Imps and Waistcoats

the draft for chapter 1 has been sent! and now it is time for me to salvage my translation schedule because i am soooo screwed right now.

This is the very first drawing I did of May and Jun. I changed a lot about Jun since (he was more of a jock and a lot less shy than his current iteration is. Also he just kinda looks boring here, haha).

Lately I've gotten back into Ikeseries related stuff because I do freelance translation work for Prince and Villains.

For those who don't know, I used to work at the company and was one of the original members of the English localization team before leaving in 2020. I did localization direction for Destined to Love, Ikemen Sengoku (during its first 3.5 years, so up until Mitsuhide's route), Ikemen Vampire (briefly during pre-release, so just the original three guys/initial events) and A3! (until Kniroun, I believe). Some of you may have even met me at Anime Expo if you went between 2016-2019.

I have Ikeseries to thank for a lot. My first manga series with LaLa was very loosely (and lovingly) based off of Midnight Cinderella (though many people assume it's Prince, and that's only because Ikemen Prince is Midnight Cinderella 2.0 in a lot of ways). The idea of the silly name of my protagonist came from the fact that I purposely named my debug account "Poop" so I could laugh every time Giles (or was it Nico?) complimented me on my name while I was combing around for bugs and had to do the tutorial like a million times.

(If you're curious, Leo was my fave in MidCin, Nobunaga in Ikesen, Kirisato in DtL, Blanc in IkeRev, Clavis and Gilbert in Ikepri, and Victor, William and Alfons in Ikevil. I never quite settled on a fave in Ikevamp for whatever reason).

It's been interesting observing how things have changed and stayed the same over the years, particularly when it comes to the romance and evolution of the type of MCs. The princess in Midnight Cindrella feels a little like a relic from the past now (especially because you couldn't even see her face in CGs), but a lot of the preferences of readers when it comes to the MC have stayed largely consistent.

Since I now make original work for primarily JP audiences, I think about this a lot. What's interesting, however, is that what audiences expect from heroines in joseimuke/shoujo manga feels a bit closer to what EN-speaking audiences want from their MCs. I think there's still a large component of JP audiences of otome games (mobile, mainly) who bristle a little bit when the MC is too promiment (for example, when the EN side started including the MC in AX merch the JP side initially tried to do the same, but got enough of a pushback that they seemed to pull away from it from what I can observe). I guess it's the eternal battle between those who want to self-insert vs. those who want to read the story on its own. It certainly is easier to write things when the heroine is more of her own person, at least.

Manga heroines don't have that issue since they exist within their own story, so if anything, the more personality they have the better. That said, time and trends do dictate the type of heroine you see more often. Compared to 20, 15 years ago I think heroines have become a bit more...mature? Mellow? They're less brash, at least. Compare Usagi from Sailor Moon with Miyo from My Happy Marriage. Perhaps that has a lot to do with the popularity of 溺愛 stories (stories where the FL is absolutely adored by the ML, which often requires her to be put-upon a lot for the payback of that love to feel more potent).

The next series I'm pitching right now has a more mellow heroine than my first one (though this is very relative because I'm...not...a very subtle writer. I tried, but was told I should just lean into my penchant for comedy), so I've been doing a fair amount of research into current trends to tailor my story best for potential readers. Hopefully it will bear something.

i was wondering if you have a piece of media that you always come back to for inspiration (films, mangas, games, books etc)

ps. i love your art and thoughts on twitter

Yay, an ask! No one ever sends me asks here...!!

It kind of depends on what story I'm doing? For Bakuten (my series), I often found myself reading The Engagement of Marielle Clarac for inspiration since I think the way the manga adaptation of that novel is draw is close to the vibe I wanted with my series.

There's also all of the joseimuke/otome games I play as well. I mentioned this on Xitter earlier but GinKoi is very loosely based on Midnight Cinderella, for example (a lot of people assume it's Ikemen Prince, but that's just because Ikemen Prince is kind of an upodated version of the same concept they used in MidCin).

For other stories I'll look at other sources. Monthly Girl's Nozaki-kun is a big inspiration in general, so that's another series I probably go back to a lot without even thinking just because I love Izumi Tsubaki's humor, haha.

I'm up right now revising a draft of my 3 chapter pitch for my next manga series, which I really hope sees the light of day! I am heartened by the fact that it does seem to get more interesting with each edit, so hopefully that's a good sign.

