Big Bear
A man so dedicated to kayfabe he changed his name and personality when he stopped working for Geese. A real pro.
Manual
Fighter title
| My translation | FF2 MVS | FF2 AES | FFS Arcade | SNES FFS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Strongest Traditional Wrestler | Orthodox Wrestling Champ | The Grizzly-Crushing Wrestling Maniac | The Bone-Crushing Beast | The Mega Pro Wrestler |
Arcade translations from The Arcade Flyer Archive, home translation from RQ87, SNES translation from the manual on the Internet Archive.
The literal translation is "orthodox school", which is where the arcade FF2 gets that. But it's not a thing we say a lot in English, so I went with "traditional" instead. On the other hand, the arcade translation sensibly equates "the strongest" to "champ", which is a nice bit of smoothing-out.
The AES version had the editor get to it. Calling Bear "grizzly-crushing" is pretty cute, though "wrestling manic" is a broad interpretation of "champ". (Possible Zangief reference? He also fights bears.) The Neo Geo CD version is the same as the arcade.
Then the editor breaks loose in FFS, as always. "Bone-Crushing Beast" is not an official wrestler title according to expert fbm, but lots of wrestlers get called "The Crusher" or "The Beast" so it's definitely made out of real parts and ends up sounding much more like an actual wrestler. But then the SNES FFS goes back to FF2 titles...except in this case it looks like they retranslated it? For some reason?
I guess "Mega" can imply that Bear is strong. Okay.
Sega CD FFS is the same as the arcade for all fighters, so I'm skipping it.
Quote
| My translation (FF2) | FF2 AES | FF2 CD | SNES FF2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| If I don't control myself when I'm fighting people, I'll end up killing them! | Fighting humans is new to me. If I don't take it easy, I'll end up ripping off their jaws. Yeah, I know, it's grisly to think about it. Heh, heh. | Fighting humans is new to me. If I don't take it easy, I'll end up ripping off their jaws. | You puny humans are too weak to withstand my power! |
Home translations from RQ87, SNES translation from SNES manual on the Internet Archive.
Yeah, there was no way they were getting those Neo Geo quotes past Nintendo.
"Grisly" is also used by Laurence in Fatal Fury Special. It does feel like the editor's first job was the Fatal Fury 2 AES manual.
The English Neo Geo quotes, while undoubtedly more violent than the Japanese, do show a real attempt at translation. The English adds that fighting humans is "new" to Bear (so what was he doing last game?), but there's still a connection there. The SNES has a similar idea, but it's so toned down it just becomes generic.
| My translation (FFS) | SNES FFS | Sega CD FFS |
|---|---|---|
| Hpmh! Even if I face Geese himself, the man I am now will smash him in the blink of an eye! | Bah! What a crew of weenies! Geese-sheesh -- he's about as mean as a baby koala! | Even when I hold back, you're still too small and weak. |
SNES manual from the Internet Archive, Sega CD from Sega Retro.
SNES has some Neo Geo power behind it. It feels a lot like the SNES took directly from the Neo Geo version, but this is currently impossible to prove. But "weenies" and "Geese-sheesh" are very, very strong indicators. Weird that the titles would go back to FF2, then!
Then the Sega CD version has the Neo Geo titles, but the quote feels like another retranslation of FF2. And it's way toned down, but differently from SNES FF2. There's no mention of killing, just that Bear needs to hold back - but here holding back doesn't do anyone any good. Sure?
Fatal Fury Special
Intro vs characters from FF1
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Now that I’m reborn, I’ll let you have quite a taste of my power! | Taste the blows of this reborn titan. Ah cha cha. |
Translation provided by Upthorn! Thank you!
I have no idea where the laugh comes from. Is it even a laugh? Googling reveals songs that aren't from the 90s and Jimmy Durante, who apparently had it as a catchphrase. That feels a little old for 1993, but these things hang around sometimes.
Other than that oddity, this is good. "Reborn titan" describes Big Bear pretty well!
Intro vs characters from FF2
| My translation | Official translation (FF2) | SNES (FF2) | Official translation (FFS) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hurry up and get going so I can put you down. | Start at once. You're finished. | That's it. You're finished. | Stop whining. One blow and it'll be all over. |
Translation help kindly provided by estragon! Thank you!
The FF2 translation is technically correct, but doesn't make a lot of sense on its own. It's stilted and just sounds really weird. Meanwhile, the FFS translation is definitely punched up to make Bear sound tougher, but it gets the meaning across. It does cut out Bear telling the opponent to get on with it...unless you assume the opponent is stalling by talking? I dunno.
Takara once again smooths FF2 out for the home ports, with a line that actually makes sense. It removes the element of Bear asking the player to get on with it, but it makes sense as a cleaning up of the original script.
