I love English and was once good enough to become an English teacher at a Japanese junior high school. But that was in the past, and since then my English skills have been declining rapidly. So, as part of my language learning, I decided to post some simple questions and comments about the English language that are not easy for me (and that I should ask on HiNative or Quora) on Newgrounds. I am not an expert in English and may make elementary mistakes, but thank you for your patience.

Let’s See How Great a Professional Translator Is | English Is Not So Easy 25

I often post articles that are too manic and boring for Newgrounds because I studied English too much, and I'm afraid this might be one of them. However, I feel obligated to post these kinds of articles because I need to periodically bring my overconfident "If it's in English, I can understand 80% of it" self back down to earth.

Junji Ito (伊藤潤二) is a horror manga artist known for works like "Tomie" and "Uzumaki," and I personally love his work because the characters are unusually beautiful and cute.

What I want to talk about this time is the video on YouTube when vismedia invited Ito to Canada for an interview in 2019. Coincidentally, this video turned out to be an excellent study material for me in learning English. That's because just by correlating Junji Ito's Japanese with the English of the interviewer and translator, there's a lot to learn.

Among the things worth noting is the unnamed translator on the right side of the screen. I'm not a translator, but it's easy to imagine that becoming a professional translator like her would require not only a deep knowledge of both English and Japanese, but also many other skills, such as the ability to take, interpret, and present accurate notes on long and complex discussions.

She is not in an environment like mine where I can spend a lot of time translating with different tools, but she can instantly do translation work that I could never hope to do. In this article, I've transcribed part of the conversation from the interview (thanks to YouTube's transcription!) and examined how accurate her translations are and how to translate "professionally".

As a native Japanese speaker but not a native English speaker, my listening skills are limited, so there may be some errors or awkward places in the English text. If you find any, I'd be grateful if you'd let me know in the comments or via PM.

Short or Long Stories (31:42)

Ryan Sands (Interviewer): I also wanted to ask, I think, in addition to a couple of your longer works that we all know and love, you've serialized a lot of short stories, and I personally think short stories are in many ways better than longer works, like I think Stephen King short stories are better than his novels. I think Philip K Dick's short stories have been more energy than his weird rambling long books. So I guess the question I wanted to ask Ito-sensei is, do you have an idea about how do you figure out whether an idea should be a short story or be serialized, be something longer, and when you are serializing, how far do you plan it out? Do you know the ending or do you let yourself sort of be surprised along the way?

• Although not mentioned in this article, from the full context of the interview, it appears that the interviewer, Ryan Sands, is a professional writer or someone involved in creative work, particularly with a deep knowledge of literature. In that sense, I think this question was one that needed to be asked early on.

Junji Ito: 私は長編の書き方はまだよくわかってないので、だいたい短編が適してると思います。長編は連載のために無理矢理考えだして、短編で済むような話を無理やり引き延ばしたようなものもあります。できれば短編ばかり書いていけたら一番です。

Translator: You know the thing is I still don't really know how to write the long form story that well. For me the short story is really the foundation I think, and when I'm writing a longer story, I kind of have to force it. I really have to pull it out of me. So something that could really fit nicely in a short story, I sort of stretch it out or something. If possible, I'd love to just only do short stories.

• The part she translated with the strong word "foundation", "The short story is really the foundation", was actually "短編が適してる (Drawing short stories is suitable for me)", but her translation makes it clearer that Junji Ito's identity is rooted in short stories. This is a good translation.

