On the 6th we asked you for questions for Sam and he sent back his responses. There were about 3-4 questions he chose not to respond to, one of them was because it was blatantly troll, others because he felt he answered them in the process of answering another question.

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Questions about the translation process

Question from a lot of people: Since you’re a paid translator, you have to do whatever is given to you even if you don’t want to do it? Are you ever able to choose your own projects?

Well, there are a couple of different ways you can be a paid translator. You can be a freelance translator who does work for hire, like me, and I could definitely refuse something if I didn’t want to do it or felt I wasn’t qualified. Many translators work as subcontractors for a translation company, where you have less control but depending on the company could at least express your preferences. And then if you are a full-time translator for a company you should do what your boss tells you to do, whether it’s translate something or make coffee. As for me, I’d love to have the luxury of picking the shows I translate, but I’ll take what I can get.

Question from a lot of people: What’re you given to translate from? Just the video? Just a script? Just the audio? Video + script?

It depends on what the purpose is. I’ve translated from 1. Just the script. 2. Script + pencil test footage. 3. Video (no script) 4. Video + script. For simulcasts it’s almost always a pdf scan of the script (scripts are still all printed into books in Japan… The original word files aren’t archived, only the physical books) and a watermarked, small resolution and/or decolorized video. All scripts aren’t made the same, too… Some scripts are hand written, some are “kansei daihon” which have the penciled in corrections for all changes made in the ADR sessions, with next episode previews/bonus sections appended, while sometimes I don’t get that and have to do the previews by ear and correct the script myself. On occasion I’ve been sent a package full of actual scripts, which have to get returned eventually, too.

Question from a lot of people: How long in advance do you get an episode to translate before it streams? And how long in advance do the subs have to be ready?

Subs should be ready 24 hours prior to airing unless materials are extremely late (which has happened quite a bit). Materials can come in anywhere between 1 week to 48 hours prior to airtime, although there are times when it’s less than 12 hours. Some shows are constantly very late, some are constantly very far ahead… It depends a lot on the scheduling of the editing studio where the final edit is applied. Often I’ll at least get temporary working scripts for 3-4 episodes a head of airing, which can be very helpful for reading ahead and knowing what’s going to happen.

Question from a lot of people: How long does it usually take you to translate an episode?

Just the translation, not including editing, timing, or checking, takes me between 2 and 4 hours an episode. More specifically, however, it takes around 1 hour per 100 lines. Some shows are 250 lines, some are 450… The most hellish are 500. If there is some specific research that is required it can take far longer.

Question from a lot of people: How much do you earn? Is it reasonable for the amount of time spent?

I earn about as much as a did from my fellowship as a postdoc in theoretical physics. It’s not making me rich, that’s for sure, but I enjoy the work and that’s what’s most important. If I had to break it down by hour it’d probably end up $15-$20 an hour all told. But I also get to make my own schedule. No time for vacations, though. Who else is gonna translate that next episode of Shugo Chara Party that airs on Dec 26th? (True story, I translated 2 episodes this Christmas day, which also happened to be my 30th birthday.)

Question from Swilo: Is there access to the original team for questions? Who the hell decides when to use L or R if the writers didn’t specify? Is there an effort to make your job easier or do they dump scripts in your lap?

Generally, no. There are multiple layers between the translator and the writers/creators, so those sorts of questions end up going through a telephone game and can take a while to get answers for. Specifically, the translator would ask their translation company, who would ask the client (say, like crunchyroll) who would ask the licensor such as TV Tokyo, who would forward the request to the IP holder company like shueisha’s sales department, who would forward it to shuueisha’s production department, who would forward it to the tantou in charge for that particular manga-ka, who would, if you’re lucky and the message got that far, ask them whether they meant for it to be R or L. 80% of the time the answer is “I don’t really care,” and then the sales department chooses something arbitrarily and you are told that it’s decided as one or the other.

