Terry Bogard
Hey, he got Rising Tackle back!
Story
Story 1
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Ripper: Here's the current winner, Mr. Geese. | Ripper: Mr. Geese, that's the current champion. |
| Geese: ... | Geese: Hmph! |
Yep. Pretty straightforward. I am interested by how they chose to handle the plain ellipsis, replacing what I usually "hear" as significant silence with a noise of derision. It makes Geese sound a little harsher, but that's not really a bad thing.
Not much else to say here, besides that this is repeated across a bunch of different characters.
Story 2
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| So, it's you... | Why, you!... |
Geese is using a rude form of "you" here, so I can see how you'd want to translate that a bit sharper than I did. But it's also his normal way of referring to Terry and the scene doesn't seem to be all that sharp (for lack of a better term) so I made my choice. I suspect this was translated without seeing the context, as is usual.
What gets me is the ellipsis after the exclamation point. That just looks wrong! They're really consistent about doing it like this in Real Bout, for whatever reason - very brief style guide? There wasn't really an agreed-upon way of handling ellipses in English at the time, so I guess they weren't technically wrong...but I still don't like it.
Story 3
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Now, come up through the tournament and face me, Terry Bogard! | Now come and fight, Terry Bogard! |
The English is stripped down a bit, losing the idea that Terry has to fight his way through the tournament before facing Geese, but it's kind of awkward to say that in English so I understand why they made that choice. The main point (that Geese can't wait to fight Terry) comes across just fine.
Story 4
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Terry: It's time! Geese! I'm gonna beat the hell out of you! | Terry: Glad to see you, Geese. Now I'll knock ya silly. |
| Geese: Heh...Terry Bogard, huh? I'm going to enjoy this. | Geese: Oh boy, Terry Bogard. This'll be fun! |
Terry is...surprisingly less enthused in English. "[K]nock ya silly" isn't a bad translation of what I rendered as "beat the hell out of you", but it's considerably different in tone.
Then again, as I've said before...if I cared about tone I would've given up years ago.
"Glad to see you" is not really a translation of anything in the Japanese line and sounds kind of weird, but I guess I can see what they were going for. Feels a lot like more contextless translation.
Geese's line is all there, just with the usual SNK tone for Geese. At this point it's like a characterization thing. That's just how Geese talks in English!
It feels like the editor got to these lines and none of the others.
Anyway then Terry murders a man and takes his son fishing.
Win Quotes
vs Terry
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| This should prove who the real one is. | Now you know my real power! |
There's a difference between Japanese Terry declaring that he's the real one because he won vs English Terry bragging about his real power. The first makes sense for a mirror match, the other is generic and could go anywhere.
Honestly they just completely rewrote this one. Oh well.
vs Andy
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Your moves got slow, Andy! | You've lost your stuff, dweeb! |
"You've lost your stuff" is actually a pretty good localization of the phrase. I'd probably try to make some sort of reference to speed in there if I was doing this for real, because Andy's supposed to be faster, but it's fine, really. I like it.
"Dweeb" is both a punching up and weirdly grade-school, so it's perfectly SNK.
vs Joe
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Whoa, Joe! Are you gonna be all right for the title match like that? | Hey,Joe. Sure you can make your way to the title now? |
The English version feels a bit more like Terry beat Joe so hard Joe's going to have a hard time with the title match, not that Terry's razzing him for being out of shape, but that might just be me. Otherwise it's a fine translation.
vs Franco
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| You got a hell of a punch, old man! | Feel my grey-power punch! |
ahahahahaha oh wow
I have a vague idea of how this happened, but someone must've been rushing or the editor deliberately misread the sentence for comedy purposes. My best guess is someone misreading "old man's punch is effective" as "old man punch is effective" and then assumed Terry was talking about himself and not his opponent (easy enough without context). It's a one-character difference in Japanese, I can see it happening. Especially since Real Bout would've been written and translated under a massive time crunch.
I can't decide if I like the interpretation that Terry is an old man bragging about his punch or that Terry has a punch especially for old people more.
vs Mai
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Isn't it about time you started studying marital arts, Mai? | After this,you'll be glad to stay in the kitchen,Mai! |
Okay, so the pun isn't actually there in Japanese and a completely literal translation would be more like "homemaker training". I don't care, it's funny.
So you can see how the English and Japanese are related, but the English is somewhat different. The English is more explicit about the suggestion that Mai should get out of the fighting game (not 'til KOFXII, Terry) and there's no reference to her feelings. The English also feels a bit harsher, as is common.