Junji Ito: 長編の場合は、どこまでストーリーを考えるかっていうのは作品によって違ったんですけど、『地獄星レミナ』っていう漫画は、最初から最後まで絵コンテを書き終わってから作画に入りまして、一応最後までストーリーを考えました。それとは逆に、最近は行き当たりばったりで、先のこと考えずに書いてるんですけど。最初から最後までストーリー作っちゃってから書くっていうのは、あんまりおもしろくないですね。行き当たりばったりで、とりあえず原稿第一話書いちゃって、「その次はどうする？」ってやった方が、思いがけないストーリーが生まれるような気がします。ただ、書いてる最中は不安でしょうがないですね。「破綻したらどうしよう」とか、「最初に書いちゃったことと辻褄合わせられなかったらどうしよう」っていう不安で、夜も眠れないっていうか、今そんな状態なんですけど。

Translator: With the longer story, like how far I plan the story ahead before I start working on it, it really differs from work to work, of course, but for instance with the work, "Hellstar Remina", I did everything from start to finish. I did all the story boards for everything. So the whole story was finished before I even started drawing it. But lately I've sort of just been like going where the wind takes me as it were, so I don't go all the way to the end of the story when I start it. To be honest, to write it out from the start to the finish is sort of not that interesting to me. It loses its sparkle in a lot of ways. So I just do it on the fly in a sort of way, do the storyboard and then [*Sorry, I couldn't hear*] next, where am I going with this. It takes the story in some surprising directions that it wouldn't otherwise go, and that's really interesting, but it also brings a lot of like anxiety for me personally, like, "Wait! If I do this then what happens next?" or like, "How can I do this?" or "This thing happened and now this? Ugh!!"

Audience: *laughter*

Translator: And sometimes I can't even sleep, like, it gets to that point of the anxiety gets like that, so that's the state I'm currently in so.

Audience: *laughter*

Ryan Sands (Interviewer): Sounds intense.

Translator: (To Ito) それはすごいですね

• This is the skill of a professional translator. She can translate this amount of text in an instant and deliver a speech over a long period. At least for me, this kind of work is impossible without training or, no matter how much training I get.
• If I were Canadian and in her position, I would first be confused by the phrase "行き当たりばったり." While "randomly" is the closest dictionary definition, it's not possible to write a story randomly unless you’re a monkey sitting in front of a typewriter, so she used the expression "where the wind takes me."
• The part including "it loses its sparkle" is not present in Junji Ito's original remark, but it does seem to make the story flow better with this expression.
• Junji Ito's worries about "「破綻したらどうしよう」とか、「最初に書いちゃったことと辻褄合わせられなかったらどうしよう」" would be translated literally as "'What if the story falls apart?' or 'What if I can't make it consistent with what I wrote at the beginning?'" but she humorously expresses it using her own words.

Ito's career as a dental technician (37:20)

Ryan Sands (Interviewer): I know that you worked as a dental technician previously before you became a full-time creator, and I think a lot of our favorite stories have a theme of body horror, you know, dealing with physical deformation and the way that psychological pain affects your physical body, and also beauty and aging, dying young Tomie, and so, I've always wanted to ask you this: Did working as a dental technician...

Audience: *laughter*

Ryan Sands (Interviewer): ...and working with people's bodies or having medical training, did that influence I think the way you think about the body? Is body horror scary to you?

Junji Ito: LOL 私の漫画は「ボディーホラー」であるというようなことをWikipediaで見て、「あっ、そういわれてみればそうだな」って思いました。やっぱり、人体が変形する話が多いので、それは的確な指摘だと思ったんですけど、歯科技工士というのは口だけが専門でですね、身体はあまり関係ないんで、あまり歯科技工士としての仕事がボディーホラーに影響しているかっていうと、あまり関係がないかもしれません。ただ、歯科技工士の学校で解剖学の授業がありまして、人体の名称をラテン語で覚えたりして、そういうところで解剖学に興味をもった、っていうのは事実です。

Translator: Yeah, the fact that my manga is considered "body horror", I actually saw that on Wikipedia,...

Audience: *laughter*

Translator: ...and I was like, "Oh yeah, I guess now that you mention it! Yeah."

Audience: *laughter*

Translator: So, one of the main themes of my work is obviously like how deformations of the body and like, you know, changes in the body, so I, yeah, that was appropriate I thought. But like as a dental technician, that work is dealing with the mouth basically just the mouth area, and doesn't really have any connection at all to the body. So being a dental technician, I mean, as an influence on body horror, I don't think it was really connected at all. But, when I was in school to become a dental technician, we had anatomy lessons where we had to learn, we studied the human body in Latin, and so, I did develop an interest in anatomy from that.