This had long been a headache for licensing companies. Simulcasting has actually helped things, because it’s usually completely impossible for that sort of approval to be completed in the short time frame available. So usually I use my best judgment, make a glossary, and it gets sent off for “approval” as soon as it’s ready. Later on (much later on, sometimes) it is usually approved without corrections. Some companies are way more picky than others. I suggest reading mxmedia’s blog on their website or listening to the interview with Ken Hoinsky on ANN’s anncast for some nice horror stories about awful demands (which thankfully I’ve mostly avoided).

Question from TDN: Do you ever run into the problem of a line being changed from on the script to the one in the video, in the case of an ad-lib the producers seem to like?

All the time. See the response above about the difference between “kansei daihon” versus the original daihon. Thankfully for most shows I end up with some version of a corrected script with all ad-libs penciled in.

Question from Swilo: Do you work with someone, or is it kind of one person per show?

For almost all of the projects I do I work with at least an editor, and often with a third quality checker. The only things I do without an editor are very low budget or designed only for sales purposes. I’m confident in my English grammar, but a second opinion/proofreader always produces a better script, IMO.

Question from Swilo: How much QC goes into each episode?

Not enough, but there’s nothing to be done about that with the time constraints and budget constraints. Generally I do a translation pass, then I check it while I time it, an editor goes over it and checks/edits it, and I do a final watch through or a secondary qcer does the watch through and I implement any corrections. Until such time as the english translation is budgeted side by side with the production of the animation itself, simulcast translations will never have enough time or budget to be qced to perfection.

Heck, that gives me a good idea… Maybe fans could form an all volunteer simulcast QC squad that would volunteer their time to qc scripts in exchange for seeing episodes a few hours early. Because otherwise there just isn’t the budget or time for it. How much do you think qc’ing an episode of anime is worth? I’d say for a very good qcer they should make at least like $15 an hour, but that kind of extra expense is exactly what eats into the budget for low margin shows. Hopefully everything has at least 1 qc pass, and I make sure that anything I do has had at least one. But personally I think 2 different people qcing is needed to really catch 99% of errors, and that’s too expensive and time consuming at the moment at the prices that the market is bearing for translation for streaming. DVD and blu-ray subs have higher budgets and should be more error free.

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Job-related Questions

Question from Bestial Acts: Are there any shows you’ve done that really stand out as your favorite or least favorite, and why?

I really like the source material for Tegami Bachi. It’s one of the smartest shounen adventure manga I’ve read in a long time, and great at world-building. The jury is still out whether the anime will com close to the greatness of the manga, but it’s very faithful so far. I also really liked translating Hyakko! as it gave a lot of opportunity for clever writing to maintain the humor/voicing of the characters. I really enjoyed an episode of Kekkon Dekinai Otoko, a live action drama I translated an episode of for sales purposes, because it was very different from the usual anime I do and Hiroshi Abe gave a wonderful performance.

As for shows I disliked… I think I’ll refrain to protect the innocent. The worst things I’ve done have never been released/made… yet. I’m frankly hoping they continue to never see the light of day. I originally thought Naked Wolves was horrid, but it has grown on me and I think it’s actually pretty charming now.

Question from Bruce: What requirements are there to work in Japan as a translator? Just a degree in the Japanese language? or perhaps more, ie. English degree too?

It depends quite a lot on the specific translation field. The highest paid people are specialist translators in legal and scientific fields that spend all their days translating patents and technical manuals, and usually you need a degree in the respective field to get that sort of work. The requirements for working _in Japan_ specifically can be looked up on Japan’s immigration website, but to summarize you need a company to hire you for a decent salary and a college degree or you can’t qualify for a visa. If you want to emigrate to Japan I suggest getting a job teaching english at one of the big companies that isn’t named NOVA and prepare yourself for a year of hell and disassociation. If you still love Japan after that, then you’ll do well. Otherwise go home.

Question from mitase: Aside from being fluent in the required languages ? what academic and or vocational qualities/experiences are required for your line of work?

It’s primarily work experience and personal contacts that gets you business. Passing the JLPT level 1 is also useful if you don’t have much professional work experience. Experience fansubbing is great for improving your own skills, but fairly useless on a resume. You’ll also need at least a college degree (I actually have a Ph.D. in theoretical physics and B.S. degrees in Math and Computer Science, but that is by no means required, heh.)

