Blue Mary
Hey, I can play this version!
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The Agent that Absolutely Crushes Assignments
Ending
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Mary: It's always such a letdown after a fight... | Mary: I always get the post-battle blues. Sob! |
| Terry: All right! Hey Mary, let's get some drinks! | Terry: Okay! Time to party! |
| Mary: Sure, where are we going? | Mary: Yeah! Where're you taking me? |
| Terry: Heheh, that's a secret! | Terry: Heh ,heh. That's my little secret. |
After the first line, this is identical to Terry's ending. (I edited Terry's line a little to make it fit better here, but it's identical in the game)
The meaning of the line is pretty much the same between languages, even if the English one is a bit goofy. I'm sure everyone reading this is used to that by now. The "Sob!" is a particularly inspired touch (touch of what, I'm not sure, but definitely touch of something).
Win Quotes
vs Terry
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| This is the first time I've met such an enthusiastic man. | You turn me on , you stud! |
Well, that's spiced up!
Though to be fair, Mary does say Terry is "hot" in Japanese, with the connotations of enthusiasm, passion, intensity, etc. In English "hot" as applied to people usually just means "attractive", but this is more like "hot-blooded". I went with "enthusiastic", but there are lots of things you could drop in there and mean about the same thing. She also doesn't strictly say "met" in Japanese, the verb is left off. So you could say "fought", "known", etc in there too. I figured "met" was a good way to covering all my bases.
Meanwhile the English zeroes right in on the sex. It's not strictly correct, since Mary doesn't particularly give her opinion about Terry's enthusiasm in Japanese, but we all know she's not disapproving. Still, the English is...spiced up.
I keep wondering if this was just a particular hobby-horse of the editor and it got flogged enough to become canon...
vs Andy
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Hehehe...that cool mask of yours slipped. | You're as cool as bell-bottoms! |
Well..."cool" is in there.
In Japanese, Mary is implying that something happened in/after the fight to make Andy lose his cool. Probably getting beat. Meanwhile in English she breaks out one of the most savage disses I've seen in this entire project. I'm in awe. Can you imagine even trying to recover from that?!
...well, all jokes aside, I guess you could make the argument that Andy's mask slipping means he lost his temper and...no, doesn't work, this is just plain wacky.
vs Joe
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Wild is all well and good, but crude, well.... | I like wild guys , not gross ones! |
This is pretty good for the character limits! Mary doesn't strictly say she likes wild guys, but you gotta save where you can. The English gets across the main feeling of the line just fine, so I'm inclined to view it as a success.
vs Mai
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Come on now, dry those tears. A smile suits you much better. | Please , no tears. Just laugh it off! |
The meaning is roughly the same, but the tone is off. Mary in general sounds like a responsible big sister type, which pretty much always gets destroyed in the translation. So in Japanese she sounds quite a bit nicer to Mai than she does in English.
vs Duck
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| You're a funky guy. I like that. | You're funky. I like you! |
Funky!
Not much to say about this one.
vs Billy
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| That was close. You're Geese's right hand man all right. | Geese's thugs are sure tough! |
The dark spectre of character limits strikes again. Billy gets demoted from being Geese's right hand man to just being a thug, and you debatably lose Mary saying it was close. The general idea is there, but the specifics are lost.
vs Geese
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| I sense you have the appeal of a villain... | I sense true evil in your bones! |
I struggled with this one. What Mary says she feels from Geese is "the aesthetics of evil", which when I looked up, had a bunch of anime nerd pages talking about how a lot of the time the villain is cooler than the hero. This is kind of hard to reduce into a quick win quote, but I went with "the appeal of a villain". It still feels a little weird, but it's a weird line.
The official translation dropped this and had Mary say that she can sense Geese's true evil. I can't really fault them, and this is one of the times where I wonder if I'm misinterpreting things...
vs Krauser
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Your overconfidence is your weakness. | You're far too over confident! |
This, on the other hand, is completely straightforward. SNK and I agree on what's being said, the difference is in how we phrased it.
vs Laurence
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Blood doesn't suit a dandy like you. | Blood does not match your clothes. |
Dandies care about their clothes, blood doesn't suit dandies, blood doesn't suit a dandy's clothes. Makes sense. I suppose it's possible that someone didn't think American kids would know what "dandy" means. (I did, but I was too busy reading to go to arcades anyway)
vs the Jin brothers
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| I well understand wanting to push yourself, but... | You're good , but come on! |
I don't understand what the English line is going for.
The Japanese is pretty straightforward: Mary sees the Jins trying too hard and counsels them against it. A cute bit that doesn't come across in translation is the phrase she uses for "pushing yourself" means "stretching to be taller". Imagine the Jins and Mary all stretching themselves to the utmost to look taller. (and yes, this could all be a height thing)
Meanwhile, the English is more generic and also more obscure. It sounds like maybe she's trying to encourage the Jins to work harder? I'm not sure. It's not what the Japanese line said, not even close, which is kind of odd in this game.
vs Hon Fu
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| You're not suited to being a cop. | That's your best? Go home , cop! |
There's a subtle difference here, where in Japanese Mary is saying that Hon Fu isn't good enough to be a police officer, and in English she's just saying he's not good enough, and that he's a cop. Two separate statements, instead of one.
Of course, the resulting English line ends up completely different from the Japanese, but such is SNK.
vs Yamazaki
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| How a human can become such a demon...? | You are one tough devil! |
She does actually say "devil" in Japanese, but that really didn't sound right the way I phrased the line.
The big difference here is that in Japanese, Mary is commenting on how much Yamazaki is a freaky demon man (while KOF97 was being worked on...), while in English it's more of a generic commentary on Yamazaki being strong. "[O]ne tough devil" isn't an unknown phrasing in English, but it usually just means "super tough". In Japanese it sounds more like Mary is commenting on violence, ruthlessness, etc.
vs Mary
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Sorry, but I just don't think your sambo has any style. | You just ain't got what it takes! |
Close, but Japanese Mary is specifically saying 2P's fighting doesn't have style or flair (which is why she didn't win) instead of a more generic "not good enough". It's a subtle difference, but it's there.
She also sounds much more aggressive in English, as usual.
vs Cheng
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Whoa, you're so sweaty. Should I wipe it off for you? | Let me wipe your sweat , pal. |
...huh.
Gotta admit, I wasn't expecting this one to be accurate.
The English is cut down for character limits, but yeah, that's roughly what she's saying. Huh.
vs EX Mary
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Seems like you're better at submission. | You're good at submission. |
Screenshot thanks to Rage Quitter 87. Thank you!
I still can't capture EX wins, sorry.
The minor difference here is that Japanese Mary says that EX Mary is better at submission (presumably in contrast to regular Mary) while English Mary says it as a straight fact with no comparison around.
vs others
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Hehehe...you've fallen right into my trap. | Heh ,heh , Fallen right into my trap! |
There's a few typos but...yeah, this is pretty straight. Not much to say here.