At this year’s Anime NYC, we had the opportunity to, alongside other members of the press, speak with manga translator and historian Fred Schodt about his storied career, influential works, thoughts on the evolving industry, and perspective on translation as a career. Mr. Schodt is known for his translations of works including Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix and Astro Boy (the latter of which being featured on his shirt), The Rose of Versailles, The Four Immigrants, and many more. His most well-known work (among a long list of them) is Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics, published in 1983. The industry has changed a lot since he first entered it, but at all times he’s been a pivotal figure within.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Popularizing Manga in the West
The landscape of manga consumption in the West was nowhere near what it was now just 40 years ago. At that time, most non-Japanese people had never heard of manga, so the demand for Japanese manga translated into English simply wasn’t there. Fred Schodt wrote Manga! Manga! mainly because he loved manga and Japanese comics and wanted to share them with the rest of the world. The work became a seminal text in the study of manga and was a crucial reason that Japanese manga was brought to the Western world at large. Mr. Schodt described his experiences in releasing Manga! Manga! during a time when manga itself was barely a concept in the greater North American consciousness.
“Well, I was just really into manga, and I thought it would be great if more people knew about manga and could enjoy them. And it’s true that people didn’t know very much about them in the United States. And even in Japan, you know, attitudes were very different. Manga wasn’t as accepted even in Japan. They were still regarded as a kind of lowbrow culture. You didn’t have things like today where you have the Japanese government is pushing manga, that kind of thing. So, a totally different environment. I never imagined that manga would become as popular as they have. I just wanted people to be able to appreciate them in the United States because I thought it was such a unique popular culture.
It’s a further development of the grammar that was developed in the United States at the end of the 19th century with comics and newspaper comic strips, but Japan just took it in a different direction. And got through the 1950s and the 1960s without some of the problems that happened in the United States politically with comic books. So to me, it was just a totally different world, and I just thought it would be wonderful if people could appreciate it. And for me, manga have always been a wonderful sort of window into Japan and Japanese culture. And in one of my books, I wrote about it, but it’s kind of like a view into the id [as in the ego psychology model of the psyche], you might say, of the Japanese psyche. And it’s a very unfiltered view. Just like foreigners, when they read American comic books, they get a very unfiltered view probably.”
Among other things about the response to his work, he’s shocked to see that Manga! Manga! is still in print after 40+ years. If anything, this is evidence of just how important and pivotal the work is. Mr. Schodt shared his thoughts on the how long Manga! Manga! has stuck around.
“[…] Manga manga is already, what, 41 years old? Very few books stay in print for 41 years. And I still meet people who say that they find it not only informative, but stimulating. And I think in the awards ceremony the other night, somebody mentioned that there’s still a lot of works that are in there [mentioned in Manga! Manga!] that are not available in English. And it gives people ideas. I know a lot of publishers, they’ve scoured the books I’ve written and said, ‘What could we do next?’ And that’s just wonderful to think. So I’m just really happy that it’s still in print and people are finding it useful. Because all my books that I’ve written, for me the goal is that it’s useful to people. That’s the goal, to make it useful.”
Mr. Schodt also talked about how amazing it’s been to see the growth of manga, anime, and their associated cultures in the West.
“Oh, to me, it’s just incredible. I never imagined, I just never dreamed that manga would become so popular around the world. I’m actually on the executive committee for the Japan International Manga Award, which is run under the auspices of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. My role is very limited. I’m not a judge, I’m just participating in a small group of people who are trying to figure out the right direction for the award. But that award now gets hundreds of submissions from all around the world. And they don’t have to draw exactly in a manga style, but they’re all influenced by manga in some way. And many of the winners now, the quality is just mind-blowing. There are winners from Mongolia, there are winners from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, which is kind of obvious and a natural thing. But there are also people from Europe and Africa, the Middle East. It’s just amazing how it has evolved. And to see the quality of the works is also just mind-blowing. And in many ways, they’re getting to the point where technically, they may be better than many of the Japanese artists in Japan. That’s what’s just so amazing to me. And there’s always a manga link. They may be drawing in a bandes dessinées style or even an American comic book style, but there’s always a link somehow to Japanese manga culture.”