Question from sometranslatorfag: I’d like to know if there are any job opportunities for translators from Japanese to languages-other-than-English in subtitling. No, I’m not asking for a job, just inquiring if there’s a market for such translations (i.e. anime publishers or Crunchy are interested in subtitling their shows to other languages).

Yes! Definitely! Especially spanish and asian languages. The market is small but there is demand for that specialized work for high profile titles like movies and some of the new “worldwide” releases. At the moment companies pay huge amounts of money to big language firms that do terrible jobs… A talented person could find a good niche doing Japanese->something other than english. However you’d be up against an attitude that expects non-english translators to do every other language than english. I’ve actually been asked by clients if I could also give them spanish and french subs. Which is extraordinarily dumb, when you consider it’s basically impossible to be a native speaker in more than one language, so they were asking me to translate into non-native languages, which I refuse to do for quality sake. But that’s the sort of attitude you’ll be up against when it comes to non-english translation: Cost is everything, quality is irrelevant.

Question from Lanced Jack: Do you prefer literal translations, or full translations, if you understand what I mean.

I prefer translations that express as much of the meaning of the original line as possible. Sometimes the best way to do that is not to translate the meaning of the words individually, but the line as a whole. It also depends quite a lot on the context and audience… Generally if a direct translation is clear in english and fits with the character, I’ll use it. And I will never insert humor in places that did not contain a joke originally. I have a whole internal philosophy about minimizing visual-aural dissonance that I try and stick to… Basically I want people to not realize that they are reading a translation, and instead feel like they are reading what the characters are saying. That’s the ultimate goal, although there’s no such thing as a perfect translation since every viewer comes in with different knowledge and expectations. So you try and cater to the majority within the parameters of accuracy and the principles I laid out earlier.

Question from eBoB: Is there a $25 budget for doing subs as a pro? It seems that most fansub groups that aren’t fully shit seem to do a better overall job of TL and not making it sound so engrishy as the so-called “professional” subs.

It’s more than $25… And as a general comment, the quality of professional subs varies as does the quality of fansub translations. A good number of complaints are based off superficial things like font and timing and karaoke effects, but there have been very legitimate cases of poor quality professional subs from all parties recently. The line between pro and amateur has blurred, and the rates have plummeted, and quality has suffered. I’d even go as far to say that fansub translation quality has suffered recently as well on average. It’s the final negative affect of the overall devaluation of watching anime that the proliferation of fansubs has slowly caused over the years, as what’s the point of paying for a decent translation when all the “fans” will trash it regardless out of ignorance or spite? I take pride in my own work and care about the shows I work on, and that the audience enjoys watching it.

It pains me to see poor professional subtitles even more than it does poor fansubs (which was one of the reasons I started translating in the first place), and so I do what I can to help by educating the Japanese companies about what’s going on and of course, offering my services to them at reasonable rates. But until the leechers start actually knowing the difference between flashy karaoke and a good translation, it’s a trend that will only continue. I’ve given up on convincing the consumers to care (because they don’t know what they’re talking about 80% of the time), and have decided that what’s important is that the creators and producers themselves care about the translation quality and use people that they personally trust.

Question from alilyamongthorns: Your job seems like it would be glamorous to me but is it really? Assuming you were previously involved in fansubbing, how would you compare that to what you do now?

When I was a fansubber many years ago I started my own group Arienai Fansubs pretty early and did basically what I wanted, how I wanted. I stayed out of all the “politics” even as I made friends here and there. But fansubbing has changed a lot since I got out and aimed for doing it as a living. Even more politics, more antics… In my opinion fansubbing today has lost its reason to exist and has replaced it with a bunch of immaturity. What once provided an excellent growth impetus for anime worldwide has festered into a game that’s ended up devaluing the very works that people like me once tried to raise the value of as a whole worldwide. What’s the point of making K-on! loved by 100,000 people if it makes 50,000 people feel like paying more than $0 for watching anime in 1080p is a rip-off? There are legitimate problems like geo-restrictions and licensor/materials issues that I often deal with directly, and so I realize that fansubs will never just go away, and nor should they. But there’s been macro economic damage to the market that is compounded by similar issues in Japan, and I hope that streaming is a way to heal some of the wounds over time.

