile the home version is...basically mine? What the heck, editor, I thought you were wackier than this.
Interview
What do you treasure? My monkey mask and my pharmacy.
Who's your rival? The new pharmacy that opened nearby, maybe?
What's been on your mind recently? It feels like ever since that new place opened near me, people haven't been buying from my shop...
Finally, give us a word about your participation in the current tournament. After I'm done here, I plan to give medicine my undivided attention. Please watch my final battle closely. Hee hee hee hee.
Intro vs Yuri
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Lee: It's 100 years too soon for you to be facing me, little girl. Hee hee hee! | Lee: Another young lady to grapple with. Old age is fun! |
| Yuri: Izzat so? You'd better not underestimate me, gramps! | Yuri: Old guys sure do have a warped sense of reality, huh? |
Lee's first line is some pretty standard anime trash talk, which means it's mostly interesting for how it got translated out in English. Here, we see it turn into a line about Lee being a dirty old man. "Grapple" is kind of a weird word considering he mostly slashes with those claws...
Yuri's comeback is also pretty standard. I went back and forth on how to translate the first bit, which is a set "don't count on it" phrase. The English version plays off Lee's English line, of course, and doesn't have much to do with the Japanese line.
Intro vs Eiji
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Lee: I'll give you a good taste of my iron claws! Hee hee hee. | Lee: You're about to taste my steel, ninja boy. Koo keeee! |
| Eiji: You're lost in admiring your own skills. Focus on mine instead, fool. | Eiji: I think you overestimate yourself, you silly man. |
Lee's line is pretty straight. The English tries to give his laugh more of a monkey feel, which is nice. "Ninja boy" doesn't hold up to greats like "nerd king", but it gets the idea across pretty well and it's kind of cute.
Eiji's line is pretty heavily edited down. I can see how they couldn't get my line in there, but the tons of extra space looks weird. Still, even with the shortening the basic idea of the Japanese line is there. The advice at the end is lost, but that's the way it goes.
"You silly man," though accurate, isn't going to win any prizes in the Insult Olympics.
Intro vs Jack
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Lee: It's going to be a hard job to slice that gigantic body of yours to ribbons. | Lee: Wow! This will be quite a job slicing you to edible portions. |
| Jack: I'll beat you before you even get a chance to use those claws. | Jack: Hnnh! Do you think those will work against my mass? |
These are pretty straight. Okay, the English adds some implied cannibalism, but that's fine. It's a cute punch-up of the original line. I dig it. Jack's line changes a bit, from confidence in beating Lee fast to confidence in the claws just not working, but it sounds pretty good either way.
Intro vs Lee
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Lee: What a surprise! I have a doppelganger! | Lee: Hey, I've seen you somewhere before? But where? |
| Lee: Are your claws sharper, or mine? This'll be an interesting bout! | Lee: Oh, I have a brother! Too bad I have to slice him up! |
Neither of these are exact renditions of the Japanese, but they fit the situation and they're not super important lines anyway so...
Probably the most interesting bit is losing the sense of competition 2P Lee has in his Japanese line, but his willingness to slice up a brother he just met makes up for it.
Intro vs Robert
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Lee: It's been awhile, young man. Do you remember me? | Lee: Long time since we last met. And a new hairstyle, too! |
| Robert: Gramps! You're back, huh? You're gonna do yourself an injury if you don't settle down. | Robert: That's it! No monkey-faced twit mocks my hairstyle! |
I really like how everyone still knows each other from AoF1. It's a nice bit of continuity. (I absolutely would not blame Ryo or Robert for forgetting Lee existed)
Anyway, the English starts off with Lee recognizing Robert, but then runs off into jokes about Robert's hair. Which...okay. I don't think Robert changed his hair that much from AoF1 to 2, but who am I to argue.
Robert drops his sarcastic concern and replaces it with getting mad about someone making fun of his hair. You'd think he'd be used to it.
Intro vs John
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Lee: Whether you left the army or not, it's still 100 years too early for you to fight me! | Lee: Training in the army will not be sufficient for me. |
| John: Should you really be that confident? I doubt anything I say will get through to you. | John: Are you saying I'm thick? I'm not. I'm not stu-- Stu--dumb! |
Kishi helped with John's line, thank you!
I'm not entirely sure what Lee is saying about John there, so corrections welcome as always. As usual, the English line is mostly interesting for how it handles "100 years too early". Here it becomes a simple put-down. It's not super exciting, but it gets the idea across. In fact, it's kind of oddly plain...
Meanwhile John's line just gets completely re-written. No idea why. It doesn't seem to follow from Lee's line, the only connections I can make to the Japanese line are tenuous at best, and all in all it's a weird joke. Definitely got the editing attention.
Overall, I'm not entirely sure what to make of this exchange.
