China Team
Athena's name is magic.
Story
Rugal Mid-Story
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Humph...they're just a bunch of selfless do-gooders. I hate those. Well, if they somehow make it all the way to the championship, I'll show them exactly how worthless those values really are...hahahahaha! | Humph... These guys are not fighting for personal profit. The type I hate most. If they can win through the battles, I'll tell them how their belief is rubbish. Ha ha ha! |
"[N]ot fighting for personal profit" is basically being a selfless do-gooder, right? Right?
The main difference that's not me flexing my SNK muscles (since SNK isn't here to do it for me) is that Rugal's going to tell the China Team their values suck in the official translation. That's not a bad translation, since the word means tell/teach, but I figured that since he's going to be beating them up instead of just lecturing them, it needed a stronger verb.
Before Rugal
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Secretary: Congratulations on your victory. The tournament sponsor will certainly want to meet with you all. Please, come with me. | Secretary: Congratulations on your victory! The sponsor of the tournament welcomes you with open arms. He wishes to invite you... Please, follow me. |
| Rugal: Welcome to my gallery. | Rugal: Welcome to my museum. |
| Chin: Ngggh! Such an evil aura! | Chin: Mmm...I feel evil spirits! |
| Rugal: My name is Rugal. I was the one who sponsored this tournament. It's sudden, but I'd like to challenge you now. And if I win, you'll be added to my collection. | Rugal: My name is Rugal. I'm the host of the tournament. I'd like you to fight against me now. And if I win, you will join my collection. |
| Kensou: Collection?! | Kensou: Collection? |
| Rugal: Look around you! Those are the figures of the martial artists I have defeated up until now. Well? Aren't they lovely?! | Rugal: Look at the statues around you! These are the fighters that I have beaten! Aren't they wonderful! |
| Athena: How....how awful! | Athena: How horrible! |
| Rugal: Oh, you'll be among them soon enough. Now, let me invite you to the battle stage... | Rugal: Hm..you'll join them soon. Shall I invite you to the battle stage? |
Chin's line in English sounds like it could mean there are evil spirits just hanging around in general, but he's more saying that he can feel Rugal being evil as soon as they meet.
Other than that, this is pretty much identical. It's a pretty straightforward scene.
Mid-fight
Rugal ripping his shirt off is the same for all characters, so it's on his page.
After Rugal
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Rugal: I-impossible! That I should be defeated-! | Rugal: I...impossible! How could I lose a battle.....!! |
| Chin: Evil is forever destined to perish! | Chin: Evil is destined to die out! |
| Rugal: Fool! Evil will never perish so as long as humans exist in this world! Naturally, neither will I...Farewell! | Rugal: Ha...rubbish! Evil never dies out as long as human beings are on the Earth! Neither will I! Farewell! |
| Kensou: Watch it! Time to run! | Kensou: Jesus! Let's get out of here! |
I just generally translated in a somewhat higher register than the official translators. It is interesting that in the Japanese Rugal seems to have identified so hard with evil that he thinks it's natural to declare himself immortal as long as evil exists.
And Kensou...look, you can say anything you want in the arcade.
Ending
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Athena: Master, what he said... | Athena: Master, was what he said.... |
| Chin: Well, he may have been right after all. But if there will always be evil, then conversely there will always be people like us to fight it. Understand? | Chin: Yes, what he said my be true, indeed. But, as long as evil exists, fighters like us should exist, too. You know what I mean.... |
| Athena: ...yes! | Athena: .....yes! |
| Kensou: Aaah, geez! Master, Athena, we just became the world champions, remember? Let's blow this popsicle stand and head home! | Kensou: My goodness!! Master! Athena! We are now No.1 in the world! Let's go home quickly and have a celebration! |
| Athena: Oh Kensou. You never change. | Athena: Kensou! |
| Chin: Ah well, I've been missing my old lady's cooking too! | Chin: Yeah, I miss my old dame's cooking! |
| Kensou: That's the spirit! Homeward bound! | Kensou: Yeah! Let's go home! |
It's a little more obvious that Chin is saying that there will always be people fighting for good as long as evil exists in Japanese. It makes sense in English, but he could be talking about psychic fighters or kenpo users or something...but he means people who fight evil. "You know what I mean..." is a surprisingly long-winded thing to put in there, considering the character limits.
"My goodness" is also a very strange choice. As usual, I can only assume they had no idea what character was saying the line. As for my choice of "let's blow this popsicle stand"...look, Kensou's a dork, okay?
Athena is less scolding Kensou for telling them to celebrate and more sighing and shaking her head.
The rest is fairly minor.