I just realized we're on the cusp of Tokyo Debunker's 1st aniversary, which is also crazy because, wow, it's been one year? The last event I translated was the Frostheim event with the Dullahan, and since then I've moved on to other projects, but I'm glad to see things are doing well.

On the translation front I've mainly been doing some work for Cybird, which has been fun. If you've been playing Prince and/or Villains, you've probably read some of my stuff recently (as an aside, I'm a Gilbert, Clavis, Azel, William, Alfons and Victor girl. Yes, that many).

It was a3en's anniversary last month, which is always bittersweet. I will always love that game and how it came out, and in many ways it made my translation career what it is right now.

This year has also marked my foray into manga translation, with the release of The Otaku Love Connection in February. That series is a blast, and almost feels like it was made for me! I have one more series translation (this time, a shounen manga) that will be coming out later in the year, and it is also a big fave of mine so I can't wait to announce it.

Volume 2 of my manga came out today! I love what they did with the cover, so I'm putting it here with volume 1's cover in comparison.

Your monthly update to say that I handled the English translation for episode 8 of Tokyo Debunker. This was my first time really working with material with the Sinostra boys (or Crime Dorm, as I’ve taken to calling them) since I only did Vagastrom, Hotarubi, Obscuary and Mortkranken previously, and it was a lot of fun. Ritsu really tests the limits of my abilities to fit legal jargon into the character limits I’m given…

I find Romeo really funny because his relationship with the MC reminds me of an “otsubone” (お局), which is a term for an older woman in an office who throws her weight around when dealing with newer members in her workplace. There’s a certain vibe to the role and Romeo fits it perfectly.

Taking of my translator hat for a moment and speaking as a regular player, I’m curious how Nightmare Raid levels stack up on other servers. I have a hunch the system itself must decide based on the relative levels of the players in the server but for example in J-1, where I’m at, it looks like this:

I generally have to cling on for dear life onto the strongest members of my guild to do the top ones since I’m only at 4 million, but I can usually handle up to 20ish million on my own. I just wonder if J-1 isn’t full of a bunch of super powered people in general LOL

I'll probably post again tomorrow since chapter 9 of my series will be out then, but since Tokyo Debunker episode 7 came out yesterday I'll just mention that I also handled the English translation of the Mortkranken chapter. It involved looking up a lot of medical terminology lol. Not quite as tricky as translating Ritsu when he goes off about law ordinances (...it is a challenge keeping those within word limits), but humbling nonetheless.

I thought I'd speak about a fun Japanese thing involving Jiro's name though, since I've noticed a lot of people talking about names and what they mean etc. As everyone has mentioned, Jiro means "second son". "First son" is typically "Taro" or "Ichiro", with "Taro" being like...the most basic of names. "Taro Yamada" is used as the eqivalent of, say, John Smith, in terms of being a very every everyman kind of name.

However, it doesn't stop there. Jiro is followed by Saburo (三郎）, Saburo is followed by Shiro (四郎), and Shiro is followed by Goro (五郎). After that are various like Rikuro, Shichiro, etc, but they're much rarer. The "ji" in "Jiro" follows a pattern in Japanese where the second child is referred to as the "next" child (the general term for a second son is "jinan" 次男, with "jijo" 次女 being the second daughter), while everything after is numerically based.

Though Taro (and the names that follow) is considered basic/common, it's also very traditional sounding, especially compared to more modern trends in names. As an aside, names that end in "ko" for women have a bit of the same vibe. Common, but a tad old/traditional sounding. It makes sense that a certain character would like the name Taro, considering that he fashions himself after a bygone era.

Anyway, that's my mini lecture of the day lol. It's a lot easier writing these here than on hellsite, that's for sure!

Maybe it'll be a monthly thing lol. My comics started popping off on hellsite so I've been there more often lately.

As I mentioned there, I handled the translation for chapter 6 of Tokyo Debunker, starring my favorite house thus far for reasons obvious to anyone who knows me. It was a good, plot-heavy chapter and I loved the twists in it!

It's looking like I may be switching from games to more manga translation in the future, which should be interesting considering that I draw manga too. I guess it's a bit educational in that sense, because it forces me to read even MORE than I already do. My first manga translation is for a series that is very good and I can't wait to talk about it, but it won't be for a while :(

Aside from that, I'm just getting started drafting out the last chapter of my series (cry), while also working on a potential oneshot starring these two knights.