Lillian Olsen '90
Manga Translator
(The Internationalist Spring/Summer 2008 Vol. 41)
In 1984, before I left Nishimachi and Japan to move to Chicago, I went to see the movie Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind by Hayao Miyazaki. It blew me away, and I wanted to share it with the entire world, if I could. I imported the VHS tape, and began by showing it to my friends, crudely translating the dialogue on the fly. I translated the movie program guide I had bought at the theater. In high school, I started an anime cub and showed it there. In college, I joined the existing anime club. (Gasp! People who already knew about anime?) However, I never actually planned on becoming a professional manga translator. I never even imagined the job existed. In fact, I majored in nutrition.
I got this job purely through chance—I happened to be friends with a senpai who was already a freelance translator. She had heard that her employer was adding a new manga magazine to their lineup and was looking to hire more freelancers. It was a great part-time job for a college student. A few hours a month in front of the computer paid my room and board. I thought I would always have it as a nice side job, but nothing more. Then, the market suddenly took off. Manga used to be sold only in comic book shops, but companies shifted policies to start selling it in regular bookstores. Manga was suddenly available in the mainstream market, and the number of readers and titles grew exponentially. As I got more and more swamped with work, I realized that I could do this for a living. The proliferation of the internet and Google also meant I wasn't dependent on a large university library system, and allowed me to keep up-to-date on slang.
Over the years, I've worked on over 200 volumes over a wide range of genres, from shonen1 to shojo2, including Dragon Ball Z and Evangelion. Each genre has its own challenges: The dialogue in shojo tends to be more vague and rambling, while shonen is full of battle sound effects. I find that my science background helps with the technobabble inherent in science fiction. My degree hasn't gone to waste either, as food is a favorite topic of many manga. I work with a rewriter on some of my titles, but also provide my own adaptations for others. A straight translation doesn't always work, since manga is constrained by the artwork and the size and shape of the speech balloons. Depending on each manga artist's style, I make adjustments to be either concise or verbose. Making the words fit and making up English sound effects are often sources of headaches and endless, "Honey, how would you spell THUHRRP?" (That was the sound of a vacuum sucking out blood.) In Japanese, it's so easy to differentiate speech patterns by pronoun choice and sentence endings, so I struggle to give the characters their own voices. Do I enjoy my work? I'm getting paid to read and think about manga all day. My "commute" consists of rolling out of bed and ambling over to my kotatsu. And I'm sharing the manga I love with a wide audience.
Luck and chance encounters have brought me so many things. I've also occasionally volunteered as an interpreter for Japanese industry guests at various anime conventions across the country. At one event, I was able to meet and dine with the voice actress Sumi Shimamoto, who provided the voice of Nausicaä. She kindly autographed the well-worn Nausicaä movie pamphlet I'd kept through all these years, which turned out to be quite an emotional moment for me. Wow, what a dream come true.
1 Manga targeted at boys
2 Manga targeted at girls
Lillian Olsen, class of '90, attended Nishimachi from kindergarten to third grade. She has been a freelance translator for Viz since her college years at Cornell University.