Tuesday 20 August 2013

Why Guile's Theme Goes With Everything: Part 2

So I realised that the first part of the interview translation is not directly related to Guile.  Neither is this part.  Apologies for the misleading title but I like a nice SF meme.  This second part goes into detail about the name changes that occurred with (three of) the final four bosses, and is what I referenced way back in this post.  As far as I'm concerned, this is the interesting stuff!  There is also some background on Abe as he gives us a few tidbits on his formative years at Capcom, and Takano shows just how much of an SF nerd he really is.


In terms of the translation, I'm generally happy, but there are a couple of places where I didn't fully comprehend what was being said, particularly the last section where they start talking about Chun-Li.  Despite asking people for help, some of it still escapes me.  If anyone is able to give me a clue or help me out, I'd greatly appreciate it!

Particular difficulty was with the title, if that's what you can call it (dratted 先輩), and this short bit: 鉢巻まいてテコしてるんで、あきらかにサクラだったんですよ。 The thing that really trips me up is "テコしてる".  I can't find anything concrete as to what this means in Japanese or English anywhere.

While the first part is a nice lead in to SF history, I think this second part has much more going for it in terms of getting to know the interviewees, and, of course, details about the localisation.  Original to be found here.

Two people did the sound production...?
Abe That's right.  I think I joined around June or July.
Komio Which songs did you produce?
Abe I did "Sagat's Theme" and "A Challenger Appears", and… ummmm… that's it I think.
Takano And the "VS Screen".
Abe Oh yeah.
Komio Is the other person who was involved with the sound production at the time still around? 
Abe Not anymore.  I wonder if we could give him a call, get him to come down!  Seriously though, the guy who created the soundtrack had left by the time I was in my second year.
Komio Really?!
Abe His name's Shitamura.  We were the only people in charge of the sound production at the time, and all the music and sound effects were all done by him and I.  Shitamura did most of it, and I worked under him.
Komio You did production only for the songs?
Abe At that time, I was just on songs.
Komio It's unbelievable it was all done by only two people.
Abe Yep, just the two of us.  We actually made a lot more tracks and selected from them the ones that you can hear in the game.
Komio I wish I could have a listen.
Takano Oyaji wanted be told in his first year that he'd done a good job!
Abe I made a lot of tracks for the latter half of the game; For Bison's stage, for example.
Takano Balrog, Vega, and so on.
Komio …Sorry, I don't know what your talking about.  Ah, actually, maybe I've heard of Balrog…
Takano That's the name of the boss character.
Balrog is the one that goes, "Hyooooo".
Abe He's tough!  I thought Street Fighter was something everyone would know about.
Takano {Laughs}
Abe Well, did you know that overseas Vega and Bison's names were switched around?  A lot of things came to light during our meetings.
Komio Ah!  That rings a bell.
Abe, Takano {Laugh}
Takano Well, Bison was modelled on (Mike) Tyson and if we'd have stuck with the name Bison, it could have been considered as an infringement on Mike Tyson's image rights, so we changed his name to Balrog, and Balrog became Vega.
I think I'm right in saying Vega is in the consellation Lyra.  So, we though that the Japanese players would think it really cool if the last boss was called Vega, but the guy in overseas marketing said it sounded "feminine".
Komio Oh.
Takano And we changed Vega to the more neutral-sounding Balrog.
Sagat had already appeared in Street Fighter 1, so we couldn't change the name there, and we went with General Bison as the name of the last boss.
Komio That's complicated, isn't it.
Takano {Chuckles}
Abe He was also called General Bison in the movie.
Takano By the way, was there a lot excitement within the company when you found out your game was going to be changed into a Hollywood movie?
Abe Hmmm…  We weren't especially excited.  Around that time in Japan, Street Fighter III's popularity was kind of petering out.  Within the company there was a strong feeling of "So were still doing this?"
Takano Oh right.
Komio But, when you look at foreign TV and movies, weren't there a lot of Street Fighter-esque things coming out?
Abe At the time?
Komio Yes.  There was a Hong Kong movie.  The main character was a bit like Chun-Li.  I can't remember any other films in particular, but in one scene where a child is playing a game and his mother's angry at him, the game he's playing is Street Fighter.
Takano Oh really?
Abe Since you say that, there was a drama, that nobody will remember, that had someone dressed up like Chun Li.
Takano What?  Seriously?
Abe Yeah.  Something Cosplay something…
Takano Wasn't that Sakura?  It made the headline in a tabloid.  High School Girl Cosplay, or something like that; A headline that anyone would get.  She had a headband and had a really girly look.  It was clearly Sakura.
Komio Wow, did that really happen?


kreeb

Part 3 here.

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