Question from Swilo: How do you feel about fansubbers doing the shows you work on?

The legitimate ones that actually translate the show from scratch instead of stealing my scripts: If you don’t feel like you’re wasting your time, go right ahead. Just be aware that your translations will always be inferior due to your lack of script. (Unless they use the CC stream… Well, enforcement is not my department.) To the groups that pretend to translate themselves and really just edit my scripts by changing R-L or adding karaoke, I don’t care. That’s at least putting some effort into it. It’d be nice if you were honest to your leechers and admitted that you just modified my scripts though. To groups that just autorip, or sites that screen capture streams and restream them illegally, I suggest you double check whether you live in the united states or most members of the european union.

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Streaming / CrunchyRoll-related Questions

Question from gg staff: Why does it seem like the “simul” is being taken out of simulcast lately? As in some shows being streamed days after their first airing.

There was never any such thing as a simulcast in the first place. It’s a made up marketing term and it means whatever the consumers think it means.

Japanese Tv airing of anime is not like tv shows in the US that air at the same time on all local stations. In Japan a particular anime often airs on different days in different areas, and it’s not always Tokyo that gets it first. The recent “not really simulcasts” are for shows whose first airing is not from the station in tokyo and/or the station whom CR has paid for the rights from. Therefore it doesn’t benefit the first airing station to give CR the rights or materials to air it earlier since it’s a different company that gets the revenue from the overseas sales, etc etc… It’s complicated by licensing issues and essentially it’s a “simulcast” as best as can be handled. As to the question “what is a simulcast?” there is actually a legal definition that’s laid out in the licensing contracts, but if you want to find out you’ll need to produce an anime and license it to CR . If you’re all upset that you have to wait a few days after people living in Chiba get to see your animes, then download crappy raws and watch those, but do everyone a favor and subscribe to CR and watch the show again with subs when it comes out. Then at least you’ll be supporting the show you want to watch so badly you can’t wait a few days for.

Remember, that $7 or whatever you pay to CR isn’t really paying for the ability to watch things earlier, because practically all those shows were fansubbed and free (illegally) anyway. It’s paying for the _legal_ right to watch those shows, and it’s helping in a small way influence what kind and type of anime gets made in the future. Believe me, the streaming numbers are being paid attention to. Nobody watches Cobra the Animation on CR? Don’t expect any more retro sci-fi to get streamed. Maybe not even animated. Moe-harem brides maid show #6 goes viral? Expect 10 more a year from now. Overseas money is the big unknown right now, and whatever shows potential might be followed up on.

Question from gg staff: What else do you do besides translate? Like you told us before that you met with a company to explain why subtitles produced by another company were poor.

My title (that I totally made up myself because it sounds impressive) is Translator, Producer, Subtitle Engineer. That’s not too far from the truth, actually, as I’ve been hired to help with all kinds of things like OCR’ing subs from DVDs, encoding from all kinds of odd sources, computer consulting (e.g. setting up ftp software!), authoring sample DVDs, creating promo videos, uploading previews to youtube… Even being an errand boy and running around transporting hard disks. There’s also a lot of translation work that’s not for public consumption, like translating internal presentations or show proposals, promotional material and the like. I also take it upon myself to try and educate the companies I work with if I think they are making a really stupid and/or ignorant decision, which is a double edged sword but I think will be good for everyone in the long term.

Question from TDN: While it’s highly debatable over the importance of this, I’ve noticed a lot of streams will leave out the subtitles of the opening and ending themes of songs. Is this a choice of the translator? The licensor? Is it just the inability to obtain actual lyrics that causes this?

This is a combination of annoyance and inane copyright law. But not usually laziness on the translator’s part. I can use my translations of Fairy Tail and Tegami Bachi and Shugo Chara as an example. Let me state first that I translate the songs for all those shows immediately. But the lyrics to the music are controlled by a different company than the licensor in almost all cases, therefore the translation needs to be approved by the music company before it can be included. That is the big problem. Under Japanese law the lyricist always retains rights to any translation of his/her lyrics, therefore it can easily take weeks and weeks for song translations to be approved because Japanese music companies move SLOW.

