Axel Hawk
Has a really cool name and no other notable characteristics.
Axel and Laurence share all of their special lines, with only their standard intro, win, and ending being unique. I've split the lines across both their pages, where Axel gets the Billy intro, the Geese intro, the self intro and the partner subboss win. Laurence gets the Krauser/partner subboss intro and the Krauser win.
Manual
Fighter title
| My translation | Arcade translation | SNES translation |
|---|---|---|
| The Legendary Boxing Champ | The Iron-Knuckled Pugilist | Boxing Legend |
Arcade translation sourced from The Arcade Flyer Archive, SNES translation from the manual on the Internet Archive.
You could also say "The Legendary Champion of Boxing" or something, but that sounded weird to me.
He's not a champ in English, nor a legend. The English title is noticeably less grandiose, really. Still, I appreciate anything trying to bring back "pugilist".
The SNES is a paticularly dull take on the Japanese title. Takara....
Sega CD FFS is the same as the arcade for all fighters, so I'm skipping it.
Quote
| My translation (FFS) | SNES FFS | Sega CD FFS |
|---|---|---|
| My punch is as strong as ever! If you want, I'll have it pay a visit - to your stomach! | I've been out of the game for while but I'm still the greatest! Ain't no-one gonna call me a has-been! | If you don't have a big guard, then you'd better have a big belly! |
SNES manual from the Internet Archive, Sega CD from Sega Retro.
....huh?
Okay, the Sega CD version reads like an SNK-style translation of the Japanese quote. Makes me wonder if it's direct from the Neo Geo manual or not...since no one appears to have scanned any Neo Geo FFS manuals, I have no way of knowing. Sure, it's off, but at least they both reference bellies/stomachs.
Then the SNES quote is just entirely made up out of whole cloth. It does vaguely relate to Axel's character, so...points for that?
Fatal Fury 2
Win quote
| My translation | Official translation | Genesis |
|---|---|---|
| No way, it's already over? | My punch improved your looks. Ha ,ha! | No way! You giving up already? |
I lied. There's one notable thing about Axel, and it's enough to make me break format, just for him.
The first part is this, his FF2 win quote. It's pretty obvious what's weird here, right? The incredibly straightforward and literal FF2 pulls a completely new line out of its hat! Huh...
(And then the Genesis...goes back to literal? Goddamnit Takara this was supposed to be a victory lap)
Fatal Fury Special
Normal win
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| My punch improved your looks. | My punch is steel. My face is not. Ouch! |
Translation help kindly provided by estragon! Thank you!
Wait what
That's right, the Japanese line is changed to match the English Fatal Fury 2 line, while English Special goes off on its own and comes up with something that doesn't even sound like a win quote! What the fuck.
None of the bosses keep their FF2 win quotes in Special, so this is even weirder. Did someone just really like the English win quote and decide to put it into the next game? A last-minute change that didn't get communicated correctly? What happened here? It wouldn't have been hard for the change to propagate, since translations were done in Japan and the ever-handy Kishi dug up evidence that SNK translated while they were developing. (which, considering this was all done in the early 90s, is nuts in its own way)
This isn't the last time lines and concepts from English migrate back to Japanese either. It makes some sense, considering the simultaneous translation, but there's no real rhyme or reason for what gets to be pulled into Japanese and what doesn't.
Getting back to the actual translation, it's strange even for FFS. There's still the punch/face concept, but it changes to Axel complaining about getting punched in the face in a way that makes him sound like he just lost the fight. This is another "punched into an alternate dimension" one where I really can't figure out what they were going for.
I mean, besides "jokes".
Normal intro
| My translation | Official translation (FF2) | Official translation (Special) |
|---|---|---|
| I’m about to let you hear the 10 count of hell! Prepare yourself! | You're going to hear a ten count. You are history! | Put up your dukes. You're 10 counts from Hell. |
Translation provided by Upthorn! Thank you!
Arcade games can swear if they feel like it, dammit.
FF2 is stilted as usual, though it drops the "of hell" part. Which just makes the quote extra boring, so...good job. Though they tried with that "You are history".
