Hey folks!
I'm going to level with you here: Recent Trends in game industry employment haven't been terribly kind to us freelance translators, either. 2024 has been an incredibly dry year for work so far. A few big projects that were supposed to keep me well-fed this year all got hit with indefinite delays right before Christmas last year and I've had a bear of a time trying to plug the holes in my schedule ever since while I wait for things to do on them again. Not great when you live in a foreign country and have yearly income thresholds to meet in order to maintain said visa!
The Breakdown
So here's the deal: I know Cohost isn't exactly a bastion for fellow localizers, but! I also do plenty of other related work for games in general, not just Japanese ones specifically. I don't advertise those services as much as I probably should, but if you're a developer or publisher of any size and scale, here's some of the things I'm also highly experienced in and can offer you:
- In-game content writing (character dialogue, UI, tutorials, item descriptions, etc.)
- Editing/proofreading
- LQA
- Copywriting (store pages, news posts, etc.)
- Style guide generation/unification
- Localization consultation (technical/language preparation advice, content reviews, etc.)
Basically, if your game could do with a wordsmith, whether it's to write content from scratch or just offer another pair of eyes to look over your work, I'm here to help! And if you're an indie in particular, don't think your game can't benefit from a professional writer just because everyone on your team is a native speaker! It's easy for poor, inconsistent formatting and bad habits to slip through the cracks into the final game when you don't have someone external checking things over and nipping problems in the bud before they go public. Longtime localizers such as myself in particular are trained to create and adhere to things such as glossaries and style guides, giving our translated games a consistent, polished voice from start to finish. I've spent years helping developers fine-tune their English scripts in a variety of ways and across a myriad of genres, not just story-heavy ones, and I'm always eager to work on more! (If you want a link to my localization portfolio, skip the next two sections.)
My rates for these services are all flexible and scale depending on the nature of the work, as well as the size of the client. So whether you're developing something on your own or working as part of a team, independent or otherwise, my inbox is open and I'm happy to talk and provide you a free estimate! Just check the details at the very bottom of this post on how to reach me.
"I need help talking to someone in Japan who doesn't speak English. Do you handle correspondence for Japanese>English and vice versa?"
I sure do! Whether you're trying to reach out to a Japanese freelancer to contribute art or music to your game, need help answering interviews, or something else entirely, chances are, I've done it before and I'm happy to do it again! I can help at any point in the development process for as long as you need. Again, read the bottom to find out how to contact me.
"Do you offer any English>Japanese localization services specifically?"
When possible, generally, it's standard practice these days for professionals to translate into their native language. After all, it's the language we're best equipped to write smooth, colloquial-sounding content. Because of that, I typically limit my English>Japanese services to non-creative, internal requests like business correspondence and interviews rather than anything destined for direct public consumption.
That being said, if you've commissioned a localization for your game into Japanese through a vendor and you want an assessment of the translation you've received, feel free to contact me. Either I'll take a look myself or will refer you to a qualified native translator that I trust. While reputable game-focused vendors can typically at least be somewhat trusted to have retained qualified, native speakers for such projects, your mileage might vary significantly if you've contracted the work to a more all-purpose, jack of all trades firm, especially as more unscrupulous bandwagoners turn to AI and MTPE (machine translation post-editing; ie: a machine translation that's only touched up later by an actual person). In a worst case scenario, your material might be processed by machines first before reaching any human's desk without you even being informed! It happens and it's only becoming more frequent as companies seek out new ways to cynically improve their margins.
If you're not having regular back-and-forths with your Japanese translation team or otherwise think you might have reason to be concerned, it's quite possible that the delivered material will be problematic in some way. You only have one chance to make a first impression in a new market and it's best to find out about any issues before release, not after your audience has paid money and is turning your game's localization into memes.
"Okay, but who the heck are you, though?"
Fair enough! For those of you unfamiliar with me, as I said at the top, I'm a freelance Japanese>English translator by trade with 11 years of experience. Localization is my main specialty and in that time, I've been privileged to contribute to a lot of cool games and franchises, many of which you've probably heard of! You can find my portfolio site with my public credits here! But to briefly summarize, in recent years, I was the lead translator on both Tales of Arise and Ghostwire: Tokyo, each of which I worked on for several years prior to release. You may have also seen my work on other series such as Trails/Kiseki, Monster Hunter, and even Dragon Quest as a proofreader and editor. All of which is to say, I love games writing and take great joy in sitting down and playing my part to make the core material shine its brightest in English, whether it's a natively produced game or not!
How to Contact Me
There are two ways you can reach out to me:
- Here on Cohost. Either leave me an ask with your contact info (which I obviously won't publish and will delete as soon as I've finished responding!), or a comment on this post describing what you need and how to best get in touch. No need to get too detailed if you can't or simply don't want to, I get how these things go.
- My contact form. It's a Google form! You probably know how those work by now. Just submit your contact info and some basic details about your project/team and I'll try to get back to you within several business days, often much sooner. (You can also use this form to send Japanese>English translation inquiries, too, of course! I'm just not counting on Cohost being a big driver for that sort of work and that's okay!)
Wrapping Up
If you've made it this far, thanks for reading and considering my services! Normally, work is steady enough at this stage in my career that I thankfully don't need to write these sorts of overt posts soliciting jobs. But, while droughts are to be expected in freelancing for better or worse, this one has gone on longer and been more severe than most others I've experienced since I entered the field a little over a decade ago. I'm certainly not alone in that in localization right now, but the fact remains that I'm tired of spinning these wheels and want to get back in the trenches doing something or other! I genuinely enjoy doing non-translation work, too, and I figured I'm long overdue for reminding people I offer those additional services as well, so, here I am! As I said before, I accept requests of all sizes, scopes, and durations and while many of my credits are in AAA games, indies are also more than welcome to talk to me, too! I love working with them and am always up for more collaborations on that side of things, too!
If you don't have any work to contact me about, that's totally fine, too! Simply spreading the word by reposting this on here will go a long way and you'll have my sincere appreciation for that! If you see this post pinned to my profile, I'm still taking requests and my schedule remains open. Even if that's not the case and you still want to talk, however, feel free to reach out anyway and I'll see what I can do.
Thanks again and I look forward to working with you! 
