Laurence Blood
Where's Axel?
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The Matador of Madness that Calls to Silence
Ending
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Laurence: So even my master is this weak...heheh. | Laurence: You look a little down ,dude! |
| Krauser: You have become skilled, Laurence. | Krauser: Laurence! You've moved up in life! |
| Laurence: I have no intention of serving you any longer. | Laurence: You won't use me anymore! |
| Krauser: To have become this impudent without having known my true power... | Krauser: Impudent fool! |
| Laurence: Tch, what does that matter? | Laurence: What? |
| Krauser: Fool...haaaaaaaaaaa! | Krauser: Idiot! Waah hah hah! |
This is another ending where there isn't that much difference line to line, but some key point is lost and the entire thing ends up incoherant.
Of course, there's also an obvious problem: the very first line. The Japanese is a reletively straightforward comment on Krauser being the last boss: Laurence beats Krauser and figures his boss isn't all that after all. Meanwhile in English he sounds like he's trying to cheer someone (Krauser?) up. I'm not even sure how this happened, except by the translator reading ふがいない/worthless, good-for-nothing as...something else. I'm not even sure what. I assume it was probably reading it as a phrase (fu ga inai, or "fu isn't here" instead of fugai nai or "no worth") but I can't figure out what they thought fu meant there.
Translating "my master" as "dude" is standard SNK practice, though. I'm not confused about that.
Krauser's line is fine. The word he uses is a fairly broad term meaning "excellent, admirable", which I translated as "skilled" because I assumed he was complementing Laurence's fighting ability. "[M]oved up in life" is less specific, but gets the idea across.
Laurence's next line is mostly just cut down. It's hard to get across in English, but he gets pretty rude towards Krauser here.
Krauser's line is also very cut down, and loses an important point: Krauser was holding back in the previous match. That's a pretty big thing to cut.
Laurence's final English line makes him sound less impudent and more bewildered. He's supposed to be brushing Krauser off more strongly than the translation has him.
Then Krauser's final line has a small-but-important mistranslation: he's gathering his power, like Rugal or Goku, not laughing. Changing it to a laugh is easier to render in English, but doesn't get across that Krauser is about to beat Laurence's face in.
(Krauser is totally about to beat Laurence's face in)
Win Quotes
vs Terry
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| I love those pained eyes of yours...seeing that look on a strong man is wonderful. | Your gaze of hate thrills me! |
So hyper-literally, what Laurence says is "a strong man is good...those eyes of yours are the best..." which is pretty open for interpretation. Given that Laurence is some sort of sadist, I went with "pained", but "gaze of hate" isn't wrong. Honestly, the official translation is pretty good here.
vs Andy/Duck/Hon Fu
| My translation | Official translation | Portuguese translation |
|---|---|---|
| Gauging your speed made all the difference. | You're shish kebab , leadbutt! | Your speed was worth it. |
Kishi got this one for me in Japanese, Snowy added the Portuguese.
This has a concept in common, but otherwise it's pretty different. Japanese Laurence recognizes his opponent is a speedy type, but is able to judge that speed accordingly. Kishi thinks he's comparing his match strategy to his bullfighting technique, which makes sense. Being a matador requires being good at gauging the speed of something that's charging at you really fast.
Meanwhile, English Laurence says his opponent is slow ("leadbutt"). I suppose the idea is that Andy/Duck/Hon Fu are slow compared to Laurence, but they're all the ones that get recognized as "the fast fighters" when the set comes up. (see Chonrei and Chonshu) Still, got some sticking in there.
It's a goofy line.
According to Snowy, the Portuguese line is a broken translation of the Japanese line. The provided translation is what he thinks it was meant to be. Not knowing Portuguese, I cannot comment on how it's broken, but I am assured it is.
vs Mai/Mary/the Jins
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| I love to hurt women and children...heheh. | I see you get my point , huh?! |
Yeah, couldn't get away with that in an American arcade. Instead we get a sword joke, which...well, all right.
The word for "hurt" is defined as "to torment, to harass, to tease", I did my best.
vs Billy
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| I quite like those crimson flames... | Crims on flames turn me on! |
"[T]urn me on" is a bit less elegant than the Japanese line, but it's the same general idea. Insert your own "hot for Billy" joke here.
There is a typo, but as is so often the case, that doesn't indicate a flawed translation.
vs Geese
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| For some reason, your dictatorship resembles my master's... | You remind me of someone I know! |
Character limits strike again.
The word I translated as "dictatorship" is more literally "military rule", but that was hard to fit into English. Maybe "style of ruling" would be better, but that took it a bit far into implication for me. The point is, both Geese and Krauser are high-handed assholes.
vs Krauser
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| I won't do anything like this again, Lord Krauser. | Krauser , I won't do this again! |
Judging from the ending, I'd say what Laurence won't do again is probably sparing Krauser's life, but it's ambiguous.
He is much more polite to Krauser here than in the ending, for whatever that's worth. The difference in tone is most of what separates my translation from SNK's.
vs Laurence
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| It's a wonderful feeling, cutting up a fellow matador. | Slicing a fellow matador is fun! |
This is pretty close, accounting for the character limits I didn't have to deal with.
vs Yamazaki
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| You get so excited at shedding your own blood? What a dangerous man... | You're dangerous! Bloodthirs-ty fool! |
There's some confusion about if Yamazaki is excited at shedding blood (others) or his own. I think it makes more sense for Laurence to be weirded out by Yamazaki enjoying shedding his own blood, which will match up with one of EX Billy's lines when I get around to that. After all, Laurence is fine with shedding other's blood, as previous quotes demonstrate. His own, though...
The official translation didn't make that logical leap and has Laurence castigating Yamazaki for being bloodthirsty in general. I find the hyphen interesting - it suggests that whoever put "bloodthirsty" in there really wanted to stick with it instead of rephrasing. Of course, it could also mean that Laurence just wasn't much of a priority for editing.
vs Franco
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| The way you move - it's just like a cow. | You move like a bloated cow! |
It's more matador jokes. What the English version adds is the adjective "bloated", which is a bit of an odd choice. I guess it's an insult about being fat or something? That's all I can come up with.
vs Cheng
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Heheh...it was so satisfying to slice you up. | You're made for sticking! |
These are close, though there's a bit of a nuance difference between it being satisfying to cut Cheng and him being made for stabbing. One has a bit of telos around it, while the other is a straightforward statement about what Laurence enjoys.
The English also has some resonance with "stick you like a pig". I can't tell if a similar idea is there in Japanese or not.
vs others
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Heheh...I love a face warped with pain. | I love a face wracked with pain! |
Yep.
The English drops the laugh. That's it.