Crazy Rabbit Man: Why I Rewrite Manga

At the 2004 San Diego comic convention, the largest of its kind in America, the Korea Culture and Content Agency had a huge, attractive, and expensive booth. Their purpose: to present Korean comics (manhwa) to an American audience. They gave away free collections of manhwa to show American readers what a great job they were doing with comics in Korea. At 242 pages, with glossy, full-color covers, the free books must have set the publishers back a bundle.

The interior art in the giveaway books was for the most part beautiful, but the publishers made one serious mistake: they neglected to get an American rewriter. The result was page after page of unintentionally hilarious copy, such as:

You did let me in trouble even thoughyou've been watching me over???

I've been committed crime since the WorldWar ll. Today, I've done by myself to expiatemyself. . . . I'll be in calm to die.

Don't be so sympathy on her!! You nevergoing to say anything after you realizewhat are going on family in inner room.

We all understand you must be deeply painfulafter your wife has been passed away.

Why do we catch ghost stuffs until dawn?

Here's where I come in. Hello, my name is Trina, and I rewrite manga. Along with a goodly number of other writers, I'm an English-language rewriter. There's a very good reason why we're needed.

Here's the way it works. American manga publishers buy the rights to publish a certain manga, usually a series, in English for an American audience. They give the original Japanese manga to a literal translator, usually a Japanese person living in America. The literal translator translates the manga-literally. This can result in sentences that read like abstract poetry, or like something George W. Bush might have said. You need somebody to turn this into a script that is readable by an English-speaking audience.

Figure 1.

Godchild, volume 2, 2006. Viz Comics.

When I take on the job of English-language rewriter on a manga series, my editor sends me the entire series in its original Japanese form. I can't read Japanese, so each month I look forward to receiving the next issue's literal translation so that I'll finally know what happens next. When I receive the literal translation, I read the script and follow along with the art in the Japanese version. Before I set to work rewriting, I print up the literal translation so that I'll have something to refer to in case I make a mistake, or in case (don't even think about it!) my computer crashes.

I try not to depart from the original plot, so for the most part any changes I make serve to make the script a better read in English. I try to simplify and clarify and make sentences more concise. Thus, I took this (from Godchild):

OSCAR: So this is where it was. I thought I'd lost it!

OSCAR: The watch that I got as a present from Arina that works at the bar.

and changed it to:

OSCAR: So here it is. I thought I'd lost it!

OSCAR: The watch that Arina gave me.

Here's a more complicated dialogue:

CAIN: According to what I found out, the reason behind your father's death is related to an incident of theft which occurred a few years ago. So I think that this is some sort of revenge scenario carried out by you to get back at the 4 people who blamed the crime entirely on your father.

CAIN: But that man isn't the prince on a white horse that you think he is, who'll make your wish come true.

CAIN: He is a god of death who drags people to their death under orders from a large organization. . . . He's using your hatred in order to accomplish "something"!

I simplified while keeping the meaning:

CAIN: The reason...