Charlotte
What if we just put Lady Oscar into our game?
Challenges
vs self
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| You dare borrow the name of an ancient and noble family? This I shall not forgive! | You dare confront me? Plucky. You are, but, sadly, dead. |
Well...
Yeah, this was completely rewritten. And made much more generic in the process. Pity.
I'm overwhelmed by the sheer number of commas in that third sentence, especially when you consider that "Plucky" was probably supposed to have a comma after it too. The interesting thing is that none of them are wrong in usage. Just...probably could've rephrased to save on some character space there.
vs others
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Regret your foolish awakening of this sleeping lion in the afterlife. | All warriors are not called "sir." Twit! |
| That is your style of swordsmanship? No matter. Show me what you have regardless. | Don't ever talk about my breastplate again! |
Yeah, these got completely rewritten, and as of such, I can't even be sure that they've been matched up correctly. None of the English lines have anything to do with the Japanese.
Though there is one possible connection. In the second line, Charlotte describes her opponent's sword/swordsmanship as "rude" or "insolent". You could say that making comments about her breastplate is rude, so...possibly the editor just took a famous leap of imagination?
That's a very thin line to try and hang this on, and I'm not going to do it seriously. But it's the one thing that I could think of.
Charlotte describes herself as a lion multiple times in Japanese. It never got into English. It will be interesting to see if she keeps doing that in the future.
Win Quotes
vs self
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| I will never fail in protecting the honor of my house! It is my raison de'etre! | Protecting the honor of my family is my bread and brie... |
Okay, see, this is a translation. An SNK translation, but a translation. Charlotte sees protecting the honor of her family as basic and fundamental, and this gets across fine in English.
In a distinctly goofy way, sure, but hey! At least it's there!
Win with killing normal
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| For so long as I bear the emblem of my noble house, I cannot lose. | A woman of my breeding cannot lose. |
The English is a bit simplified, but the basic idea is still there. Charlotte can't lose with her noble house/breeding behind her, yep yep. The English line isn't even particularly goofy, which is honestly remarkable.
Win with special move
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| A lion that breaks chains and runs towards freedom. That is I! | I live to break the grip of tyrants and enslave my enemies. |
Okay, this is...a bit off. A bit.
In Japanese, we have the second time Charlotte calls herself a lion, and establishes her ideals. In English, the lion is dropped and her ideals get a bit...garbled. "[B]reak the grip of tyrants", fine, but I'm not sure where "enslave my enemies" came from besides "the editor".
Still, there is a connecting thread here that's easy to see. Just a bit, well...SNK.
Win otherwise
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| The outcome of this match was decided within my heart. Farewell until we meet again. | Au revoir,petit chou. For I will seize victory from vous. |
By the way, did you know Charlotte is French.
Once again, there's a connecting thread here, but it's gone goofy. It's odd that Charlotte says "I will seize victory" in English, considering that this is a win quote. She's already won! Weird. It also drops the whole "within my heart" thing, which I think might be a way of saying "I don't need to kill you because I already decided I won", but not 100% sure.
I read over this multiple times before finally noticing that "chou" isn't the Japanese word for butterfly. It's the French word for cabbage. Charlotte is calling her opponent a little cabbage. Also, I wildly embarrassed myself in France when I was trying to get a picture by a butterfly statute but could not remember the French word for it and I only just realised this now.
Incidentally, "vous" is the formal French second-person pronoun, cognate to English "you". Appropriate for an opponent, I suppose.
Clear
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| A beautiful woman's equally beautiful swordplay. Is that not pleasing? | A fablous babe with unbeatable moves. I am magunifique. |
Technically accurate, yet wildly goofy. The essence of SNK.
I think the tonal contrast between "fablous babe" and "magunifique" is what really sells it.
Story
Stage 4
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Charlotte: This one's no good either... | Charlotte: He's finished. |
| Charlotte: ! | Charlotte: ! |
| Charlotte: What-! | Charlotte: What is this...! |
| Amakusa: Kukuku... Behold, I am the vengeful spirit of Amakusa. Now, cry and plead unto the dark god! | Amakusa: Call me Amakusa, Amakusa! |
| Charlotte: Ambrosia's-?! | Charlotte: Ambrosia |
| Amakusa: Kukuku....Already your country has fallen under the sway of my dark god. Now, you as well shall bend your knee to Ambrosia! | Amakusa: Heh,heh, the dark guy rules your puny land. Join me,and rule together. |
| Charlotte: Silence! I will never bow to the devil bringing suffering to my countrymen! | Charlotte: Silence. Taste the fury of my wrath. |
| Amakusa: Heheheh...then prepare yourself for death! | Amakusa: Then die,you crazy funster! |
| Charlotte: God grant me strength! | Charlotte: Geez. You stink! |
The idea is that Charlotte is looking for strong opponents to fight, I think. Or at least that would make sense with her line in the ending. Anyway, she's disappointed by her opponents.
What's interesting here is that she actually knows about Ambrosia ahead of time, and recognizes Amakusa as a subordinate. This is made explicit in her backstory, which of course was not translated for English-speaking audiences. So in English it sounds more like she just calls Amakusa by the wrong name right after he introduces himself.
Both the English and the Japanese have Ambrosia being responsible for the er, century or so of financial mismanagement that ultimately led to the revolution, but the English adds some confusion when Amakusa offers to let Charlotte rule with him. Doesn't make a lot of sense if it's Ambrosia ruling France, but oh well. In Japanese he just tells her to swear to serve Ambrosia, as is standard.
The translation also significantly cuts down Charlotte's reply, but they really didn't have a lot of choice there. It at least makes some amount of sense from the previous line and isn't too terrible a way of handling that vicious character limit.
...but there's no easy explanation for the last line. In Japanese it's a very straightforward and easy phrase, and then the English just...throws that out. I guess they were a bit nervous about saying "God" for whatever reason and just replaced the whole line with a rather weak insult.
Ending
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Charlotte: The blades of the Far East did not live up to their reputation. | Charlotte: Far East tour... What a letdown. |
| Charlotte: Pierre! What is it? | Charlotte: Pierre! What is it? |
| Charlotte: Hm? What's this...a revolution in France?! | Charlotte: Well, uh... The revolution! |
| Charlotte: This must not fail. I should guide the people! | Charlotte: I will lead the proles! |
| Noble: I alone am more than enough for you rabble! | Noble: Desist, all! Go back to your huts. |
| Noble: !! | Noble !! |
| People: Charlotte! | People: Charlotte! |
| Charlotte: The enemy is in front of you! Now, forward! | Charlotte: We face the enemy! Forward! |
| People: *shouts of approval* | People: Waah. |
The first line in English loses some specificity: Charlotte is disappointed by the quality of her opponents, not the sights or the food or anything like that. "Letdown" is also a very modern turn of phrase here.
Another point is that Japanese Charlotte is surprised there's a revolution going on in her homeland, while English Charlotte seems to already know about it. No one is interested in my rant about how the use of "proles" here is anachronistic, so I'll skip it, (Marx wasn't even borrrrrrrrrrn!) but I will note that it's a cute way of shortening the phrase in English. Even if they didn't really need to.
The noble's line is significantly changed, from a boast to a command. It has the same attitude, though.
I did cheat a little with the last line, but lines like that really do work so much better in Japanese. As you can see, when SNK decided to just run with it.
Anyway, let's leave it there and not talk about the Terror and Napoleon and the Bourbon Restoration etc.