Welcome to the final part in my manga project advice series. In case you missed it, it started with letterers, then translators, and then editors. The plan is to hopefully look back at everything later this week, so for now, let’s focus on manga adapters.
“What is a manga adapter,” you ask? Well, if you take a look at some of your Viz (most likely in the back) or Seven Seas manga (should be in the front), you’ll see in the credits the ones who worked on making the manga able to be read in English. You might see “adaptation” there. But ok, what is a manga adapter? They are the ones who take a translated Japanese script from a translator and make it sound like legible, commonplace words.
You can get a bit more information by reading the manga adapter post I worked on.
Anyways, I was able to talk to three manga adapters working in the industry now. Here’s their answers to my questions:
How did you get the opportunity to start working as a manga adapter?
Lianne Sentar (Alice in the Country of series, Hetalia): In the late 1990s, TOKYOPOP announced that they were going to write a series of kids’ novels based on the Sailor Moon anime, and I wrote a (somewhat confrontational) letter to the company promoting the fanfiction community and how they should “hire one of us.” Maybe because those were different times and Stu Levy loved experimenting, but I was invited to apply and was eventually hired for the job, even though I was still in high school. I loved the gig and constantly pushed for more writing/adaptation work in the company, which eventually led to their rapidly expanding manga department. I was a freelancer, so I started working for other companies as well (DMP and Seven Seas).
Ysabet MacFarlane (A Devil and Her Love Song, Seiho Boys’ High School!, Strobe Edge, Haganai: I Don’t Have Many Friends): I’d been an anime/manga fan for years before I met Lillian Diaz-Przybyl (then an editor at TOKYOPOP, now an editor and founder at Chromatic Press) online. Getting to know her got me interested in the manga industry beyond the basic “companies produce manga and I give them money”, and eventually I gave her my relevant resume info. Some time after that, TOKYOPOP licensed the first Fruits Basket fan book, and since Lillian both knew that Fruits Basket was my Favorite Manga Ever and was familiar with my writing style and my other qualifications, she arranged for me to do the English adaptation. Paul Morrissey, who edited the fan book, liked my work well enough to put me on Sgt. Frog when he needed a new adapter, and things went from there. That was back in 2006/07, and I’ve been adapting ever since.
Lillian Diaz-Przybyl (Loveless, Arpeggio of Blue Steel, Spirit Circle): I worked as an editor at TOKYOPOP for almost seven years—I did some adaptation both officially and unofficially there (i.e I did a pretty heavy re-write on a couple of titles that were being re-released, but didn’t have an official adaptation credit on them, and then did official rewrites for several series as well). After TP shut down, I picked up a variety of adaptation work through various other sources, thanks to my various friends and connections at other publishers.
If there was one misconception you had about the manga industry before you started working in the industry, what was it?
Lianne: Like a lot of people, when I was young, I thought there was a huge disconnect between industry and fandom–that the industry didn’t “get” us. That’s not true at all. Many, many industry people love fandom and were/are hardcore fans themselves. But there are different things to consider when you’re working on something professionally, and trying to work with fandom is incredibly hard, especially when hateful fans can get really loud. So sometimes editors block out fandom just to stay sane. I hate seeing missed opportunities for industry and fans to work together because of all the animosity.
Ysabet: By the time I started freelancing in the industry, I’d been interested in it for long enough that I was reading any posts or interviews I could find with people who were working in it–mostly editors, but people in other roles, too–so I think I had a reasonably accurate picture of how things worked. The biggest surprise I can think of wasn’t all that big–I’d assumed that there’d be more communication between translators and adapters, but in practice, that turned out to be fairly rare. For the most part, I’ve found that what happens is editors take my questions to the translators (or just take them into account when editing, if they also speak Japanese) and then deal with any resulting changes to the script themselves.
Lillian: I think the biggest misconception that people have is about the relative power of licensors vs. licensees. Publishers here can get a lot of flack for certain decisions that as an insider I know are heavily due to what’s going on in Japan on the licensor side—whether it’s the pace of releases, or creative decisions, there are a lot of things I think fans blame the licensees for that are completely out of the hands of the folks on this side of the Pacific.
What’s generally the biggest challenge you face when adapting a manga series?