The English not having spaces after the commas is really starting to bug me.
vs Bob
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Next time, let's get hot dogs instead. | Next time,let's just get a hot dog or something! |
...yep.
I got nothing!
vs Billy
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| I already told you: your bojutsu will never beat me! | You sure can move your pole. But to think you can beat me? |
Again, they were clearly doing this shit on purpose.
Adding the joke actually softens Terry in English, in that at least he's complimenting Billy before telling him off now. The English also drops the idea that Terry has told Billy off before, removing a bit of their relationship. Still, the main idea gets through.
vs Hon Fu
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Whoa, you're good! You might even be better than Kim! | Wow,you're pretty strong. You might even be better than the famous Kim! |
Rude, Terry. Kim's your pal, don't do this.
The English makes sure we know that Kim is famous, but other than that...yeah, standard. As you can tell by my translation being pretty much the same for one line! Sometimes there's an obvious way to translate things.
vs Yamazaki
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Yamazaki! Your moves will never work on me again! | Yamazaki,your tricks no longer have punch! |
I like the official translation a lot. The Japanese is a pretty standard sort of brag, but the English adds a cute little pun/phrasing that plays on "punch" as in "psychological impact" and "punch" as in "actually hitting someone". It's cute. I dig it.
vs Sokaku
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| If I let you use those weird moves, you could be the best in Japan. | If I let you show your stuff, you could be No. 1.Not! |
Kishi helped!
The English is roughly the same as the Japanese, except SNK just couldn't resist that "Not!". The English also drops Terry calling Sokaku's moves "weird", and that Sokaku would just be best in Japan. Instead he's just losing out on being No. 1...in general, I guess. Maybe that's why the "Not!"...
vs Mary
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Okay! It's a date, just like you promised! Don't forget! | OK! If I win,it's a date! Don't forget now,right?! |
And now Terry is hitting on Mary in Japanese, unlike in Fatal Fury 3. I still find that evolution fascinating - was it all the English translator/editor, or did the Japanese branch independently decide that they should give Terry a girlfriend too? Or at least establish his interest in girls...in the game where he fucks off to be a single dad.
The English is a little weird with the "if I win". That's not in Japanese, and it doesn't make a lot of sense here - Terry already won, so there's no need to establish the terms of a bet now. The idea is clear, but the actual phrasing is off.
vs Kim
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Whew, you're damn strong! Anytime you want to fight, I'll be waiting. | Hey,butch,you're strong. You can take me on anytime! |
Kim is not possibly stronger than Hon Fu, even though he's top-tier. Poor Kim.
The English is...roughly the same, but for calling Kim "butch" for some reason. As you do. I can't tell if it's supposed to be a compliment or another SNK insult.
vs Chonrei
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Go home already. | Take a slow boat back to China! |
I went and looked it up, and apparently "slow boat to China" is an old poker expression that later got turned into the title of a romantic ballad. The phrase means something that takes a long time, but it's used more literally here. I guess it's a joke? I think it comes off as a bit harsher than the Japanese, but that might just be me.
vs Chonshu
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| You'll never win as long as you've got that weirdness in you. | I just can't win with this devil inside me. Aaaoooh! |
Kishi helped here too!
Well, this is a flat-out mistranslation. There's no indication of who Terry is talking about in Japanese, you just have to know that Terry doesn't have any weird stuff inside him and the guy he just beat does, so it makes sense for Chonshu to be the subject here. Works in Japanese, makes it hard to translate in English. You need context, which the official guys, as usual, didn't have.
The English does sound punched up a little, especially with the random "Aaaoooh!" at the end. Shades of Tung in Fatal Fury Special and Terry himself in KoF96. The editor? I suspect so.
vs Duck King
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| You got stronger, Duck. But you're still 100 years too early to beat me! | You sure've improved,Duck. But beat me? Nice one! |
I always like leaving "X years too early" in literally so folks can see how SNK would localize around it. Here we have a bit of very natural-sounding trash talk around the same theme of "you can't beat me". I dig it.
vs Geese
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Geeeeeeeeeeeeeese! I won! | G,g,g...Geese! You're mine! |
Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeese!
"You're mine!" feels a bit more threatening than "I won!" to me, for whatever that's worth. The English also changes Terry's long cry into more like stuttering, which makes him sound scared. It's not how we'd write out stuttering today, but that convention mostly got established through the internet so it's not a surprise it's not here.
Whew. Terry gets a unique quote for everyone, because main character. Only a few characters got that!