On Being and Becoming a Translator
Being a manga translator is a challenging career, but it’s one that Mr. Schodt is both proud of and in love with. At multiple points during the interview, he remarked that loving the work is one of the most important things about being a manga translator, especially because translating manga alone is often not enough for someone to support themselves. Mr. Schodt was the first inductee to the Manga Publishing Hall of Fame at this year’s inaugural American Manga Awards, for which he said he felt “very honored. I really choked. I’m actually very emotional so it’s a good thing I didn’t just fall down and totally weep. But I almost did.” He also spoke at length about all of the people he’s thankful to have worked with and translated for over the years, such as Osamu Tezuka, whose work he’s translated, and Peter Goodman, who he worked with through Stonebridge Press. The press asked him, looking back at the decades of work he’s put in, what he’s most proud of and wants to be remembered for.
“Well, in terms of translation, I like all the works that I’ve worked on. And I’ve been really, really lucky, maybe because I was very early in the game. I’ve been asked to translate works that were just fabulous. And then occasionally on my own, I was able to propose works that I wanted to translate and have them accepted and published. And that just gives me an enormous amount of pleasure. One work that I am really proud of is the Four Immigrants manga, which is by Henry (Yoshitaka) Kiyama. And I’m still hoping that more people will be aware of him and what he did, which is really so remarkable. Because actually in 1927, he created all the images for the work for over a 104-page book. It’s a graphic novel, basically, and it was published in 1931 in San Francisco. It’s just such an amazing thing that I hope that people who are interested in the history of manga and also comic books will read that. And that’s something I’m very, very proud of.
But like I said, I love all the stuff I’ve worked on. I loved working on Ghost in the Shell. I loved working on Astro Boy. You can tell [gestures toward his Astro Boy t-shirt] I’m an Astro Boy fan to the core. I’ve just been really, really lucky in that way. And if I were younger and later into the game, I never would have been able to do that. But I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. I don’t sit at home collecting checks from manga translation. It’s always been a labor of love. Most of my income, actually, for the last 20 years or more, has been simultaneous interpreting in the IT field. I know some people say, well, I want to be a manga translator. What should I do? I want to live in a big house and have a nice dog on the fence. Well, you’re probably going to be living at home (laughs). You’re probably going to be living on welfare. That’s the reality, I think. You have to do it for love.”
Compared to his other translation work, he likes manga translation quite a bit more.
“Oh, translating manga is much more fun. Vastly more fun. My whole life, I’ve been a translator and an interpreter, not just related to manga. So I’ve translated government documents in Japan. I used to work for a translation company in Tokyo, which is very famous. It’s international. I worked in the translation department there. We translated government speeches. We did all kinds of things. It’s so boring. So boring. Manga is just so much fun. I’ve loved everything I’ve worked on.
Even when I was in this company in Tokyo, they knew I loved manga. And this is even before I brought out Manga! Manga!. Somebody wants to make a movie out of The Rose of Versailles. And they said, ‘Okay, you translate the manga and then we’ll send it to the screenwriters in Hollywood and they’ll work on something.’ And then my friend and I, we got interested in this. […] We did this whole translation and just scribbled on photocopies and handed it over, the whole thing. We didn’t take a copy. And that was used by the Hollywood screenwriters. [ . . . ] And of course I really regretted the fact that we handed over the entire translation because a few years later I was asked by a Japanese firm in Tokyo to work on a translation of The Rose of Versailles and I didn’t have the draft. [ . . .] That’s an example of a very unusual project that I still marvel over. But it was a lot of fun and for me to do something different from boring translations was great.”
When it comes to advice for those looking to get into manga translation, Mr. Schodt had this to say.
