Jin Chonrei
So like...are you still evil, or what...? (x2)
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Imperial Fist, Revived...
Ending
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Chonrei: Finally, the time has come to seize the world with the Imperial Fist! | Chronrei: At last! 'Imperial First' rules all! |
| Chonshu: It's only natural, brother. | Chonshu: Of course , 'big bro'! |
| Chonrei: We're of one mind and body, Chonshu! | Chonrei: Chon Lei! We are a great team! |
| Chonshu: Ugggh...my head...it hurts! | Chonshu: Aaaaah! My head! It's gonna explode! |
| Chonrei: Chonshu! What's wrong? | Chonrei: ! What's wrong? |
| Chonshu: Aauuuuuugghhh! | Chonshu: Waaaah! |
| Chonrei: CHONSHUUUUUUUU! | Chonrei: ChonShu! |
...what in the world happened here?
The translation is...more or less accurate, but the devil is in the very odd details. Let's start from the top.
The first line is heavily cut down, to the point where it sounds more like Chonrei is bragging about winning than setting out for world domination. RBS character limits were brutal, but still. I'm not sure why 'Imperial Fist' is in quotation marks either.
...and I'm really not sure why 'big bro' is. I can't tell if they didn't localize that to 'Chonrei' (like they consistently do for Andy and Terry) because the Jins are Chinese or because the editor clearly had nothing to do with these lines.
And then Chonrei calls Chonshu "Chon Lei". What is even going on here? The Jin boys share the first character of their given names, but the second characters are pretty distinctive. (Chonrei: 崇雷, Chonshu: 崇秀) And where did the "Lei" come from? Then again, this isn't the only time we've seen a very literal romanization that goes against the fight UI... Anyway, "we are a great team!" is a bit stilted and doesn't quite get across the full idea of being "one mind and body", but it's close enough for something that fits into RBS' tiny, tiny dialogue bubble.
The last few lines are pretty much the same, with the most notable part being Chonrei getting Chonshu's name right. Interestingly, it's camel-cased, so at least that's consistent with Chonshu's ending, even if I'm not sure if that's a correct romanization or not.
Win Quotes
vs Terry
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| It's not over yet! I know you've got more than that! | It's not over! Let's mix it up! |
The loss here is that Japanese Chonrei knows Terry can do more, but English Chonrei sounds like he just wants to keep the fight going. There's also an extra implication of "since it's you" in Japanese, but I couldn't quite jam that in there. Point is, Chonrei recognizes that Terry's ~~~the main character~~~ extra strong, so if it's him, he should be able to go a few more rounds. All that's lost in English.
By the way, the list of characters Chonrei and Chonshu have quotes against is identical. It's cute.
vs Andy/Duck/Hon Fu
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| It's like you're standing still! | I'm gonna stop you in your tracks! |
It's against fast characters, just like his brother. Anyway, I think this is a slight misreading. Basically, "I'm going to stop your movements" and "You look like your movements have stopped" are very similar, but I think I'm right here. They both make sense, though, and I can absolutely see someone going fast or just deciding that the former makes more sense and going with it.
But the whole point of the Jins is that they're extra fast, not that they have a lot of stopping power. So.
vs Mai/Mary
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| This is a waste of time. Leave! | You're a waste of time. Take off! |
Yeah, these are basically the same. "Take off" is more informal than warranted, though...the Japanese is more high-handed.
vs Billy
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| You look pretty useful! Come with me! | Join me. You could be useful! |
Similar to Chonshu. There's also not a big difference between languages here, it mostly comes down to how the official translator and I decided to phrase things.
vs Geese
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| I'll make Southtown into hell! | Southtown will be a living hell! |
A couple minor points: The English drops that Chonrei specifically is the one to turn Southtown into hell, but adds that it will be a "living" hell.
But overall, pretty close.
vs Krauser
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Th...that's all I can do today... | Well , that's it for today! |
Close in content, but completely off in tone. The idea in Japanese is that Chonrei barely won and has to spend the rest of the day resting after fighting Krauser, but in English he sounds like he's dusting his hands off and whistling.
...honestly, that's a pretty great image. I dig it.
vs Laurence
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| A matador? Are you making fun of me?! | A matador? Are you serious? |
The English makes it sound like Chonrei is mocking Laurence, like a matador doesn't belong in a real fight or something, but that's not right. The Japanese is more like Chonrei getting mad that Laurence is mocking him. Again, it's close, but wildly off at the same time.
Kind of beautiful, really.
vs Chonrei
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| What? You call that Imperial Fist? | You call that a punch , limpy? |
Okay, the editor got to this one for sure.
The big miss is that it's specifically Imperial Fist that 2P can't imitate, not that he's bad at punching in general. Other than that, this is the same...okay, and "limpy". Haven't heard that one before. Sure is evocative.
vs Chonshu
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Chonshu! Are you okay?! | Are you okay , my little Soshu? |
...Soshu?
.....my little Soshu?
Okay, so it is possible to read 崇 as "Sou", according to the dictionary, but I'm not sure how they picked that one. A more straight reading would give you "Suu". Still, it's possible, and it's another suggestion that the translator had no list of official character names. Sometimes I wonder what the translator's relationship with SNK was in general...someone around the office who knew English? A freelancer? It's very mysterious.
But the "my little" gives the idea that someone knew that the characters were close. The editor? Or was it just an assumption from the fact that the line is asking if Chonshu/Soshu is okay?
I'm bewildered.
vs Yamazaki
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| It's the end for you, Yamazaki! | It's the end for you , Yamazaki! |
I want to establish that my usual process is to capture the Japanese, capture the English a few days later, translate the Japanese without looking at the official translation, wait a couple days, go back over my translations to polish them a bit, then transcribe the English lines and type up the full page. I don't reference the official translations while working because 95% of the time there's no point.
This is entirely coincidental, springing from the fact that it's a really boring line.
vs Cheng
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| You're an eyesore! Get out of Hong Kong! | Leave Hong Kong! You're a disgrace! |
Yep. This is another pretty basic line, but at least there are some phrasing differences. I like "you're a disgrace" better than "you're an eyesore", really.
vs others
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Haaaaaaa! My Imperial Fist is invincible! | My Imperial Bop is unbeatable! |
...Imperial Bop?
I got nothing.
...okay, that's a lie. The editor did seem to have a thing for the word "bop", though it mostly appeared in manuals. Off the top of my head, there's the SNK Gals Fighters manual and Real Bout Fatal Fury 2 and there are probably others. Though the games I can think of are after RBS...was this the first?