Lianne: Trying to make connections that were vague in the Japanese version. Japanese manga is full of vague references, especially with the way Japanese can be used as a language to dodge specifics. Western comics in English aren’t written like that, so a faithful translation can leave Westerners confused and even frustrated. But “filling in the blanks” in a translation is really hard, even with my background in Japanese and the amount of research I do into a series–you always risk making an assumption that isn’t true. You need to either be a really hardcore fan or have the help of hardcore fans to do this step. The Alice in the Country of… series is so complicated that I’m always emailing the translator (Angela Liu) for help, since she’s also played most of the games, and some stuff in the manga literally makes no sense if you didn’t play the games (which aren’t available in English). I remember an old TOKYOPOP series, Silver Diamond, that employed the help of its fandom and even credited them in the book.
Ysabet: Personally? Sound effects. (Although with some series, writing a script that’s tight enough for the lines to fit reasonably well into small speech balloons runs a close second.) Japanese has sound effects for EVERYTHING. If you’re dealing with something like blushing, you can get away with using “BLUSH”, so that’s not a challenge…but other times you have things like something I came across in A Devil and Her Love Song, which used the paku-paku sound effect for the “sound” of someone silently mouthing words because she had no voice. It’s literally soundless, so there’s no option for using onomatopoeia, and none of the relevant verbs really work well (“mouth” would offer enough possible readings that it risks throwing readers out of the story to figure it out, as well as being clunky)… I imagine you see the problem.
That said, I know some people absolutely love working on sound effects, so mileage definitely varies!
Lillian: I think establishing character voice is one of the hardest things to do for me. There’s a lot of grammatical short-hand for establishing little details about character in Japanese, thanks to the structure of the language, and it’s harder to do so in English without resorting to either slangy vocabulary which can feel really dated really fast, or weird dialects, which are both considered “bad writing” in English, and usually are inappropriate character-wise. My favorite adaptors totally nail this, but it’s something I personally struggle with.
If there is one thing an adapter must keep in mind when looking over a manga, what is it?
Lianne: You have to remember that your adaptation is a single, unique interpretation of the work. In almost all cases, that interpretation should be faithful to the spirit of the original and internally consistent. Once you’ve picked a style (like a character’s speech pattern), and especially if you’ve made some carefully considered changes, you have to stick with them through all volumes, or you’re proving that you’re not thinking about the work as a whole and just making changes when you feel like it. Think long and hard before you finish volume 1. You’re either starting a triumphant trip up a mountain or digging your own grave.
Ysabet: Keeping a constant eye on balancing the flow of the English script with not losing the meaning of the original text. It’s easy to accidentally go too far in one direction or the other. And where that balancing point is varies a bit from adapter to adapter, I imagine. There’s also what I usually explain as a difference between what a character says and what they mean. The most blatant examples of that are probably things like idioms, where what they’re literally saying doesn’t necessarily bear much or any resemblance to what we’re supposed to take away from it, and so the English script will usually substitute in an English idiom that’s roughly equivalent. But there are subtler examples, too. I work on a lot of shoujo manga these days, and it’s not unusual for a male romantic lead to say something that translates fairly literally into English and could easily be rendered into natural-sounding dialogue, but where it’s meant to be appealing or romantic in Japanese, it sounds controlling and off-putting (or outright abusive) in English–which can be a cultural difference, as often as not. So you have to find a balance between what he’s actually saying vs. what he means and/or what the reader/heroine are meant to take from it.
Lillian: Don’t distract the reader, and don’t leave them confused. Your choices should enhance the material, but never get in the way of a smooth, and most importantly FUN reading experience. Don’t let your ego as a writer get in the way of what the original author is trying to say.
If there is one reason why adapters have been used less by manga publishers than in the past, what would it be?
Lianne: Shrinking budgets in a struggling industry, I’m pretty sure. Translators and editors can work harder to cover the rewriter’s job, especially if they’re not trying to do anything ambitious with the script. We can be cut and the book can still go to print. Them’s the breaks.
Ysabet: In some cases I assume it’s editorial/company preference, but I figure it’s generally a financial decision. If a corner has to be cut, we’re the one link in the chain that can be done without, practically speaking. A good adapter will usually make a significant difference in the quality of the final product–the exception being if the translator or editor write as well as an adapter should be able to–but a separate person doing the adaptation isn’t absolutely required the way the translator, letterer, and editor are.
TL;DR: The product can exist without us. It just probably won’t be as good.
As a reader, I can nearly always tell before checking the credits whether an adapter has been involved in a script. There have only been a few times where I assumed an adapter was involved and turned out to be wrong*. That doesn’t mean I think scripts where the translator does the adaptation are necessarily weak; most of them are just fine. But I do see a difference.