“[ . . . ] If your dream is to become a professional translator, I honestly almost never meet anyone who just does that. They usually have to do other things, and you can make a living in translation. For a while, I think, there were quite a few people who were probably — I have some friends who were making a living doing anime translations, but it’s getting increasingly tough, I think, economically, and I think everybody who’s doing the translation would admit that. Certainly, page rates for manga translation have just cratered since I began working in the field. But again, if you do it for love, if it’s something you really want to do and you’re willing to accept the economic risks and whatnot, then why not? Deb Aoki is just doing fabulous work recently, related to all kinds of manga. She used this term, and I told her last night, I’m going to steal it, it’s called neuroplasticity. I believe that Americans and other people around the world, by reading manga, and it could be manga from anywhere, it could be Korean manga, Chinese manga, it makes your brains much more flexible and open to the outside world and to different thoughts. And ultimately, maybe that’s why people love manga, because it’s different. It makes them think in a slightly different way. That’s my theory, anyway.”
Looking toward his works other than Manga! Manga!, Mr. Schodt recommended Native American in the Land of the Shogun: Ranald MacDonald and the Opening of Japan.
“I spent ten years writing a non-manga-related book about a young man who was half Scottish and half Chinook Indian. And he went to Japan in 1848, which is when Japan was still closed. And he was kind of my hero. So if people are interested in some of my work, that is one book. It’s called Native American in the Land of the Shogun, about Ranald McDonald. That was his terrible name, and that’s kind of hurt the sales of the book. Because people think it’s about a hamburger chain, but it had nothing to do with that at all. But he went to Japan, and he spent six months there in jail, largely. And he was deported and picked up by a U.S. Navy ship. But this was before Japan was even open to the outside world. So he’s kind of my hero. One of my many heroes.”
Translation and the Rise of AI
Two things I particularly wanted to get Mr. Schodt’s thoughts on were (1) the increasing propensity of fans of manga to get much more invested in the quality and accuracy of translations and (2) the increasing use and potential use of AI in the translation business. On the matter of people learning more languages and getting more invested in translation, he had this to say.
“Well, it’s good and bad, I think. You know, there are more and more people who are translating manga. And of course, you don’t have to be a professional to translate manga anymore. There’s a whole scanlation universe. And I think it’s great that more people want to learn new languages. I do have a concern about the future of translation, because I think that even manga, I’m sure that all the manga translators, maybe they’re not saying so, but I’m sure at times they’re using ChatGPT. And if it’s used as a tool, which I’m sure it is, and it will be, then the whole game changes. And of course, if you look at a science fiction future, there may be a lot of people who say, ‘Well, why bother learning a language?’ Because the translations, the machine translations, the genAI [generative AI] translations are getting so good so quickly. That’s kind of a complicated answer (laughs). I expressed a lot of my darker visions for the future. But we’ll evolve, humans will deal with it.
I asked him whether he feels there’s room in the industry for translation from AI and if its heavier involvement in translation for anime and manga is inevitable.
“It’s inevitable, and there’s room for it. But it won’t be 100% AI generated, probably. But, I think everybody will be using it very soon. Oh actually I take that back, I’m sure they already are. Maybe they’re just not saying it. It’s inevitable. and when people say ‘Oh AI can’t do this, it’s not very good at that,’ well, when we’re talking about genAI it’s only been around for like a year (laughs). Anybody who thinks that these limitations make it impossible to use AI in manga or anime translation, that’s flawed. And I have also heard, I don’t know the details of this, but I’ve heard that people are already working on — you need a large language model, you need a huge database, you need information. But if you think forward, because we need to think forward about this stuff, not just today — it’s not that difficult, really, to create a huge database of the categories of expressions that are used in manga. A lot of people will say, ‘Well, you can’t use AI to translate manga text or anime text because it’s so oriented to the visual element,’ and the visual element is probably even more important than the text. But actually in the world of manga and anime, the number of expressions that are used, it’s not infinite, it’s a finite number, and I can see easily how people are going to train large data models that will not only work off the text, but they’ll work off the images. So that’s my feeling”
We’d like to thank Fred Schodt for taking the time to share his unique experiences and perspective with us and other members of the press. You can read more about the American Manga Awards on their website. The full video of the event will be available there in the coming weeks.
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