I finally got translations for the fairy tail opening and ending approved and retroactively added them into my subtitles for all previous episodes around episode 8, and then 4 episodes later they went and changed both the opening and ending. I’ve already translated them and submitted them for approval, but it’ll probably be another 10 weeks until they come back. Tegami Bachi’s songs are even more difficult because of the high profile artists involved. The singer wrote the lyrics to the opening himself and so theoretically he would have had to personally approve the translation… I suppose that’s why my translation still hasn’t been approved, even though there’s already a NEW opening and ending.

Shugo Chara is considerably easier, because the groups that sing the songs are owned completely by the investors of the show (both Buono! Shugo Chara Egg! and the Guardian 4! all were created specifically for Shugo Chara), therefore approvals are able to be done far more smoothly. For most translators and translation companies, they don’t even bother to submit translations because it gives more work to the Japanese, and is a bit “annoying” to the licensors. I go the extra mile to translate them promptly, but it’s really the hard work of the people at Medianet (TV Tokyo) in tracking down the rights holders and getting approvals that at least some of the shows I translate have translated lyrics.

Question from Pure LionHeart: What are your thoughts on the subbing of the entire episode, including OP, ED, preview, extra, etc., which I have seen in the past not done on simulcast series? Do you believe the additional subbing necessary, or a waste of time?

I think the op and ed, preview, and extras should all be subbed, although I do not think karaoke is needed except maybe as a DVD/blu-ray extra.

I’ve explained the reasons for no op and ed subs above. The previews and extras are a separate issue that I can address: Scripts for the previews are often destroyed or otherwise not available… They tend to be created as afterthoughts by the writers and stuck in as loose sheets of paper within the episode ADR scripts that the seiyuus get, therefore during the scanning process they are often discarded. Many translation companies refuse to translate without scripts out of principle and because it is far more difficult, so that’s why extras and previews often go unsubbed.

Speaking for myself, the live action segments from Shugo Chara Party have no scripts at all, I do them entirely by ear (ouch!). I do not have scripts for yumeiro’s previews or Cobra’s previews, and are also doing those by ear. I feel like even if there are some errors because of this, it’s better than leaving them unsubbed. And in general I’m still pretty accurate by ear.

Question from cryptw: ‘Sup Quarkboy? Who are those idiots that did Natsu no Arashi Season 2? Has CrunchyRoll fired them yet?

Ask Crunchyroll. The easiest way to check is to watch the shows this season and see if any of the subs suck ass. Then you know they haven’t been fired yet.

Question from Pathos: How do you respond to claims that Crunchyroll’s subs are among the worst on the internet?

Have you seen subs of things by random youtube people? Now THOSE are the worst on the internet. But seriously, there’s a lot of unjustified hate out there for Crunchyroll and people should form their own opinions. The sub quality varies based on who did the subbing. Some of the translations on CR are done by some of the best translators out there. Some are… not. If there’s one thing that actually learning Japanese will teach you, it’s that the opinions of the masses in terms of subtitle quality is often completely off the mark. Crunchyroll does deserve some scorn for some specific series, but they actually have taken steps to correct that.

Question from Pathos: Also, how do you justify Shinji making a name for himself (and more than a few dollars) by hosting illegally downloaded and fansubbed anime, and then becoming the biggest sellout in anime history? I mean, I’m all for capitalism, but someone who rises to prominence on the backs of fansubbers and then turns around and has the balls to actually start C&Ding and sending BayTSP after the people who made his reputation strikes me as the worst kind of scumbag.

To the victor go the spoils? I shed no tear for the fansubber that feels like their “work” was stolen by someone else. Heck, my own fansubs for shows were part of CR’s catalog and I don’t hold them in contempt for it, because I was enlightened enough to understand that once I release something on the internet I had no right to release in the first place, it leaves my control and is fair game for any use (even being profited off of). I should also note that to my knowledge Crunchyroll has never C&Ded anyone ever. They have passed on C&Ds as favors for Japanese licensors that requested it. Nor do they employ BayTsp, although the Japanese licensors do. Well, call Shinji all the names you want… Trust me “he” doesn’t mind. “Shinji” never sold out. Crunchyroll was a capitalist venture from the very start. It created a very good and effective false sense of “community” and “it’s all for you, the fans” with its marketing and social networking, but believe me the goal was always something like this. I’m sorry that you and many other members feel betrayed, but that’s your own fault for being naive.

