I was going to tweet this, but I soon realized that I needed way more characters to explain this hair brained scheme.

I have been asked to do a panel at Yaoi-con on Localizing for the Digital Manga Guild (DMG). I thought I would do a couple of blogs on the challenging/fun/crazy/sexy things we find in the manga we’ve localized. I also thought this would be an opportunity to cross promote our books. If I get a good enough response, I may do a video for each topic in these blogs.

So, this is a call for manga titles (tell me what it is and I’ll get a copy)! Please, send me examples of:

• Craziest translating/editing challenges (For example, we’re currently working with Sanskrit Buddhist magic spells).

• Cultural translation challenges (We’ve had to come up with songs to sing in a bathtub, titles for trivia game shows and titles for girly magazines)

• Strangest places for a hook up (we have emergency stairwells, a flower shop, and a school nurse’s office). A subset to that is how many examples of hookups on a train or train station we can find.

• Strangest positions and/or ‘love implements.’ For implements, I’m not limiting the items to paddles or stap-ons (our winner is still a bud vase with the flower AND the water).

• Speaking of BDSM, pile on the examples! I think that would make a really fun montage, and it is a great way of talking about views on yaoi both positive and negative.

Also, I’d love any stories you have about the interesting and fun and challenging aspects of being a localizer. I have some about working with people from different parts of the country and the world and becoming friends or pulling my hair out trying to make a sentence fit in a narrow bubble and still convey the mangaka’s intent. Tell me what makes a good team. I heard some great examples about the support teams get from Digital Manga when a title gets really challenging during a web conference. Tell me more about that and other examples of DMG support.

I know that not many of us can make it to the convention, but I’d like to try to represent as many aspects of our experiences as possible.

You can reply in the comments here or email me here: deborahlwarner@gmail.com . I’ll need a couple of weeks to put together this project, so please respond by September 30.

Thank you!

Happy Yaoi day part two! Have a taste of Nabako Kamo’s Again Tomorro brought to you by the Digital Manga Guild!

Happy Yaoi Day part one! Enjoy a taste of Sakira’s Wild Boyfriend! Brought to you by The Digital Manga Guild and Heavens Blade Localizers!

Sakira’ Wild Boyfriend too hot for youtube part four!

Saikira’s Wild Boyfried too hot for youtube.

Sakira’s Wild Boyfriend too hot for youtube part two.

Part One of Sakira’s Wild Boyfriend too hot for Youtube.

Find out just what is UP with the bud vase or, for that matter,  the blood pressure cup or that cotton swab. And then, there are the hot encounters in daring places or mundane places. Oh, let’s not kid around, they happen everywhere - the emergency stairwell (very popular), the school nurse’s office, a flower shop, a dojo. I think there was a rodeo and a space ship. There’s a reason this title is TOO HOT for Amazon Kindle!!

Tough guy Ran thought Keitatsu was shy and vulnerable as he longed for him from afar. Then, when a brutal act brings them together, Ran discovers that he’s the one in need of a rescue and Keitatsu is more than he or anyone else can handle! Sakira’s long awaited debut collection features hot couples in the wildest first encounters ever! [localized by L.W. Hubbard, D.L. Warner, and Hentai Tenshi]

“Wild Boyfriend – Bousou Kareshi © Sakira. All rights reserved. Original Japanese edition published in 2009 by JUNET Co.,Ltd” This title is available for Nook here http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wild-boyfriend-sakira/1111509456?ean=2940014800266 or to read online via EManga here: http://www.emanga.com/books/Wild_Boyfriend .

Read about all the most recent TOO HOT titles here: http://www.digitalmanga.com/blog/2583/steamy-weekend-yaoi-vol-3

This is the latest Cook Like a Uke. This week it’s Beef Curry and Beer with Yusei from Nabako Kamo’s Again Tomorrow.

My localizing team mates and I were lulled by the sweet, funny romance of Again Tomorrow. While there were some epic sex scenes in every chapter of Nabako Kamo’s manga, there were a lot of other things going on as well. There were intrigues at the office or at various schools or, in one case, on a crowded subway. If there were eyes that were too young and tender for yaoi, it was easy to move to a benign location in Again Tomorrow. Curious little ones would likely find a panel with two salarymen working in a cubicle very dull and move on. Don’t get me wrong. Again Tomorrow is a white hot, sexy manga. However, the mangaka likes to build the tension or ratchet up the jeopardy for each of the couples before the pages and pages of heated coupling. Thus, the localizer who is also a parent has ‘safe’ pages on which to click when the children wander too close.

This is not the case with the current manga Heaven’s Blade is localizing. Sakira’s Wild Boyfriend covers many more couples who come together in a swift and explosive fashion. The safe pages are far fewer in number and really hard to click on when in a panic. I’m lucky as I only have the Hubs peering over my shoulder periodically. All I have to put up with are comments like:

‘You can’t tit f***k a guy!’

‘He put a bud vase with a flower in there!’

‘Who keeps that many sex toys at work?’ (That one gave me pause.)

‘He just happened to be carrying roofies to school.’

‘Sweat is NOT the same as lube!!’

The comments are a bit distracting, but could never derail me. I have been thrown into fits of giggles – mainly at my Hubs’ consternation, but I always manage to find focus after a while. My team members, however, have a stickier problem. They have young ones with curious eyes. Fortunately, they are none too stealthy. My team mates have to use cat-like reflexes to switch to a different screen and avert disaster. Of course, the little darlings who never seem to pay attention to their parents before, notice when their parents move so abruptly. Thus, they hang around hoping for a glimpse of what was so interesting. To combat that strategy, my team mates have taken to doing their part of localizing when their little ones are fast asleep. They have been a lot punchier during Skype or email exchanges with this manga. I admire them for soldiering on with their fatigue fuzzy brains through their regular workloads while still churning out quality translations and lettering.

I don’t think any of us anticipated such perils when we signed up to be localizers. Still, it’s a fun gig, and the problems are amusing in their own way.

Again Tomorrow - Ashita Kara Mouichido © Nabako Kamo. All rights reserved. Original Japanese edition published in 2010 by Taiyoh Tosho Publishing Co., Ltd. It’s available for Kindle HERE, for Nook HERE and other formats HERE.