• Junji Ito once worked as a dental technician, and his career is discussed in more detail in interviews, but I didn't cover it in this article.
• What surprised me was that I first consulted the Japanese version of Junji Ito's Wikipedia, but there was no mention of "body horror (ボディーホラー?)", but it was mentioned in the English version of Wikipedia. Based on his demeanor, I assumed that Ito might not be familiar with the English language, but it seems that he has enough English to be able to refer to the English Wikipedia.

Junji Ito: 私も若いころ対人恐怖症だったので、一番怖いのは人間の心だなっていうのがありますね。心を宿した身体というのが私にとって恐怖の対象なのかなと思います。動物のボディーはあまり怖いとは思わないんですけど、鮫とかは怖いですけど。そういうところから、人間の身体のホラーにつながったのかなって思います。

Translator: Actually, when I was young, I really had this phobia of people, basically I was, and the human body like the scariest thing in the world to me was like the human heart. And so, that the heart and the body were, sort of like, this fountain of terror for me.　I didn't find animals scary, although sharks are scary,...

Audience: *laughter*

Translator: ...but the human body was really just a kind of a source of horror for me.

• Although I left it out of this article, Ito had previously mentioned how terrifying Steven Spielberg's JAWS was. I think that was the reason for the audience's laughter.
• "対人恐怖症" is now a common psychiatric term in Japan, and the literal translation is "anthropophobia". But I personally feel that this term is not used as much in English-speaking countries as it is in Japan. So she used "phobia of people," which I think also captures the nuance of his remark well.
• The expression "Fountain of Terror" struck me as a very stylish phrase. The relevant part is "恐怖の対象," and indeed, I feel that this term is challenging to translate into English.

Junji Ito: 歯科技工士をやった経験が漫画に一番役立ったのはですね、漫画を描く道具を加工する、ペン軸を自分の手に合うように削ったりとか、それにサンドペーパーをかけて滑らかにしてあげる、そうすると使いやすくなる。道具を加工する技術を歯科技工士の技術でやってますんで、そこは役に立ってます。

Translator: I think the most useful thing that I learned as a dental technician and the thing that I carry with me even now is, you know, when I have a lot of tools for when I'm making manga, and so I like modify them to fit my hands properly, so I'll shave a little bit off, or you know, take some sandpaper to it and really smooth it down and make it easier for me to use. And so that's something that I used to do as a dental technician, and that skills kind of carried over now.

• In this conversation, there are no very difficult topics discussed, but since Ito is a professional manga artist, there is a possibility that he might delve into complex discussions about drawing manga. A notable example of this is when he later held a live drawing session where he discussed quite advanced topics about the tools he uses and how he draws illustrations, and she translated it all perfectly.

The Genesis of Fuchi (43:05)

Ryan Sands (Interviewer): I wanted to thank you for all the nightmares caused by this character.

Audience: *Admiration*

Translator: (To Ito) このキャラからの悪夢をありがとうございます。

Ito: あぁ… LOL

Ryan Sands (Interviewer): And you mentioned no connection to your dental work, but her mouth has also caused many nightmares for me.

Audience: *Laughter*

Ryan Sands (Interviewer): For people who don't know, this character's name is "Fuchi", and she's an enormous woman with needle teeth and this stare. I have you here so I'll ask, where did this woman come from?

Audience: *Laughter*

Ryan Sands (Interviewer): Who is she? Why is she?