Question from alilyamongthorns: I haven’t watched many shows on crunchyroll but the one I do make a point to see every week is Hanasakeru Seishonen. And based on the shitty English, I was wondering how much quality checking or editing actually occurs? Like do they just skip those steps entirely even though the show is a few weeks behind japan’s airing schedule? I guess considering you don’t work on Hana Sei, you might not be the right person to ask.

I don’t want to bash someone else’s translation. But I have made my opinion about the quality of the translation of this show clear to people, as have many others. There’s unfortunately somewhat of a “boy who cries wolf” phenomena… After Naruto came out originally, a bazillion DB fanboys complained bloody hell about really stupid things with the quality of the Naruto subs (which are viz DVD style and are perfectly fine). But since they actually translated some things like “ero-sennin” into english equivalents people go around parroting how awful CR’s subs are. So CR basically learned to ignore people complaining about sub quality since in the beginning those complaints were all from whiny fanboys and were petty and mostly ignorant.

Fast forward a few months and CR actually puts out a show with a translation that is quite justifiably crappy, and a ton of people complain again. But they don’t give a crap because they assume it’s the same bitter fanboys from before… Therefore, my point here is: The best way, by far, to complain about subtitle quality is to use the “report problem with video” button and submit a correction to a SPECIFIC line. If Cr gets a ton of these that are obviously mistakes, they’ll actually take notice. Generic complaints like “the subs for show X suck” will be ignored.

Question from many people: Why do the subtitles on Crunchy read unnaturally sometimes? Like not what a normal person would say?

Because the translator/editor did a poor job. In some specific cases it might be because the Japanese require a certain way of translating something.

Question from Volba: Why has a lot of professionally translated anime started to follow the trend of the bad fansubs, i.e. translating as literal as possible and having a bunch of TL-notes? This is namely on crunchyroll.

Because that’s what the audience wants. Also, because a lot of the young, cheap translators out there are used to that style and translate that way. Speaking for myself, I’m pretty sure I don’t do that and create things that are not as literal as possible (but maintain meaning), and I almost never have translation notes, except for puns that can’t be rewritten for story reasons. I’ve maybe had 4-5 TL notes in the past…. 30 episodes? Well, Saki had a ton of notes but that was actually canon, since even the manga had the notes in Japanese (explaining mahjong terms).

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Anime Industry-ish Questions

Question from mr someone: I mostly want to know how much more someone in the “industry” sees English simulcasts on something like Hulu or CrunchyRoll happening in the future. While I like that fansubbers are dedicated enough to do all this work on their own time I would like to actually “give credit” to the creators of the series through ad money and such.

It will keep happening more and more. Funimation’s monopoly of the profitable DVD market is helping to pressure all but the biggest shows into simulcasting or streaming just to make SOME money overseas. I think we’ll continue to see a bifurcation of shows into “big” and “not big” and big will be streamed on hulu or licensed by funi and everything else will be streamed somewhere else like CR. Also, keep an eye on Bandai Channel. They took the time and energy to convert their Japanese site to flash h.264 from windows wmv, and that should tell you they are looking to expand one day.

Hulu is kind of a special case. They’ve been offered things like Pretty Cure from Toei and told Toei no thanks. Hulu’s only interested in the biggest properties (like inu yasha, naruto). That might change in the future eventually, but not in the near term. Funimation’s streaming site seems like it’s really limited in its growth by the fact that it’s mostly advertisement for its DVDs. Crunchyroll will continue to be the place for simulcasts and the latest shows, although I bet there will be more shows streaming on more than one place, too.

Question from Zorak: What do you see as the industry’s mindset towards simulcasting? A grudging “WE HAVE TO OR WE’LL DIE” sort of thought process or do they think this is a legitimate good idea or what?

