about

shmuplations.com began as an outgrowth of the translations I started doing for shmupsforum in April 2012. I had only intended to do a couple as a way of showing my appreciation to the community, but it turned out to be so rewarding that I kept translating more and more. Eventually, I realized it would be a great loss if these weren’t archived somewhere in a more permanent fashion, and I created this site in 2013, with a patreon campaign following in 2015.

While shmuplations continues to be a mostly "solo" project, in recent years the contributions of editor-translator extraordinaire GSK have become vital to keeping things running smoothly, and we occasionally receive help from guest translators who contribute when my plate becomes too full.

FAQ

Q. Can I post your translations on my site/book/zine/etc?

A. I don’t have ultimate copyright control over the originating documents here, but a translator does own the product of his own work, so I’d prefer if you just linked to the interviews. But if you are interested in republishing a specific translation on your site / blog, just contact me and I doubt it will be a problem. Also, feel free to re-translate these into another language.

Q. Why don't you post the original Japanese interviews? Why do some of the interviews not have exact citations/issue numbers?

A. To avoid affronting copyright holders (the laws are a bit stricter in Japan), I don't post the original scans. If you are doing research, or a student of Japanese, however, I'm more than happy to share them if you shoot me an e-mail. Today, a lot of these magazines like Beep, Famitsu, and Gamest can be found on archive.org.

As for the citations, that has to do with the way I collected the original scans from the Diet Library. I had ~2 weeks for my initial research dive, and requesting photocopies at the library is fairly time-consuming; you aren't allow to just freely scan things. As with many things in Japan, there are rules, forms, triplicates, etc... it's orderly but not exactly quick. So to optimize my time I didn't record citation-grade info for much of the material. Now that I live about an hour from the Library, though, getting exact cites (at least for what we've translated) is on my to-do list.

Q. You should make a book out of these! People would buy that!

A. This is one I hear a lot, and I'd personally love to... but because the interviews come from so many different sources, I think negotiating the rights would be impracticable if not impossible. It would also run a bit contra to our mission as a non-profit operation, with compensation for labor only; you'll notice the lack of ads on the site.

About the Translator

I began studying Japanese as a teenager, majored in it at UC Berkeley, and lived in Japan for a time afterwards. I switched gears in my mid-20s and became a lawyer, but I hated the law and no longer practice, thank god. These days I live near Tokyo and do freelance Japanese translation work full-time. My other big passion is writing music--I've played guitar for 25+ years, and I programmed my own sequencer in max/msp where I work on "autechre-lite" electronic music in my spare time. I also walk and hike a lot and am currently training for the 百名山 ("100 Famous Mountains") which will probably take me many years to climb.

Special Thanks

The following people have supported or contributed to this site in one way or another and are dearly thanked: rancor, oxtsu, Aquas, NTSC-J, Muchi Muchi Spork, GaijinPunch, GlitterBerri, system11, MintytheCat, Andrew Taylor, rtw, trap15, Frenetic, Tyjet, undamned, Ghegs, emphatic, BIL, PC Engine Fan X!, DMC, Kurt Kalata… and probably many others I’m forgetting!