Considering I was requested to translate things and said I’d do so in my last comment, I’ll be handling that now. Rather than just look at the three scans being discussed already, I decided it would be best to look at the plot as a whole, so I went through the entire Japanese story mode. Like Super Mario 64, this game avoids kanji like the plague to make it more accessible to kids, which makes it a bit of a pain to interpret/translate. As such, when looking through the dialogue, I decided to change what I could to its kanji equivalent, as it makes it much easier to read. Whilst this may taint the text with my own interpretation of how it should be read, unlike with Super Mario 64 the relevant words in question are much easier to pinpoint the meaning to, so this shouldn’t be an issue.
So, Bowser’s plot, what is it? He tells the Koopa Kid/Mini Bowser “
Here we shall destroy the dreams and turn them into my dreams, you hear! That way, my long-awaited dream shall be fulfilled, see!!”. (ここにある夢を
壊して、
ワガハイの夢に変えちゃうのだ！そうすればここで、
ワガハイの長年の夢が叶うのだ!!) So all in all, DatOneWeebs’ translation is pretty accurate and the same core message comes across.
Misstar backs this up by telling the hero “
At this rate, the world of dreams will be destroyed, deary.” ( このままだと、夢の世界が
壊されてしまうわ。). Something you’ll notice in contrast to
the English statement is the lack of “one by one”. Whilst originally this made me think she’s just saying the dream worlds, plural, it seems more accurate to say she’s talking about Dream Depot as a whole. Every time an individual dream world is referenced, it’s referred to as ユメ (i.e. 夢/yume, dream), whilst here Misstar uses the term ユメのせかい (夢の世界/yume no sekai, dream world/world of dreams), which tends to be used as a way to refer to Dream Depot, the overarching world in which all the dreams are found. Whilst this may not change much, since Dream Depot is at threat anyway, I guess the lack of “one by one” could be important, but this is less of a mistranslation and more of a way to make it flow well in English.
As for Sweet Dream, Bowser does indeed say
“Bwahaha! I’ll destroy this Sweet Dream and turn it into my own, you heeear!!” (ガッハッハ！このスウィート・ドリームを
壊してワガハイの夢にしてやるのだー！！). However, you’ll notice now that all three sentences use the verb “壊して” / “壊されてしまう”, which are conjugations of the verb “壊す”. Whilst generally this means “destroy”, it can also mean “ruin” (even in obscure ways like ruining your health), which I’d say is why the English localisation says “ruin” at times, so we can’t entirely say the Japanese dialogue lacks the word “ruin” but can interpret it as meaning “destroy” all the same.
Looking to the
Mario Party 5 section of the Japanese Nintendo website for anything further, I found a summary of the story. It notes that Bowser
“started to do evil things” and taunts “If you want to save the world of dreams, you'll have to fight us!!”, which basically confirms the idea that he’s doing it to lure in powerful challengers to grant the wish he’s had for many years of fighting someone strong. As for Misstar’s claim about people being able to dream again after Bowser’s defeat, in Japanese, she says “
Thanks to you, everyone’s dreams were protected. With this, everyone throughout the world can dream with peace of mind, deary. … … Today, as it has been before, I’m sure everyone’s wonderful dreams will come and gather in Dream Depot.” (あなたのおかげで、みんなの夢は守られました / 護られました。これで、世界中の誰もがあんしんして夢見ることができるわ。……きょうもユメミールには、すてきな夢が集まって来るでしょう。). Whilst she says that people can now dream “with a clear mind” or “without worry”, implying that it’s not that people couldn’t dream but would just not have a very nice experience when dreaming, she goes on to say about how Dream Depot will continue to be a place where dreams can come together once again, which seems to suggest they wouldn’t have been able to otherwise, so it does seem pretty consistent that Bowser was a threat to Dream Depot’s entirety and stopped dreams from gathering there.
However, I must admit something. Whilst people have been discussing how the Japanese dialogue does not imply Bowser might have just been planning to corrupt the dreams… the more I translated the dialogue, the more I felt this was his intention. As I said, the consistently used “壊す” can mean ruin, and Bowser is saying about replacing it with or turning it into his own dream. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say corruption would achieve this. So I decided to check the Bowser Nightmare board, which in Japanese is called
“Bowser Dream” (クッパドリーム). Whilst in the English localisation, Bowser simply just implies it’s his dream, like something he dreamt up that came to Dream Depot, he actually says a bit more here:
“Yes outstanding, this is my dream! It’s truly wonderful, you know!!” (
素晴らしい、ここが
ワガハイの夢だ。全くステキだぞ！！). You might notice he refers to it as “
ワガハイの夢”, the same phrase he has consistently said to be his goal and what he’ll replace the dreams with/turn the dreams into. Mind, ワガハイ is just the pronoun Bowser uses to refer to himself throughout the entire franchise, so it’s really just “my dream”, but it does build up a suspicion. What’s more, the extra part of the statement comments on his opinion on the dream with an implication he’s never seen it before, so it’s questionable to assume this was something he dreamt up, and may in fact be a result of his corruption (Bowser does often invade places and turn them into a lava filled realm). However, considering the dreams are all shown to be themed (be it on sweets, pirates, space, etc), and Bowser’s schemes have certainly made himself well-known, you could just argue this is a dream themed around Bowser, which of course he’d enjoy seeing. I’m sure it might be a bit troubling for those who support the feat to hear this, but I think it’s best to lay everything out honestly as opposed to trying to translate it in a way that best represents what people want to hear.