The industry’s opinion is split heavily. There are old school companies that basically refuse to sell streaming rights separately from DVD rights. There are people who think streaming is the future… But it takes a lot of people all agreeing to make it really happen (google “nemawashi”). Anime is made by production committees, and if only one member of the committee has a serious objection, simulcasts can be tricky to arrange. Crunchyroll has done everyone a great service whether you respect them or not. They have proven that a website that only streams anime can make Japan money. CR’s streaming of Naruto Shippuden has made Japan a serious chunk of money. A show like Time of Eve which normally would make absolutely nothing in the west has been extremely successful. This proven success record is immensely helpful in changing the mindsets of the Japanese companies. CR has proven the theory that making money is possible. Of course, then there’s the issue of profitability… But as long as the Japanese get their cut that can come later.

Question from slug: Matt Alt characterized the last decade in anime as a “slow motion collapse” culturally, both worldwide, and in Japan. It seems like more and more of the mainstream anime is directed for both lolicons and mecha-people alike, and is less and less appealing to a wide range of individuals. It seems like animators aren’t seeing the appeal of good, artsy, “deep” anime, and instead lodge for that niche of otakus and other shut-ins.

tl;dr: Do you believe we are experiencing a “dumbing down” of anime, not dissimilar to the dumbing down of American network television?

It’s not just anime, but media in general. I blame the internet! But the good news is that although the average quality of media has gone down, the quantity has increased, so there are still diamonds in the rough if you look hard enough.

Question from Chris: How long have you been working in the industry? How hard was it to get the job at Tezuka Productions? (Yes, I do know this is a brutal industry already.)

Professionally about 1.5 years. To get the job at Tezuka I kept showing up at their office everyday looking bored and they eventually just assumed I was an employee there and gave me a desk. But seriously, it’s human connections. I first met the president of Tezuka Pro at the Tokyo Anime Fair 2008 and exchanged cards, and had been going around looking for some way to sponsor my visa for a month after my physics post doc at the University of Tokyo ended. Tezuka Productions decided to take a bet on me as someone with talent who cared about the industry, and they’re more like my sponsor than my employer, since I still get all my own contracts and work.

Question from ShinoBEAM!: How do companies decide which animes to bring over?

Lately it’s whatever they can get for cheap. DVD sales are so low it’s scary. Crunchyroll tries to get anything and everything that it thinks will not lose it money. Some things they get DO lose money. But that’s the way the game is played… Especially with simulcasts you have to predict how a show will be before episode 1 is even finished, and it might turn out to be a real dud. Here’s the sad truth: Anything too “otaku” will sell like a brick outside of a core group of fans that number in the low thousands. If the Japanese won’t sell it for cheap, then it’s not worth it to even license. I think Toradora is one of the best shows in a long time but I don’t think it’ll be licensed anytime soon. It just wouldn’t sell on DVD anymore. It’s a VERY difficult time for licensing anything. Risky, low margins, low sales, and low expectations. One can only hope this year will be the bottom of the market and things will pick up again later.

From the Editor: Toradora? Sorry I think you mean honey+clover.

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Potpourri

Question from Kweh: What is your favorite Touhou game?
Perfect Cherry Blossom. Actually beat Phantasm twice! Runner up would be U.F.O.

Question from oddjoe: Do you actually buy any boxsets and/or manga whatsoever?
I tend to buy a lot of manga and never read it! My purchases lately are blu-ray only, and I buy very very little because I buy the Japanese ones and they are crazy expensive. My entire collection is the Ghost in the Shell SAC blu-ray box, the Card Captor Sakura boxes ($1000… oy), and I have all the singles with boxes for Macross F (which I still haven’t finished watching…) When I lived in the US I ended up with about… 250 anime DVDs over about 4-5 years of buying. Not exactly a lot.

Question from ShinoBEAM!: Whats your favorite kind of anime
I enjoy mahou shoujo and psychological sci-fi like NGE and Lain. In general however I enjoy all kinds of anime…

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And that’s everything~

Next time on “gg bugs industry people”, we’ll take questions for Ken Hoinsky, the head of MX Media.

Open comments on, off topic comments will be deleted.