Win Quotes
Athena
| Team | My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|---|
| America | Martial arts aren't just about power, you know. Better remember that in the future! | You stink of sweat! |
| Brazil | A life of nothing but battle is no way to live. Why not take this opportunity to rethink your choices? | Life is more than fighting! |
| China | Just imitating others is no way to become strong! Next time, fight with your own strength, okay? | Never impersonate us again! |
| England | Sorry, but I'm the original SNK heroine... | I'm sorry, sisters. |
| Italy | You're all as cool as I heard! But we still won this time! | You should at least defeat us! |
| Japan | Fighting you all made me miss Japan! | We were lucky this time. |
| Korea | Wow, what a cool team! But isn't the balance a bit off? | The team is not well-balanced. |
| Mexico | You're just as strong and tough as I heard! Do you want to fight again sometime? | You rely on power too much! |
I have no idea what's going on with half of these.
Athena's riff on the usual skill > power lecture to the America Team turns into ragging on them for being sweaty, the "you're famous!" compliments to Italy Team turn into a weird put-down of both teams, a reminder that Athena's Japanese against Japan Team turns into a more standard quote, and compliments to the Mexico Team turn into scolding. It's very odd, and really out of character for the usually straightforward KoF94. It's enough to make me wonder if I'm misreading something.
Kishi does point out that it makes more sense if you flip the English America and Mexico quotes, but that doesn't work for any of the others.
A couple of other notes: Athena's quote against England sounds like girl power solidarity in English, but it's actually about her seniority in the SNK heroine ranks. As for Korea, I guess the balance is in terms of justice/heroism/Kim isn't a criminal like Chang and Choi. It's interesting that she thinks the team is cool either way.
Overall, very mysterious. I really have no idea how the weird quotes happened unless the editor did one quick sweep and only really hit Athena...but the lines just aren't wacky enough for it to be the editor. (okay, maybe vs America) They read like straight and direct translations of completely different lines. Odd.
Kensou
| Team | My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|---|
| America | I guess this is just how far you can get with sports. Sucks to be you. | Is this the limit of sports? |
| Brazil | Don't get bummed out, we're just too strong! | Don't worry! We are too strong! |
| China | All right! You totally get we're the real ones now, don't ya? | See? We are the real fighters! |
| England | You're all cute and all, but Athena's just that little bit cuter! | Beauty is nothing in a fight! |
| Italy | You might be famous, but we're the veterans here! | You are famous, but so am I! |
| Japan | That was a good fight! Now, before we go at it again, get stronger! | Good fight! Let us do it again! |
| Korea | Weak! I thought you were a pretty great team at first, but appearances are only skin deep! | You aren't as strong as you look! |
| Mexico | Seems the rumors about you were just that. I shouldn't have got my hopes up! | Your reputation is not true! |
Kishi got Mexico here.
Kensou's lines are more in-line with what we expect out of KoF94. The odd one out is the line against England, which...yeah, I got nothing. It again sounds like they translated someone else's line, but I'm not sure whose.
The rest are just cut down and stilted like usual. (or are they a bit more stilted?) One little bit of flavor that was cut is Kensou ragging on Italy Team with his seniority in the SNK hero ranks. It's too bad, because it's a cute joke. On the other hand, I can see someone not entirely familiar with SNK's history translating it out because it doesn't make a lot of sense on its own.
Kensou speaks with a Kansai accent in Japanese, much like Robert, but like Robert, since SNK has never bothered trying to render it in English I'm not going to either.
Chin
| Team | My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|---|
| America | You lost against this old geezer? That's pathetic. | You were beaten by an old man! |
| Brazil | Want a sip? They say a good drink will cure whatever ails you! Or at least it won't kill you! | Sake is the best! Want some? |
| China | Right, so which one of you is the drunk? Huh? Wait, is it me? | I won the drinking battle, too. |
| England | Oh damn...now my old lady's gonna give me a tongue-lashing. | My wife will scold me again! |
| Italy | For Tung's disciples, you're pretty lacking. Train harder! | You need more training! |
| Japan | Sorry 'bout that. I get stronger the more I drink. | I'm stronger when I'm drunk! |
| Korea | You can become my disciples if you like. First up: mahjongg practice. | Want to be my student? |
| Mexico | Ah, you need to take better care of yourself in your old age! | I am too old for this. |
Hey, did you know Chin is a drunk?
Most of these are typical for KoF94. They're cut down and lose the funnier jokes, but there's a direct line from A to B. The changes to the line against China Team are actually pretty clever - instead of joking about who's the drunk, Chin says he won the drinking contest. The same sort of idea, but in a much shorter line.
I'm sad the bit implying that Chin knows Tung was cut from the Italy Team line, since I think it's really funny how all the SNK old men know each other. Also makes up for Chin not being able to make Psycho Soldier jokes like Athena and Kensou.
The Mexico line might need a bit more explanation. In Japanese, Chin uses a typical phrase telling old people to act their age/not exert themselves. I'm pretty sure the joke is that he's telling Takuma that when he's obviously much older. But since you can drop the subject in Japanese, the translator assumed he was talking about himself. Oh well?