“Bye-bye, Boy.” | Cathy Wilkins’ Japanese Dialogue in Shenmue

One of the foreign NPCs Ryo can encounter around Dobuita is a woman named Cathy Wilkins. According to her official character profile, she is actually a military police officer attached to Yokosuka's U.S. Seventh Fleet, stationed here to help keep an eye on the drunken sailors who frequent the area.

Cathy Wilkins

Unaware of her mission, Ryo finds that any attempt he makes to strike up a conversation with her tends to end quickly.

Each time Ryo approaches Cathy, she responds with one of several possible lines, followed by a farewell phrase, both selected at random.

Let’s take a closer look at the original Japanese lines.

This post topic was a suggestion by Wandering Through Shenmue!

Cathy’s Main Lines

The three main lines she says are:

私、ボーイに興味ないよ。
Watashi, bōi ni kyōmi nai yo.
“I’m not interested in boys.”

日本語、ちょっとだけね。
Nihongo, chotto dake ne.
“Japanese… only a little.”

もっと大人になってからね。
Motto otona ni natte kara ne.
“Come back when you’re older.”

It appears that she is used to being hit on, as she assumes that Ryo has romantic intentions, without giving him time to explain.

The first line is perhaps the one that is the most ambiguous.

Grammatically, bōi ni kyōmi nai means “not interested in boys,” referring to boys as a category rather than directly addressing Ryo. Another possible translation of the Japanese is “I’m not interested in you, kid.” However, her third possible response tells him to come back once he has grown up a bit more, suggesting that the broader interpretation used by the official English line is the correct one.

Too busy policing the sailors.

The second line is also worth noting:

Nihongo, chotto dake ne.

This literally means something like:

“Japanese… only a little.”

The phrasing is short and slightly fragmented, which helps convey that Cathy doesn’t speak Japanese very well. This is one of several small linguistic details used to suggest that she is a foreigner speaking imperfect Japanese.

Interestingly, the official English localization replaces this line entirely with:

“I don't got time to talk to you.”

This removes the slight communication awkwardness in the original Japanese lines, but it is a natural change when the player has selected English dialogue.

Cathy turns Ryo down before he has a chance to speak.

The Farewell Lines

After delivering one of the main lines above, Cathy ends the conversation with one of three possible farewells:

バイ！
Bai!
“Bye!”

ごめんね！
Gomen ne!
“Sorry!”

バイバイ、ボーイ。
Bai bai, bōi.
“Bye-bye, boy.”

The last line is notable because here she does directly call Ryo a “boy,” emphasizing his age.

A Deliberately “Foreign” Choice of Words

Another small detail is Cathy’s choice of vocabulary in Japanese, which further reinforces the impression that she is a foreigner speaking Japanese as a second language.

For example, a fluent speaker would normally say something like Nihongo wa chotto dake hanaseru (“I can speak a little Japanese”), but Cathy’s version sounds more like simplified “learner Japanese.”

Instead of the more natural Japanese word 男の子 (otoko no ko = “boy”) or 子供 (kodomo = “child”), she uses the English loanword ボーイ (bōi). While understandable, this is not how a native Japanese speaker would normally phrase it in this situation.

Likewise, the phrase Bai bai, bōi is clearly a direct transcription of “Bye-bye, boy” - to sound like something a native English speaker might say. In reality, a more natural phrasing in both English and Japanese would just be to say “bye-bye” or “see you,” without adding a noun afterward.

These slightly unusual word choices help convey that Cathy is a foreigner speaking somewhat limited Japanese, a small but effective detail that helps characterize her.

Shenmue uses a similar trick elsewhere for other foreign characters. For example, in the QTE scene with a drunken American sailor, the sailor shouts “ヘイ、ストップ、ボーイ！” (Hei, sutoppu, bōi! = “Hey, stop, boy!”), written in katakana to signal that he is speaking English.

QTE with a drunk Dick Phillips: his words in English are "Hey, stop kid!"

Final Comment

Considering that Cathy Wilkins’ job is to keep drunken sailors in Dobuita under control, it seems that Ryo’s investigation never had much chance of progressing very far. Before he can ask anything useful, he’s already been neatly categorized as just another “boy” or “kid” and sent on his way.

To learn more about Cathy Wilkins, Wandering Through Shenmue has covered her profile in a recent episode of his entertaining and informative Suka Pass Saturday series. Check it out below!

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