What Masahiro Sakurai Says in an Old Super Smash Bros. Update

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I seem to be answering a lot of questions from NES Boy lately, so let’s take a look at another one that I’ve been meaning to get to for a while! This one’s about Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Mato, I’ve got a question. Back when Smash Bros. Dojo was seeing regular updates during Brawl’s development, Masahiro Sakurai posted an update for Kirby’s Final Smash. The English version seems to have nothing out of the ordinary, but the Japanese version had an extra bit involving the “Shaberu! DS Cooking Navi” song (based on a game that was eventually localized as Personal Trainer: Cooking, followed up with America’s Test Kitchen ・which had nothing to do with the show, and I’m not entirely sure if the recipes are the same or different from Personal Trainer: Cooking).

The song is still in the localized versions of Brawl, so there’s no excuse for its absence in the translated version of the Dojo. So what was Sakurai saying about the song?

Okay, here’s a look at the two articles in question – the bottom part of the article is what NES Boy is curious about:

Sakuraiiiiii is the new AdriaaaanSakuraiiiiii is the new Adriaaaan

And, as we can see, the Japanese page has some stuff at the bottom that the North American page doesn’t have. So the question is, what is the game’s creator saying here?

It’s pretty simple – the extra part at the bottom of the Japanese says something like:

Incidentally, although this isn’t exactly related, this wonderful song has been prepared too.

<Shaberu! DS Cooking Navi>
(0:56)

<Composed and arranged by Toshiyuki Sudo>
* The creative rights to this work of music belong to Nintendo
* Please check your audio’s volume beforehand

Wow, that’s great! That’s something only the original developer could’ve pulled off.

Makes you want to make some nikujaga too, doesn’t it?

The game that Sakurai references here is the first in a line of Japanese cooking games. It apparently didn’t get released in English, although some later entries in the series did… or something like that.

I SMELL FAN TRANSLATION

So basically Sakurai is just showcasing the cooking song remix that’s in the game, and I’m guessing that this was removed from the English page because this particular cooking game/software wasn’t released outside of Japan. Yet, even though it wasn’t mentioned on the English page, the song remained intact in versions of Super Smash Bros. Brawl outside of Japan, which is kind of neat. Here’s the song in question, if you’re curious:

Anyway, even though this Smash Bros. update difference isn’t a super-huge revelation or anything, it does show that the Smash Bros. site updates aren’t always 100% the same in each region. And since there are lots of Smash Bros. Wii U site updates going on all the time right now, it might be good to check the original Japanese pages too – maybe there’ll be more extra tidbits in some of them!

Update: ILDC asked for a translation of the lyrics in the Cooking Navi song, so here you go!
Japanese Version (basic translation)English Version
さあ、大乱闘いたしましょうAll right, let’s have a brawl!
まず肉をよく叩いてください ハイッFirst, firmly pound the meat. Okay!
次に残りをみじん切りにします ハイッNext, make mincemeat out of the rest. Okay!
慌てて落ちないように注意しましょう ハイッBe careful not to rush and fall. Okay!
最後に焼き色が付くまでよく焼いて仕上げますFinally, cook until golden brown, then serve.

The lines are meant to sound like a recipe while also talking about beating up opponents in the game. Neat!

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11 Comments
  1. The first game was localized as Personal Trainer: Cooking though, wasn’t it?

    1. I think the Wikipedia article mentions that the game we got was a later entry about global cuisine. As I know nooooothing about these games (they’re not even games I assume?) I’ll just have to nod my head and pretend I know what’s going on.

      1. “Game” might be a stretch yeah, they’re more like basic cooking simulations.

  2. You think you can translate all the DS Chef’s lines in the song, Mato?

      1. I’m already imaging those lines spoken in the official English voice.

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15Kibn6o5Gw

  3. “it does show that the Smash Bros. site updates aren’t always 100% the same in each region.”

    There are actually a sizable number of differences between the UK and NA versions of the Dojo. Most are the same, so it isn’t a translation thing, but there is stuff like this (the only one I recall off the top of my head)

    http://www.smashbros.com/wii/en_u/gamemode/various/various13.html
    US: “If you brawl for a long time, there is one thing you will definitely start to think: “What can I do that will help me be able to win?””

    VS.

    http://www.smashbros.com/wii/en_uk/gamemode/various/various13.html
    “If you brawl for a long time, there is one thing you will definitely start to think: “What can I do to polish up my skills?””

    (The original is at http://www.smashbros.com/wii/en_uk/gamemode/various/various13.html . I can pick out enough to tell it’s talking about how to obtain victory, so the NA version is the more accurate of the two)

    1. Whoops, original is at wii/jp/gamemode

  4. On a related note, the URL for Rosalina’s profile (such as it is) is http://www.smashbros.com/us/characters/rosetta.html — her name is given as “Rosetta,” as it is in Japan. All the copy refers to her as Rosalina, but the URL doesn’t.

    Not going anywhere with this; just a curious note. All the other characters have their English names in their profile URLs.

  5. Only semi-related, but if you play the Japanese version of this 料理ナビ cooking software you’ll notice in the settings that there are a number of options for how the synthesised chef’s voice will sound. There’s male, female, robot and so on, each with an icon to illustrate how it would sound. Well, one of them is called 外国人 (foreigner but basically westerner). The icon for this option is a face with a big pointy nose in the style of typical Japanese representations of (typically Caucasian) westerners, and it changes how the voice emphasises syllables in Japanese in a manner which sounds to Japanese ears like a westerner who can’t speak Japanese properly, as they would tend to lengthen vowels in ways that make it sound strange. For example:

    玉ねぎをみじん切りにします。

    might sound like this with the 外国人 option:

    たまねーぎをみじーんぎりにじまーす。

    I lived in Japan at the time this title was released and when I bought it and found this xenophobic little feature, I wrote a letter of complaint to NCL. I probably milked it a bit by saying that it was very sad that in a game which might be played with parents together with their children in order to learn cooking, that such a stereotypical image of foreigners was used. I got a reply apologising and saying they didn’t intend any offence.

    1. It seems like a reasonable complaint. I think if we had something like that here but it replaced all the ls with rs it’d get some people upset. It seems to be more acceptable over there, though.