Billy Kane
Originally wasn't going to be in the game, they were going to add a new character instead. (I'm glad they went with Billy and gave him his best design to boot)
Story
Story 1
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Goon: Mr. Shadow! Billy Kane won! | Goon: Shadow! Billy Kane has won! |
| Shadow: Bi... | Shadow: B,b,b...! |
Goon's just a really short and snappy way to translate that word.
Since obviously Billy would never challenge the real Geese, he has to fight Geese's rogue body double. I love that SNK thought of stuff like this.
...but there's not much to say about these lines. Since the goon is using Shadow-sama, just like how Ripper usually says Geese-sama, I translated it as Mr. Shadow for consistency. The official translation doesn't bother.
Shadow Geese's line is basically the same, though the official translation pumps it up a bit. Cool.
Story 2
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Bi-Billy Kane! Ah...ahahahhaha... | Hee,hee. Why,if it isn't the Billster... |
Shadow's trying for a menacing laugh, but is too terrified to make it work. The official translation drops that aspect and has Shadow call Billy "the Billster" for some reason. That was a thing SNK started doing around that time, off the top of my head KoF97 also has "the Geester" and I'm pretty sure there's others I'm not thinking of right now. It's a common suffix, but...it's never quite appropriate to the situation.
Either way, Shadow sounds much more confidant in English when he's supposed to be scared the entire time.
Story 3
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Billy Kane! You're here on Geese's orders? Then I'll send you both to hell together! | Geese's potser,Billy Kane. I'll send ya to Hade's depths! |
Okay, so I cannot find a good definition of "potser". The only reference is the Urban Dictionary and we all know how reliable that one is. (it says it means a "hesitant, careful person") I suspect it might be a typo, but I'm not sure for what. That or it's some bizarre slang that somehow avoided being recorded on the internet at all, which seems unlikely.
DigitMZ points out that it might be a misspelling of a variant on patzer, which is a German word that means "bungler". "Geese's bungler" makes some amount of sense, but it's a strange jump. It's possible the editor got the idea from 1993 movie Searching for Bobby Fischer, which supposedly uses the word (I have never seen it, so can't confirm), which would seem to be slightly more likely...or maybe the editor just knew some German.
The English restricts Shadow's ambition to just killing Billy, instead of getting Geese too. It also uses a badly-punctuated Hades instead of hell, which I usually associate with lazy attempts to avoid cursing, but SNK didn't bother with that before. Weird.
"Hades depths" is also a sharp rise in formality after "ya". It gives the line a very...unique feel.
Story 4
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Billy: Geese's orders. I can't let you live! | Billy: Sorry, it's Geese's order. No one leaves alive. |
| Shadow: B-B-B-Billy... I'm shaking...with excitement, right? He-he-heheheh.... | Shadow: B,b,b...Billy! This should be real fun! |
Kishi did Billy's line.
The word Shadow uses in Japanese is an onomatopoeia that means shaking, trembling, getting nervous/excited. There's a deliberate ambiguity there on why exactly Shadow is shaking, so I tried to get that across. I dunno.
The official translation sort of drops that, but keeps him stuttering on Billy's name. I think it ends up giving a sort of similar feeling, but it is less deliberately ambiguous.
Win Quotes
vs Terry/Franco/Billy/Yamazaki/Mary
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Ain't there anyone stronger?! | Is there no one to fight me? |
That's right, Billy is not only the first character to not get a special win quote against Terry, he's the first to not get a special win quote against himself. Poor Billy.
Anyway, it's, uh...not a very interesting win quote. The official translation sounds more literal, but it's not, really. I can see how they got from A to B, but it's not quite the same. I also tried to get Billy's rough speech style across, which the official translation didn't bother with (as usual).
vs Andy/Bob/Hon Fu/Sokaku/Chonrei
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Tch! What kinda stale moves were those? | You call that fighting? Good grief! |
Kishi got this one for me too.
Billy's other generic win quote.
Again, his generic win quote in Japanese is replaced with a similar, but not quite the same, generic win quote in English. And again, I can see how they got from A to B. There's roughly the same intent, but Billy's English line is a bit more vague about what's wrong with his oppoent.
"Goood grief" isn't the sort of thing I expect Billy to say but it's funny.
vs Joe/Kim
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Hey hey, just give up already! Yer so weak! | Oh,give it up. You don't have the power! |
Yep, all the FF1 boys have different win quotes, but share them all with other characters. Not sure why Joe and Kim are shoved together - leftovers?
In general Terry/Andy/Joe will all have different win quotes. I guess if you're going to split up limited resources, that's as good a way as any.
Joe's is slightly different from Terry/Andy's, because this really is just a very literal translation and not a reworking. The closest to a reworking is "you don't have the power!", which is an odd reworking that sounds more stilted than being literal would be. Very strange.
I can understand them not putting a lot of effort into Billy when they didn't even bother with Mai, but someone was clearly touching these up. Just in a very odd way.
vs Mai/Chonshu
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Go home and play house! | Go home and have kids,toots! |
Kishi and Upthorn both double-checked this for me.
Hahahaha.
See, this is why context is important. The translator/editor clearly knew this was the line against Mai, but did not know it was also against Chonshu. While technically Chonshu could go have kids...that's not usually how you'd phrase it.
I also think this might also be a mistranslation. The word for "playing house" is "mama" + a suffix that can turn words into nouns or mean playing pretend. It's possible the translator, moving quickly, misread this as "go be a mother" or something and after that the editor got to it. (I base the editor touching this one on "toots!" which is very much an SNK editor thing to add) It would explain things, at least.
vs Duck King
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| If you wanna get burned, come back anytime! | Come on and make an ash of yourself. Heh,heh. |
I don't know why Billy has a special win quote against Duck King, of all characters, but he does.
The major difference here is subtle: in Japanese, Billy is telling Duck to come back if he wants to get burned, in English he's telling Duck to come on right now. The Japanese makes more sense as a win quote, since presumably Billy already beat Duck up if the player is seeing this.
But the real thing I want to call attention to here is "make an ash of yourself", which is an amazing pun. I love it. It's not there in Japanese, but it's pretty good and adds a bit of character to Billy's line, a character his others lack. Good job!
vs Geese
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Mr. Geese...I-I'm sorry. Are you hurt anywhere...? | G,g,g...Geese. Are you okay? You're not hurt,are you? |
The English mostly just drops Billy directly apologizing. The rest is typical differences you get from translators taking on standard phrases in different ways.
It is nice that even in English, Billy seems to be speaking slightly more respectfully to Geese. That came through!