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Rankings I Am the Dojo's Sensei. But do I have the right to teach you? I'll leave you to judge. The Present • I've been doing professional translations that have been nationally distributed since 1991. • I was the translator for the Pokémon manga which sold more than a million copies. As of this writing, it is still the best-selling manga the United States has ever seen. • I am presently translating manga that regularly hit #1 on the Bookscan graphic-novel charts (Neilson ratings for the bookstore trade). • I've translated all genres from children's board books to pornography. From mindless robot action to brainy titles such as Oshii movies. • I've worked in a publishing company as well, going the distance from assistant editor all the way up to Editor-in-Chief of one of the largest manga publishing companies. So I know exactly what the employers of manga translators want. • And I've kept my ear to the ground. I know what's going on in the industry. You may be able to find a more successful sensei with a longer history, but finding this person will be very difficult. The Past My decision to become a translator novice was slow and jumbled since, not only didn't I have a sensei to teach me, but there were no sensei in the manga field at the time. My first step as a novice was in 1984 or 1985 when I tried to translate cine-manga-style book with nothing but a dictionary, a introductory textbook, and a set of brass balls as big as the world. I didn't get very far, but I did manage to correctly translate one sentence. An odd success. I was a novice. By 1987, I was taking Japanese classes in a community college and doing translations of a more appropriate manga (Kimagure Orange Road) which featured polite people doing everyday things in normal situations. By second semester, I found doing the translations much easier. I still made tons of mistakes, but I learned from them. In 1989, I was in Japan taking an intensive course in Japanese at a university and doing my best to immerse myself in the language and the culture. In 1990, my life as a novice was coming to an end, and I began my apprenticeship. I was doing translations of manga and anime for practice, not only for myself but for my friends to read and critique as well. I also got small jobs from local, low-paying companies doing not-for-publication translations. I'd translate brochures and owners manuals. In 1991, I started to move over into professional translation in manga and anime. I didn't know that I probably wasn't ready for Journeyman status yet, but that was when the opportunity knocked, and I flung the door wide open. I started doing professional work, and that's the sign of Journeyman status. In 1993 or 1994, I took on a Japanese translation partner, and we worked together for some three years. This allowed me to build up skills that were vital for my later career. In 1998, I took on a job as an assistant editor with one of the major publishers (Viz), but although my job was editorial, the structure of Viz's editorial department at the time was free enough that I nearly always had a translation project on my plate. In the mean time, I worked my way up to Editor-in-Chief (on the editorial side of the job) and Director of Editorial (on the administrative side) at Viz, learning as much as I could about all of the jobs that it takes to make a translated manga from licensing the title to the final printing. Then in 2004, when the administrative duties threatened to overtake all of my time, I decided to shed the stress and go back to freelance translating from home. Dallas Middaugh, a good friend from the Viz days and then running Del Rey's new manga line along with Editor-in-Chief Betsy Mitchell, was kind enough to give me several series when I went freelance, and I never looked back. Um...except for this little lookback that you're reading right now, of course... |
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