From LA Weekly: If you've ever wondered why the rock n' roll vibe in Nana feels so authentic, look no further than the credits in the front of the book. As writer Liz Ohanesian points out, this is partly due to the work of Bratmobile singer Allison Wolfe, who works on the adapting the Japanese translations of Ai Yazawa's hit manga for Shojo Beat / VIZ Media. And Wolfe's experience on and off stage shows as she makes Nana, and her bandmates in the Black Stones and her rivals in Trapnest sound just like the hip and stylish rockers that they are.
As Wolfe explained to Ohanesian:
"I receive the translation from a woman in Tokyo who does the direct translation from Japanese to English. She emails me the files. I change it up, clean it up and kind of make it sound hip and cool."Interestingly enough, Wolfe didn't have much exposure to Japanese manga before getting this gig, but she found she could relate to Aizawa's Tokyo tale of two girls named Nana. As she puts it,
"Before VIZ, I never really was a reader of manga. I had nothing against it, but I didn't know much about that realm. I got really involved in Nana right away. I loved it from the beginning. I thought it was interesting and I love that there is manga that is really smart and funny.... It feels pretty feminist in this way, there are these strong female characters that really run the show. Guys all feel like secondary characters to me."Check out the rest of the interview and see which Nana Wolfe most identifies with, and why how The Black Stones ascent to fame is both similar and very different than Wolfe's Bratmobile days.
Nana Volume 16 is due out on Tuesday May 5 from Shojo Beat Manga. If you're new to Nana, check out this profile of this popular and and a free online preview of a few pages from this addictive shojo manga series. Also, visit the newly launched Nana website, which has all the details about the soon-to-be-released Nana anime series from VIZ Media.
Image credit: © 1999 by Yazawa Manga Seisakusho / SHUEISHA Inc.
Comments
My mind is BLOWN! I was a huge fan of Bratmobile! Wow…
Please don’t take this too literally, but I’m kind of disappointed in the adaptation of the manga. I understand completely that it needs to sound hip and cool, but the characters are saying things that aren’t even in the original Japanese and are not widely accepted in English either!!
Some of the “hip” words the characters say are not necessarily common and understandable from a reader’s perspective. Please use “pregnant” instead of “preggers”, no one says “preggers”. Every word does not have to sound cool, as long as the characters are saying what they’re SUPPOSED to say.
It’s not really authentic manga if the dialogue is re-written, is it? Most readers want the closest translation over re-writes. Why try to appeal to the younger crowd when the manga is 18+ anyways??
I was already interested in the manga– now that I know Allison Wolfe was involved, I’ve GOT to read it!