Intro vs King
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Lee: It's even more fun to carve up a beautiful face. Oho ho ho! | Lee: A beautiful face is so much more fun to mutilate! Let's begin. |
| King: It's the creepy old man, is it? Well, I'll just have to break those claws you love so much. | King: Geez! I thought the fat guy was weird. I want to go home. |
Yeah, that one's accurate. Not much else to say.
King's line drops the boast. It's a bit ambiguous about if she does recognize Lee from AoF1 or not; I went with the idea that she does because everyone knows each other by now. The official translation goes her not knowing Lee, and is consistent across both her and his routes. So that's nice.
Intro vs Takuma
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Lee: You've faced my master before, but you'll find I'm a bit different. | Lee: You once fought my master. I am not my master. I am Lee. |
| Takuma: Gakusuu had another stupid student, huh? Well, show me what you've got. | Takuma: Could you please explain the first part again. |
Ahahahahaha. Turns out Ryo and Yuri get it from their dad after all.
Anyway, as you can see, the English version cuts out one of Takuma's text boxes. Why? Presumably because there was no good place to split the English line they went with. Why did they go with that line? Who knows...
Anyway, Lee's line is pretty much the same in both languages. It sounds a bit sillier in English, but it gets the meaning across. Takuma's line is just completely changed. Still funny, but for different reasons.
Intro vs Temjin
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Lee: Oh, it's another fellow to carve up. Here I go! | Lee: Does the tern julien fry mean anything to you? |
| Temjin: Whoa! An old man with a weird mask. This guy's creepy. | Temjin: Coming from a man in a monkey mask, I can't be too scared. |
It's worth noting here that the word Lee uses to talk about carving people up in Japanese is the same for King, Jack, and Temjin. In the official English version they use different and creative ways to phrase it, adding some flavor to Lee's lines. It's neat.
And so here you see that they misspelled the term "julienne fry". It's possibly on purpose so they could cram everything into one line, since there isn't a good place to put a break in this line. AoF2, in English and Japanese, seems to generally try to put line breaks in fairly natural places. The English slips up occasionally, but it seems like they tried.
Temjin's line changes significantly, from being creeped/weirded out by Lee to brushing him off. The mask part is kept the same, but everything else changes around it. The English pretty noticeably doesn't match Temjin's sprite's pose or expression in the game.
Intro vs Ryo
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Lee: Ah, the young karate practitioner. Can you keep up with my speed? | Lee: Why it's the karate rugrat. I hate pests! |
| Ryo: The old guy in the mask again? You need to start acting your age, gramps! | Ryo: Oh no! Monkey face. Go find an organ grinder,peanuthead! |
Green/inexperienced/young...honestly, I don't think "karate rugrat" is all that bad a translation. Kishi points out it might even be a deliberate reference to The Karate Kid, though I'm not so sure. Second half of the line is completely changed, though. From a standard fighting game/anime sort of taunt to...what sounds like it should be a pun or joke but isn't.
Ryo's English line is just weird. I can see what they were going for, but it comes off as really broken and stilted. Which is strange, because from the amount it's changed and the elaborate monkey joke, this was definitely touched up.
Intro vs Mickey
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Lee: You can't touch me with a punch that slow. | Lee: Considering the speed of your punch, this will be easy. |
| Mickey: A quick spar's enough to knock you out for good! | Mickey: All I need is one punch and you're monkey meatloaf. |
These are both pretty solid, actually. No major changes, and both seem to have been touched up a bit to sound better. I really like "monkey meatloaf" as a phrase.
Mickey's ultra literally saying he only needs the amount of strength he uses to spar to beat Lee. I couldn't figure out a good, concise way to say this in English. The official translation drops that to "one punch", which works out just as well.
Intro vs Mr. Big
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Lee: The tips of your sticks, the tips of my claws. This is a contest of speed. | Lee: Razor sharp steel or wooden sticks. Who has the edge? Hmm. |
| Big: I'm getting less classy just listening to you. This contest's already decided. | Big: Sticks or fists, I'll kick you monkey backside! |
Kishi did Big's line.
I like Lee's English line. It's a bit more directly taunting than the Japanese, but it's gets the point across and sounds pretty good.
Big's line was changed, but it ends up playing off Lee's line more directly than the Japanese does. I think it's "sticks and fists" instead of "sticks and claws" for the cousin-rhyme. I'm honestly not sure what the Japanese was going for, so I'm okay with rewriting it to work with the previous line instead.
To the Police Commissioner
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Suit: Mr. Lee Pai Long. The commissioner has requested to meet with you. Would you please come with us? | Suit: Mr. Lee Pai Long? The police commisioner would like a word with you. Could you walk this way? |
| Lee: Oho, this is where you fill me full of delicious food, right? | Lee: Okay. Is there free food and Chinese beer? |
The goon's line was translated by Kishi.
Since the goon's line is the same across all characters, I'm going to start only showing the response. It lets you see the words better and lets me not sew four images together twice per character.