Meanwhile FFS rephrases things to use a boxing phrase and changes "10 count of hell" to something a lot less anime. It's a noticeable bit of polishing.
| SNES (FF2) | Genesis (FF2) | SNES (FFS) |
|---|---|---|
| Get ready to eat dirt, punk! | In 10 seconds you'll be history! | Put up your dukes. You're 10 counts from the underground. |
Like Billy, Axel's intro line is completely changed for every version of the home ports. And it doesn't even make sense, because English FF2 is the one that cuts out the swearing. Once again the SNES is off doing its own thing, while the Genesis just cleans up the Neo Geo line. Both end up fairly different from the Japanese, though at least there's a connecting line between the Neo Geo and the Genesis. No idea what's up with the SNES.
Then Monolith does a quick s/Hell/the underground and calls it a day.
Intro vs Billy
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Prepare yourself, traitor! | You traitor. Time to pay the fiddler! |
"Pay the fiddler" is a legit English phrase, though "pay the piper" has always been more common. It's not SNK not knowing English, it's picking a weird and obscure phrase instead of a more common one. Why? I have absolutely no idea. Maybe the editor was from a place that used it instead of the common version?
I also like how Billy is consistently treated as the odd man out among the subbosses. It's a nice bit of detail.
This line is shared with Laurence.
Intro vs Geese
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Geese Howard, the former ruler of Southtown, has fallen this far, huh? | The tyrant Geese seems to have flown South. Heh, heh. |
Look at this glorious pun
I'm sorry, I just love it whenever SNK officially makes fun of Geese's name. They don't do it often enough to get obnoxious, so it remains a constant delight. Special seems to be about where they realised they'd named him something really dumb in English, possibly because of a native speaker involved with translation? It migrated back to the Japanese as well, with a lot of Geese's themes becoming food jokes. Since the translation was going on while the game was being developed, I wonder if the native speaker involved had a hand in calling it "Soy Sauce for Geese" as well.
Anyway, this is another line I really, really like. There's the same concept of mocking Geese for slumming it in a fighting tournament, but it's been polished up to add that pun and sound a lot better in English. I'm going to generally translate サウスタウンの支配者 as "ruler of Southtown" for consistency, but "tyrant" isn't a bad translation at all. Pretty evocative, actually! Good job all around.
This line is also shared with Laurence.
Win vs Laurence
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| I'll be your opponent any time. | If it's a fight, I'm available any time, anywhere. |
I'm kind of surprised this line is so polished. Usually the ones that sound best are for relatively popular characters, but this is just stuck with a couple of the subbosses. Then again, it's a line for Laurence and Axel both, so maybe that warranted some extra attention? Though some of their shared lines don't show nearly the same level of polish....
The English line sounds a bit less like the character is specifically referring to wanting to fight the other subboss, but I like how natural "any time, anywhere" sounds.
Like I said, Laurence shares this line, but he uses it against Axel.
Ending
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| I'll turn this into a comeback, then become the strongest boxer in history! | Float like a feather. Sting like a hornet. No, that's not it. |
Axel is another character that gets his ending voiced in English, and it's a perfect match to the English text.
Which, as you'll notice, is completely different from the Japanese text. This originally confused the hell out of me, since I couldn't figure out when the English script was finished...and it turns out it was while the Japanese script was being finished. Explains that! (this simple explanation gets a lot weirder in Art of Fighting 2)
So this is another line that was just changed completely. The Japanese line is serious, whereas the English line just runs off to make a joke. ...but the Japanese line is also kind of boring, so I'm finding it hard to get that mad. Anyway one is about how Axel is trying to parley winning a fighting tournament into a comeback, the other is a Muhammad Ali joke that suggests the comeback isn't going to go all that well.
Fatal Fury 2 Home Ports
SNES Win
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| You're ten years too early to fight me. | Ya gotta do more than that to beat me! |
I don't regret breaking format but that doesn't mean I'm putting this boring stuff at the top.
Anyway, I translated super literally so you all could see the cliche in the Japanese line, which they handled quite nicely for the English version. Seriously, someone at Takara cared.
Genesis win vs Axel
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| The world only needs one champ! | There's only room for one champ in this world! |
Yep.
Since he's playable, Axel gets a win quote against himself, and it's pretty straight and dull.
Genesis Intro vs Krauser
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Shouldn't the strongest be called the champion? | Only the strongest fighter deserves to be called "champion"! |
I'm actually not entirely sure about this, but I also don't think anyone is going to read this page.
Like Billy, Axel has a special line during Krauser's little spiel. The translation seems to be pretty straight unless I'm completely misreading something.
Genesis Ending
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Now I'm champion of the world! | Yeah! I'm the world champion! |
Yep.
I'm sorry, there's not much to say!