My Life as a (Rookie) Editor: My Collected Works

Manga blogger Ed Sizemore of Manga Worth Reading recently suggested that I re-do my banner to include manga that I’m credited for.

There’s only one problem…

It would look like this:

Red Hot Chili Samurai

"ALL BY MYSEEEEEEELLLLLFFFFF~~~~~~"

See, there’s only two three manga out there (so far) with my name on it. This is the only one I own.

The other manga is Gakuen Alice vol. 9 and Your & My Secret vol. 5 if you’re wondering.

The reason for this is actually quite simple. People at TOKYOPOP kept handing me BLU stuff and asking: “You like boys’ love, don’t you?” (Answer: “I don’t mind it.”; Translation: “I am lowly intern scum, so I’m going to say yes regardless of whatever I REALLY think about it.”) So I kept editing BLU titles and the thing about BLU titles is that NO ONE LIKES TO ADMIT THEY WORKED ON THEM. Don’t believe me? Grab the closest BLU title, flip to the back of the book, find the credits page and look for the names of the English-language staff.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with not wanting to admit to being responsible some of the shounen-ai and yaoi that’s been put out (whether from BLU or other companies), but I kind of sort of feel like I should get some credit for copy-editing Madness. (I worked on both volumes of the series, actually.) That title came back from the letterers so full of errors that I went back multiple times just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. On top of that, the art style is very tone-heavy, so it was pain to mark all of the really really darkened panels. As hard as I worked on it though, there’s no way I want to be associated with some of the funky stuff that goes down in Madness, so I guess that I’ll stop whining about it.

If you’re interested here are some of the volumes that should have my name somewhere in them:

April-

Fruits Basket Fanbook: Banquet (4/27)

Battle Vixens 15 (4/27)

June-

Gravitation Collection 5 (6/1)

Fruits Basket Ultimate Edition 5 (6/1)

Sgt. Frog 19 (6/29)

July-

Zone-00 4

August-

Genju no Seiza 8

I hope you enjoy them all and I hope I get to fill my bookshelf with awesome titles that I’ve worked on someday!

P.S. I don’t REALLY hate working on yaoi or shonen-ai, I just dislike the assumption that because I’m a female manga fan, I must be an obsessive yaoi fangirl. All that really happened was that I got asked “you like boys’ love, right?” a lot while interning at TOKYOPOP and it kind of became something I privately giggled about. Plus, through editing so much yaoi manga, I became that much more familiar with it’s tropes and whatnot. I can speak about it with a lot more confidence now and that’s good for a lot of things! Also, in comparison to Madness, copy-editing the Fruits Basket Fanbook was a lot harder!

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10 Responses to My Life as a (Rookie) Editor: My Collected Works

  1. Kris says:

    I guess I can understand not wanting your name there. But the thing is, they didn’t make the manga, write the story, draw the art, or even come up with the concept. The only person who really has a hand in that way, is possibly the person who negotiated the license and brought the title over. Otherwise, you’re just translating/type-setting/editing someone else’s work. Is that really all that embarrassing?
    Or maybe it’s just the idea of having to explain that very thing to anyone who asks?

    • Well, it’s editors (at least the full-time editors anyway) who pick out what they WANT to license and whatnot. Then the legal team goes out and tries to get what they want. Basically, it’s what the editors want/what the Japanese publishers give us that gets published here.

      In a sense it’s having to explain it to people. Considering some of the common BL tropes out there (forced sexual experiences, student-teacher relationships), you don’t really want your name linked to it if there’s suddenly a scandal. In other cases, it may just be because you dislike that particular series.

      So yes, it’s a little embarrassing to be connected to potentially controversial and unsavory stuff, even if you didn’t create it.

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  3. Marla says:

    I’m going to faint from joyous vapors. The next volume of Genju no Seiza!!!!!!

  4. lys says:

    I was just looking at the front page of one of my Tokyopop books, and it listed you (and Hope Donovan) as copy-editors for Your & My Secret 5. So… there’s three released books for your list?

    May your list keep growing!

  5. Ai Morinaga is a pretty swanky credit for a rookie editor! Congrats on the extended gig.

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