Normal win
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Looks like I went a little overboard. | Whoops! I hope that heals all right. |
Gonna say this is solid too. Seriously injuring your opponent is going overboard, right? And it sounds more or less in-character. Good marks all around.
Intro vs Geese
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| I can no longer follow along with your methods. | Oooh. You make me so flustered. |
I don't know.
The Japanese is a pretty basic "I'm not on your side anymore", but I have no idea what the English translation is going for. Googling only brings up this game, so it's not even a TV reference. Was there a Geese/Bear shipper on the team...?!
Win vs Geese or Krauser
| My translation | Official translation | SNES |
|---|---|---|
| Now you change your ways! | Change your soul or at least your shoes. P. U.! | Change your shoes, P.U.! |
"Hurry up and reform too!" is an alternate translation, but they're the same basic idea.
So. The first part of the official translation is on target. The second is...well, it's SNK being SNK. You should be used to this by now.
Interestingly, it doesn't seem like anyone is entirely sure where "P.U." comes from. They don't even agree on if it's P.U., PU, pee-yew, or a similar variant. These guys say it's an acronymized version of an older word, which seems to me to be a weird direction for language to take but...well, stranger things have happened.
Human souls: Also too saucy for Nintendo.
Intro vs Big Bear
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| I'm gonna kick your ass to keep you from copying me. | Just so you don't copy me again. I'm gonna crush you. |
Yep. It took me a few tries to really get this one, but ultimately, the official was accurate. As can probably be told from how boring it is.
Ending
| My translation | Official translation (FF2) | SNES (FF2) | Official translation (FFS) |
|---|---|---|---|
| There's no one left who wants to fight me?! Hey Terry, gimme another match. | No one can challenge me? Terry, let's have a rematch. | No more challengers? Hey Terry, let's have a rematch! | Terry Bogard! One more match! |
Bear gets double FF2 instead of double Special because his playstyle is 100% opposite of mine and FF2 is a lot shorter than Special.
So in this case Special is the shortened one. That's kind of unusual! I'm not sure why they cut it down. Making it punchier, maybe? It's not wrong for the part they chose to translate, so that's good.
FF2 is straight as always. "Let's have a rematch" is pretty good phrasing, though! Too bad the first part is kind of Engrishy. It's not strictly wrong, but it needs a bit more editing. The home ports fix this, like they did a lot of FF2's script.
Fatal Fury 2
Normal wins
| My translation | Official translation | SNES/Genesis |
|---|---|---|
| I got too much energy left! I wanna fight the next guy right now! | My power is tremendous. I want to fight the next one! | My power is awesome! Next! |
| Use your head! There's no way you can beat me in a straight fight. | Use your head! You think you can beat me? | Use your head! Did you think you could beat me? |
| You're a fly. All you do is buzz around. | You're like a fly. Your sounds annoy me. | I will swat you like a fly. |
| Ghahahaha! Looks like I overdid it a little! | Ahh, I think it was too much! | Ahh, that was too much |
The first one misses a couple key points (Bear has energy left over, therefore he wants to fight again right away) and ends up feeling disjointed.
Not super happy with my phrasing on the third one. (for some reason, Bear is giving me a lot of trouble....) Ultra-literally, it's "all you do is noisily buzz around" or something like that. Changing that into comparing the opponent's sounds to a fly's is a little different, but close. I get the feeling that Bear is talking about how his opponent is smaller and faster than him instead of making a direct reference to the sounds they make, though.
The fourth is so similar to the Special line I was tempted to throw it into that section, but there are a few differences. I'm willing to ignore sounds like laughter, but Bear uses the standard ちょっと/chotto in FF2, which gets changed to チョックラ/chokkura in Special.
Gonna be 100% honest with you: no idea what the actual difference is. The dictionary gives very similar definitions, but I'm sure there's some difference in connotation I'm not picking up on. But it's enough that I decided to split them out, since seeing actual rephrasings in the Japanese is rare.
Anyone who knows more, tell me!
Everything gets rephrased for the home versions. "My power is awesome" sounds pretty goofy now that awesome as a word has been so throughly overused and discarded, but the rest all sound good.
Win vs Big Bear
| My translation | Official translation | SNES/Genesis |
|---|---|---|
| You picked the wrong person to imitate. | You chose the wrong person to intimidate. | You chose the wrong person to challenge! |
I'm not 100% on this translation. In the end, I really couldn't think of any better way to phrase it, even though I don't think it's quite right... The general idea is that other Bear picked someone bad to imitate, so...it's like that.
So I have no idea where "intimidate" came from in the official translation. They're not easy to mix up in Japanese, so it feels more like whoever was writing the English had a brain fart. Since they're very similar words, it's not too surprising someone might get mixed up.
The home ports change "intimidate" to "challenge", which works. It's not any closer to the original, but it's pretty obvious that Takara was more interested in polishing the Neo Geo script rather than doing a retranslation. Can't blame 'em.