*Offhand, the two examples that come to mind are Mai Ihara’s work on Kaze Hikaru and Jonathan Tarbox’s work on Claymore.
Lillian: Hah! That’s easy. MONEY. Most of the freelance work I do these days is for the digital space, where the market has yet to be really established, and so any way to keep costs low is welcome. That said, we’ve got a generation of young people who have grown up on manga and anime even more than I did, so I find the overall quality of your average translation to be a little better than it used to be. There was a general belief at TP that adaptations were compensating for blah translations, and I feel like that is somewhat less the case in the series I’ve been working on lately.
Is becoming a manga adapter a viable career to get into? If so, what would be the best way for one to break into the manga industry?
Lianne: It’s tricky these days, but I think it’s possible. You should have some solid writing or editorial experience in your background, even if it’s for something like a well-maintained review site. Be REALLY familiar with manga. Knowing some Japanese is a plus. Do your research on the companies you want to apply for and politely send them a resume, referencing some stuff they’ve done in the past, why you like it, and why you think you could be an asset to the company, if they’re hiring. Try to meet someone in the industry in a polite, RESPECTFUL way, like asking them questions at a panel at a con or something and then introducing yourself at the end. I think this is true for most industries, but basically–research, build your resume, flatter you desired superiors in a professional way (“I loved the adaptation on [insert manga series] because of [insert quick reason]“), follow up. Be assertive and a little aggressive, but still polite and flattering. DO NOT harass or nag. If you’re trying to break in, these people will need to do you a favor and take a risk on you to give you a job. Make them think you’ll do a good job, be easy to work with, and be fun to have coffee with at the end of the day.
Ysabet: Career? No, I wouldn’t say so. Like Lianne said in your “Do You Know What a Manga Adapter Is?” post, it’s a dying art. (I’d be thrilled if it sticks around, obviously, because I love doing it and because I genuinely feel it results in a better book, but I’m trying for realism here.) I’d be surprised if anyone’s actually making a living at it–maybe it was possible once upon a time, but these days there’s less work going around and it doesn’t pay nearly as well as it apparently used to. I’ve adapted for four publishers over the last seven or eight years (two of which, TOKYOPOP and Del Rey Manga, are no longer with us) and I still work fairly steadily, and I don’t even come close to making a living on adaptation work alone.
If you want to break in as an adapter? Get familiar with the industry. Try to meet people who’re involved in it. Read a lot, and listen to how people talk, since dialogue is the vast majority of what we work on.
Lillian: Full-time? Hell no, it’s not a viable career. The pay is low, the market is fairly small and kind of unstable, and the flow of work is unpredictable. As a sideline that’s fun and nets you some bonus cash? Sure!
As for breaking in…I dunno. Networking with people already in the industry is the obvious one, but at least my experience lately is that companies are looking for people who can really hit the ground running, so any way you can get editorial experience, and specifically comics-related experience, is going to serve you well. And whatever the industry overall may say about scanlations (and believe me, I could totally rant about aggregator sites all day), that’s not a bad thing to have on your resume, as far as I’m concerned.
What type of advice would you give to someone who might be interested in this venture?
Lianne: This is a hard industry where you won’t make a lot of money, critics can (rightly) tear you apart, and fans on the Internet may attack you for years because of one line of dialogue you changed, whether it was a mistake or not. Only do it if you love manga. If you love manga, it’s all worth it.
Ysabet: Do it out of love, basically. I consider myself extremely fortunate to still be getting work in the industry, and I hope to keep adapting as long as the work is there and editors want me to do it, but I love manga as a medium, and I love playing with words, and I love the satisfaction when it all comes together. Be prepared for no one to have a clue what you do, both because no one outside of the industry has any idea what the job entails, and because if an adapter–or a translator or editor, if they’re doing the final script–is doing a good job, the work will be invisible. Sure, it’s great if someone reads it and afterwards realizes that they enjoyed the writing, but ultimately my goal is to make readers forget that they’re reading a translated work. The manga should read as if it was originally written in English.
Lillian: While your job shouldn’t be to translate, it never hurts to have some Japanese language skills. That’s been invaluable to my career. Read a lot. Find writers/adaptors whose work you like, and think about what they do that makes their work appealing to you. It’s kind of the same advice I give to anyone interested in a creative career—find work that inspires you, think critically about why, and then apply that to your own work.