Audience: *Laughter*

Junji Ito: 私が書いてたのが、少女向け雑誌だったんですね。「ハロウィン」っていうのは、少女向けホラー雑誌だったので、主な読者が少女だったんですが、私はファッションセンスがなかったんで、参考のためにファッション誌を買ってきてそれを参考にして漫画を描いてたんですけど、あるファッション誌をめくってたら、モデルさんなんでもちろんきれいなんですけど、「ちょっとおかしいな。ちょっと怖いぞ」ていうふうな、そんなモデルさんの顔を見て、ファッションモデルで綺麗なはずなのに、化け物であるというのがアイデアとして閃いて、そこから「ファッションモデルの化け物」っていうキャラクターを生んだんですけど、当初考えていたよりもお化けみたいな顔になっちゃってまして、本当はもうちょっときれいに描きたかったですね。

Translator: When I was writing this, I actually was writing for, this girls magazine, I mean, it was this magazine a horror magazine called "Halloween", but it was for girls in the Shoujo-manga market, and so the readers were like young girls ostensibly, but you know, I didn't have any fashion sense myself, or any idea of fashion, so I bought some fashion magazines as a reference, and then, I drew this manga while I was referring to these magazines. And I was looking at one magazine, and there's this model and, of course, she's pretty, she's an attractive model, but there's something that was sort of like, "Eh?"

Audience: *Laughter*

Translator: Like it was sort of, you know, something scary or kind of weird about her. I mean, she's a fashion model, so she's supposed to be pretty, but then, you know, she's a monster and that idea kind of got planted in my head there. I came up with this idea of the character being a fashion model but she's actually a monster, and that was kind of, you know, the genesis of it. But she turned out to be really a monster. She was supposed to be more beautiful in my original idea, but she's mostly just monstrous.

Audience: *Laughter*

Ryan Sands (Interviewer): My favorite part of the stories that she's in is that there are a bunch of people who are like, "Oh yeah, let's hire her! She seems great!"

Audience: *Laughter*

Translator: (To Ito) 渕さんの一番好きなポイントは、みんなが「あぁ、渕さんなら雇いましょうか！」って周りの皆さんが言うところで。

Ito: LOL そこはですね、恐ろしいパワーで仕事を得るという。

Translator: She has some power to obtain work.

Audience: *Laughter*

Ryan Sands (Interviewer): It's a very empowering story for all the girls in the audience.

• During the interviews, I could sometimes hear the Japanese spoken by the translator, and her pronunciation was perfect and very easy to understand, indicating that she is a very experienced translator.
• Personally, I found the word "ostensibly" in her translation of "the readers were like young girls ostensibly" interesting. This word does not appear in Ito's original remark, but she seemed to feel the need to add it. It seems that she briefly wondered, "Did he write for a girl's manga magazine even though he's a male horror manga artist?" For Japanese people, it's not unusual for male manga artists to submit work to girls' manga magazines, or for female manga artists to submit work to boys' manga magazines (Fullmetal Alchemist and Demon Slayer are famous examples). However, it may seem a bit strange to non-Japanese audiences.
• I thought it was interesting how she humorously expressed "Eh?!", which was Ito's reaction of "ちょっとおかしいな。ちょっと怖いぞ (a little strange, a little scary)" to the model, drawing laughter from the audience.
• This is my personal impression, but I find the most appealing character to be a girl who is not only beautiful or cute or pretty, but also evokes a feeling of "pain" in those who look at her, even for a moment. This "pain" is described by Ito as "weirdness," and others might call it "creepiness." I believe that this attraction to such women may come from a deeper instinct to understand a person's inner self more deeply.

The Genesis of "Gyo" (46:56)

Ryan Sands (Interviewer): I'm going to ask　about another story that I　think, has caused many nightmares in this room, so I think I know,... for folks who know "Gyo", and another story of Ito-sensensei is the called "The Thing that Drifted Ashore", there's this Primal Fear of what's deep below the water what's in the sea, I personally I read Jaws when I was like 10 or 12, and so, this one really got me hard, but I think also a theme in these stories of like nature sort of getting revenge on us, or the Earth sort of lashing back at humans, and I think, you know, this story came out a long time ago, and since then the realities of sort of what we're doing to the Earth have become pretty clear, and terrifying. Can you talk a little bit about sort of like, what this kind of story or environmental horror means to you now?