Anyway, yeah, this line is mostly accurate! I was surprised. There's the minor addition of "Chinese beer" to remind us that you can do whatever you want in an arcade and a small nuance change between Japanese Lee's confidence that he's getting a banquet vs English Lee's questioning, but it's considerably closer than say...Robert's.
This is another line I'd have been interested to see how they planned to get past Nintendo. Honestly, the combination of coming out so late for the Super Famicom and the numerous Nintendo Content Guidelines problems with the Neo Geo script are probably what stopped the US from getting SNES AoF2.
Intro vs Geese
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Geese:Welcome, Mr. Lee Pai Long. | Geese: Nee-how, Lee Pai Long. |
| Lee: Who are you?! What do you want with me?! | Lee: Hey, I'm an American, pal. Speak English. Why am I here? |
| Geese: I am Geese...Geese Howard. I have an interest in both your Chinese kenpo and your medicine. | Geese: Why are any of us here, really, I mean, it's all a mystery to me. But I do like your style. |
| Lee: My kenpo? Mm, very well. I'll demonstrate it on your body! | Lee: Good! I'll show you more while I waltz on your belly. Kee! |
This is somewhat shorter than Ryo or Robert's versions. Probably because they're main characters.
Anyway, we once more see extra screens added in, this time so Geese can ramble a bit. There have been a lot of screens added and deleted across Lee's route, which shows a good amount of flexibility in what the English version could add or take away.
Anyway, as usual, a lot of lines were changed. Geese tries to speak Chinese and fails miserably, Lee claims to be American, Geese is baked for dinner... The one line that's straight translated is the last one, which is honestly well done.
One minor but interesting point is that in Japanese, Geese is interested in Lee both for his fighting and for his medicine. This is lost in the English.
Win vs Geese
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Lee: How's that? Do you grasp my kenpo yet? | Lee: Kee! Victory is mine! |
| Geese: Ggh, it seems I wasn't taking you seriously. | Geese: Heh, it's all over. |
| Lee: Oh! What's this? | Lee: Heeh! What? Kee keeee. |
| Suit: This way, Mr. Geese. | Suit: This way, Mr Geese. |
| Geese: Though I lost this time, have no doubt that I'll be back to even the score. Until then, farewell. | Geese: I have lost this time. But I will be back. For now, my farewell. |
| Lee: Are you running away? Wait! | Lee: Leaving so soon? Wait! |
The bits that are the same as Ryo's route were translated by Kishi!
Lee's lines here are mostly pretty straight because there isn't much to them. There's a noticeable uptick in the number of monkey noises in English over Japanese.
One thing I'd like to point out is that in Japanese Lee plays off the prefight conversation by asking if Geese understands his kenpo yet since the guy asked for a demonstration and all. The English loses this. That's too bad.
Geese Goes to Japan
Since Geese's migration is common to all characters, I put it under Misc.
Ending
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Lee: I've still got a long way to go with my kenpo. But if my master knew I was neglecting my primary focus, healing, like this, he'd give me an earful. All right, time to start the development of a new medicine. | Lee: My days of battle are over. Time to return to my profession for now. I will work on my cure for the world's greatest problem. A problem so boggling, so perplexing... |
| Newspaper: Mr. Lee Pai Long discovers miraculous new cure! | Newspaper: Pai Long cures hemorrhoids! |
The first bit is pretty much the same. The main difference is Japanese Lee still wanting to continue with fighting but knowing Gakusuo will yell at him if he doesn't do some medicine, which I think is kind of cute.
The big difference is, obviously, the last line. In Japanese Lee invents a non-specific "miracle cure", in English...hemorrhoids.
Okay.
So I don't trust the SNK Wiki because it's all fan-driven and fans don't know what the hell they're talking about half the time (case in point: this entire website), but it sounds like Lee's Neo Geo Battle Coliseum story is about him having invented a miracle cure. This would've been a direct AoF2 callback for Japanese players. It's just kind of random for English-language players, though.
Win Quotes
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| vs self | |
| It's no wonder I won when I'm so much faster than you. | It was close there. An awesome opponent. Kee! Kee! |
| vs others | |
| Ho ho ho, what a sorry sight you are. Who's next? | You were-- in a word--pathetic! |
| What's with those shaking knees? You need to start all over again. | When this guy falls around, he really falls around. Kee! |
I am, as always, wildly guessing about which win quotes go together. I think I got it right.
The self line is changed up, but the English stands out a bit more. It adds in some more monkey noises too.
The first vs line is the one I matched, the other was process of elimination. I think the Japanese is more specific about the opponent looking terrible (after getting their asses kicked) but as always, I'm not an expert.
The second is kind of a stretch, and I have no idea what the English is supposed to mean. The Japanese is a sort of "timidity/lack of posture/weak will" thing, which I decided to translate as "shaking knees". Point is, the opponent is weak and needs to start over again. ...which means it could match up to the other line and then one is just a non-sequitur...
This is really hard, okay.