About a year ago, Richard and I were fortunate enough to be interviewed for Excite! Japan. This net-based article was posted on the Japanese site, and never fully translated to English. The author was a very sweet girl by the name of Tomoko, who really did make me feel very good about our job, and she seemed to enjoy our comic.

Tonight I decided to poke around Google under my pen name. Oh come on, we all do it sometimes. It’s fascinating to see what kind of crap your name pulls up. Try it sometime. Anyway, I saw some Japanese site come up with this particular web article listed. Well not speaking much Japanese other than what I affectionately call “otaku speak” (or in other words, I can screech things in an annoyingly high voice that would normally only be heard in a hentai or something lame like that), curiosity got the better of me and I decided to go one step further than squinting at the kanji on my screen.

Enter Alta Vista’s Bablefish.

I was both amused and somewhat surprised to see that most of the comments were VERY negative. They were somewhat accusatory and made me seem like a silly American who is just capitalizing on the popularity of the Anime and Manga style. One of the comments even went so far as to say that drawing ‘large eyes and big boobs’ doesn’t make it Anime.

Now, I know for a fact that Bablefish isn't the most detailed of translators. But you can get the tone of something down. And believe me, the tone sucked.

I’m sort of on a line on this one. I am both offended, and yet I can’t argue. It sort of hurts my feelings. Granted, I’m American. I know my audience is mostly here in the states, though we have readers in Australia, Britain, Brazil, and numerous other countries. And I'm grateful for that! Hell I'm grateful anyone gives a damn to read at all. But remember, Otaku –no- Yen is not meant for really anyone but English speaking Anime and Manga fans who have specifically grown up in the U.S.A. That’s what I know, so that’s what we do. We get a fairly large readership from Japan, but now I’m wondering if we were really fairly represented in this article. Anyway, if you are from Japan, and you read the comic, I’d love to hear some commentary. You can always email me at guardiansun@gmail.com.

I just want everyone to remember something. I don’t do this art style because it is popular, or to make a buck. I’ve been doing this for nearly 6 years, because I love the style of it, and our comic isn’t trying to masquerade as anything but American. So if for some god forsaken reason we offended someone along the way, please don’t lynch me. I’m kind of fond of living.