Junji Ito: もう50年くらい生きてきますとですね、あっ、55年ですけど、地球が温暖化して、明らかに私の子供のころよりも雪は減りましたし、暑くなってるなって実感できるんですけど、環境を考えた場合、地球はやがて干上がるだろうなって、もちろんそんな近い将来じゃないんでしょうけど、そのうち火星のようになってしまうのかなって思ってまして。やはり、地球の環境は徐々に悪化していくんだろうなって思います。

Translator: I've lived like 50, oh wait, 55 years now, and you know, it's clear like climate change has been happening, and you know there's, like for instance, there's less snow now than when I was a kid. The environment is definitely getting worse and worse, and so, obviously it's not going to happen tomorrow, but I think like what if we are we going to end up like Mars or something you know. And it keeps, the environment just keeps getting worse like we're not getting any better here.

• She faithfully translated Ito’s slip of the tongue, resulting in the phrase, "I've lived like 50, oh wait, 55 years now." However, this was not her mistake.
• As I’ve been writing this text, I’ve realized once again how difficult it is to transcribe spoken conversations into text, whether in English or Japanese. They frequently use what are called "fillers," such as "um" or "you know" in English, and "あの," "ちょっと," or "やっぱり" in Japanese. They often start saying something and then stop, as we saw earlier. YouTube transcription picks up on these fillers faithfully, so it took quite a bit of time to turn the transcription into readable text. And I still haven't found a clear answer on how much of this should be omitted. I hope this article is easy to read.

Junji Ito: でも、そんなたいそうなこと言いましたけど、私が漫画を描くときはあんまりテーマを考えないんですよ。なんか、最初のアイデアはちょっとしたイメージだったり、ちょっと違和感あって面白いなっていうような発想だったりして、それを膨らませて書くんですよ。その過程でテーマをくっつけていくっていう書き方をしていまして。『ギョ』の場合、そうですね、なんていうか、環境問題というのはあまり考えてなかったんですね。それよりも、最初は、さっき鮫が怖いって言いましたけど、海の中に入らなければ鮫は別に怖くないんですけど...

Ryan Sands (Interviewer): うんうん

Junji Ito: それが陸に上がってきたら反則だろって。

Ryan Sands (Interviewer): *giggle*

Junji Ito: それはもう怖すぎるなっていうところから、「ギョ」っていうのは始まりまして。

• Incidentally, the interviewer, Ryan Sands, didn't speak Japanese, but he must have had a fairly high level of Japanese, because he occasionally responded to Ito's words with a nod or a laugh before the translator began to speak.

Translator:  The thing is, I think, you know, when I'm working on manga, like when I'm writing my manga, I'm not sitting there, I don't think of the themes of the work when I start doing it. I get the first idea or an image of something, and I think, "Ah, that's kind of weird!" and so then, I kind of feel like, "Oh that's good!" and I expand on that little nugget of weirdness, and then after the fact, you know, thematic idea sort of get slapped onto it, like, "Oh, it about this!" So with "Gyo", it wasn't that I was writing particularly about environmental themes, it was more about, well, I said before that sharks are scary,...

Audience: *Laughter*

Translator:  ...and the thing is though about sharks is that if you don't go in the ocean they're not that scary. But if they came on to land...

Audience: *Laughter*

Translator:  ...that would be way too scary.

• Her phrases like "Ah, that's kind of weird!" and "Oh, that's good!" and "Oh, it's about this!" were completely ad-libbed. She likely added them to make the translation more dynamic. Since she’s not solving translation questions on a college entrance exam, you can see that the translator is constructing a general storyline in her head and then conveying it as she speaks.
• When she said "nugget," I imagined the delicious bite-sized chicken pieces you can get at McDonald's, but it seems she was using it in a different context.
• As a side note, this part of the interview generated the biggest laughs. Although Junji Ito's stories are often terrifying enough to chill the blood, he himself is a cheerful and humorous person. On the other hand, while Hayao Miyazaki's stories are warm and heartwarming, he is known to be a difficult and somewhat sadistic person.

