Charlotte
She's in love with Haohmaru now?
Challenges
vs self
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Those clothes, that sword, that appearance! I will force you to cease your imitation immediately! | You imitate my distinguished family. I never forgive you. |
Roughly the same in intent, but very different in the specifics.
The English line cuts out 2P listing all the ways she and 1P are the same, which is too bad; it's a nice touch. Instead, the English line makes it sound like 1P is imitating all of Charlotte's family, which is a strange way to put it. It does fit in with Charlotte's preoccupation with the family name, but it's weird.
Where the Japanese 2P is going to force the imitator to stop, English 2P will never forgive them. Which is another strange note - "I'll never forgive you" is one of the stereotypical anime cliches that don't entirely work in English, but the problem is usually a too-literal translation from the Japanese. Here, it's entirely made up!
This isn't the first time SNK's added in a lack of forgiveness: check out Ryo in Art of Fighting 2, Geese in Fatal Fury 3, and Tung in Real Bout Fatal Fury Special
vs others
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| One like you cannot halt the awakened lion's charge. | To protect the honor of my family, I'll never lose! |
The Japanese has a callback to Charlotte describing herself as a lion, seen in the previous game. Even more specifically, she's an awakened lion in both cases. It's a neat bit of continuity.
The English drops this like it was dropped in the previous game, and instead it's about protecting the honor of her family, which yeah, Charlotte does that too. This feels more like a case where a new line was entirely made up for English than it being a translation of the Japanese, but it's a little harder to tell when none of Charlotte's lion references ever made it to English.
Win Quotes
vs self
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| A fake is a fake, after all. It cannot hope to match the original in power! Ha! | Protecting the pride of my family means all to me!! |
These both feel like they're playing off the self challenge quote of their respective languages, which is a nice touch. It's a bit of a pity that English Charlotte's thing about the honor of her family is getting from "preoccupation" to "complex".
In Japanese, the winning Charlotte re-emphasises that she's the original (and presumably has stopped the imitation by force). In English, she's protected the honor of her family. Good job?
They don't have much to do with each other, but it's good they followed from the quote a player would've seen. SNK hasn't always done that.
win with killing blow
| My translation |
|---|
| I do not have the time to spar with you when a monster threatens to destroy the entire world! |
| Ha! Too weak! |
In my best guess, neither of these got selected for translation...but as usual for SamSho2, I can't actually tell because as you'll see, the one English line isn't much of a translation. Well, I'm going to treat them like they were cut in English.
The first line is pretty neat, with Charlotte focusing on the greater mission. It fits in with her story and shows some extra awareness of the stakes.
The second line is pretty generic. Not much to say there.
win otherwise
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Ha! You are no match for me! | In France, there's no impolite person like you! It's reasonable I win!! |
The Japanese line is pretty generic. (and it seems like Charlotte has a lot of "Ha!"s this time...) The English goes pretty wild. I didn't realise that one's politeness was directly tied to one's swordsmanship.
This feels like (another) case of the English line not being so much of a translation as a completely new line that fits the character. So, just completely made up.
Story
Opening
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Time flowed on after the Shimabara incident, but the storm clouds once more begin to gather... | Time has passed since the last trouble. New battles are going to start, now again. |
| Charlotte: Impossible...he has been resurrected? | Charlotte: Has the evil king returned back? |
The first line is the same for everyone. Find details on Haohmaru's page.
Charlotte is a bit more vague about who has been resurrected in Japanese. It could be Amakusa, which would fit in with the game trying to fake the player out about him being the villain again. "The evil king" is what SamSho2 uses to refer to Ambrosia, which while it could mislead a first-time player, doesn't have quite the same feel. Then again, Charlotte always knew about Ambrosia, so I might be overthinking this.
I kind of stopped picking on grammar for SamSho2, but "returned back" sure is a phrase.
Stage 3
On Mizuki's page.
Stage 6
On Mizuki's page.
Stage 8
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Charlotte: Ambrosia! Demon king! Where are you?! | Charlotte: The evil king! Where're you, devil! |
| Kuroko: It's all right, everything's okay! Believe in yourself and go! | Kuroko: Don't worry, believe you! |
| Charlotte: A Japanese person...? What a strange man. | Charlotte: Japanese!? |
Charlotte is specific about looking for Ambrosia in Japanese, the English drops that. "Where're" looks extremely silly, but I suppose it's valid and you have to make those character limits somehow...especially with adding in "devil". But that's appropriate to the circumstances, so I can't really complain. I suppose you can read it as a way of translating "demon king".
Kuroko's line is standard, temporarily check it out on Hanzo's page.
Charlotte is confused about Kuroko in both langauges, but whereas the Japanese feels like it's another way of saying Kuroko isn't entirely human, the English makes it feel like she's surprised to meet a Japanese person...in a game where most of the characters and stages are Japanese.
Stage 11
On Mizuki's page.
Stage 12
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Charlotte: Demon king Ambrosia, now you will vanish into the darkness! | Charlotte: Get out of my sight, the evil king! |
| Rakiki-useless! Useless!-kikiki! Nkikira-I'll eat you all! | You, impertinent small fry, I'll eat, eat you all! |
| Charlotte: Ha! | Charlotte: Ha! |
The English keeps cutting Ambrosia's actual name. I'm not sure how anyone figured out the hierarchy of villains in this game at the time (if they even did). There's also a difference between Charlotte telling Ambrosia to "vanish into the darkness" and to "get out of my sight" - one implies Charlotte is going to banish him for a very long time, the other is more like a warning. It's a bit punched down, you might say.
Mizuki's line is the same for everyone, so check out Haohmaru's page.
The final line... Ha!
Ending
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Charlotte: This should also save my own homeland. | Charlotte: My motherland is saved. |
| Charlotte: What is it, Pierre? | Charlotte: What's wrong, Pierre? |
| Charlotte: Hm? That's-! | Charlotte: Hey! He is... |
| Oshizu: Haohmaru-sama~! | Oshizu: Haohmaru! |
| Charlotte: Haoh- | Charlotte: Haoh... |
| Oshizu: Haohmaru-sama! Are you all right? | Oshizu: Haohmaru! Are you ok? |
| Charlotte: I am not yet strong enough... I must train myself more...mustn't I. | Charlotte: Love makes me uneasy. I have to...train myself more... |
Charlotte is a bit more expansive in Japanese: this will also save France. She saved the world, but the real goal was saving France. The English makes it sound like saving France was the only outcome.
The next...five lines are all just slightly different phrasing. The official translation is usually a bit more stilted ("Hey! He is...") or informal ("are you ok?") but it's all similar enough that the attentive reader can see what's happening on their own.
The last line is pretty different, but it all comes from the same source. The reason is that Charlotte is vague in Japanese! Hyper-literally she says "I am still..." and leaves off the rest. What is she missing? Since she next talks about the need for training, I decided to play on the concepts of physical vs emotional strength and have her say she's not strong enough. The official translation went a bit further and had her directly say that love makes her "uneasy", making it entirely emotional. I don't think that's wrong, just that it feels more direct than I'd like to get considering the vagueness of the Japanese (and it sounds plain goofy in English).
Either way, she thinks she needs to train herself more. She adds a sort of "that's right" sentence ender in Japanese, so I turned it into a rhetorical question, but the official translation is perfectly valid.