Horror and Comedy (51:49)

Ryan Sands (Interviewer): I wanted to ask to, I know you mentioned already Umezu Kazuo as an inspiration to you, and I think for folks who've read his comics in English the ones that are mostly out are his horror work, and he's, you know, known as a Godfather of horror but, he's also uh known as sort of a Godfather of comedy and children's manga, and I know, Ito-sensei, you've created, like funny strips or yonkoma (four cell manga; a comic strip format) in the back of your books, and you did an entire series that's hilarious about your cats, so do you think there's a connection between fear and horror ([Precip.24] I think he meant to say "horror and comedy")? Can you talk a little bit about the writing or the art of telling a scary story versus telling a funny story?

Junji Ito: 私の場合は、よく「恐怖と笑いは紙一重」って日本で言われてて、表裏一体というか、本質的には恐怖と笑いは同じようなものだっていう考え方があるんですけど、私はよくわからないですね。恐怖にもいろんな種類があって、笑えない恐怖もあると思うので、必ずしも表裏一体とは思ってないですね。私の場合は、アイデアを思いつくとアイデア帳にアイデアを書いて忘れないようにしてて、怖いアイデアもあるんですけど、ギャグも思いつくと書いちゃうんですね。その笑いのギャグのアイデアをもったいないなと思ってしまってですね。私はホラー漫画家なのでホラーしか書かないんですけど、ギャグを使わないまま眠らせてしまうともったいなくて、あの、ホラー漫画の雰囲気を損なわない程度に、スパイス的にギャグを入れたり、出たアイデアのギャグを入れるっていうような感じで。バランスとしてはやっぱりホラーなんで、怖い漫画なんだけど、ちょっと笑いもいれて読者にほっとしてもらう瞬間を作りたい…まぁ、そんなこと考えてなくて、ホントはギャグ入れたいだけなんですけど。

Translator: I think like in Japan they say that, you know, "fear and humor are two sides of the same coin" there's that kind of thinking that happens. I don't personally know so much about that, but like, there are a lot of different kinds of fear and horror and terror, and some of those, of course, are not laughable you can't laugh at them, but for me personally, I have a notebook of ideas that I keep, and I just write down like any idea as it occurs to me to save it for light or to work on it. So obviously a lot of these are scary ideas, but I also have like little jokes or little funny things that I notice, and I write those down too, and it just seems like such a shame to just leave them there, you know, like "What a waste!" Because I'm a horror artist, right, so obviously I write only horror, but, you know, there's these jokes that I have, and it seems like such a shame not to use them. So I kind of try and balance it so that I don't upset, you know, take away the the horror of it or just sort of like adding a little bit of spice to the mix. So it's mostly horror, so it's scary, but I want to make a little moment for the reader to kind of breathe in and sort of have a little, "Oh, phew!" it's relaxing kind of laughing moment. Although I say that, but really I just want to write little gags in there.

Audience: *Laughter*

• This conversation about how to approach "horror and comedy" starts with the difficulty of the question, with the interviewer struggling with his words, and Itō also carefully choosing his words to respond to the challenging issue.
• "紙一重" is an old phrase that literally means "a layer of paper," but the translator rendered it as "two sides of the same coin. I love this translation.
• There was a time in Japan when the idea that the word "もったいない" was untranslatable became popular, but I am somewhat skeptical of that notion. It usually means something like "wasteful" or "unworthy," but she translated it with her own words, "such a shame" or "what a waste!

Junji Ito: 私がいちばん最高のギャグマンガだと思うのは、楳図かずお先生の「まことちゃん」っていう漫画なんですけど、この漫画は単なる笑いを通り越して、狂気とか、人間のコンプレックスを深くえぐったギャグマンガだと思うんですけど、それが笑いにつながっているということで、楳図先生のギャグマンガはホラー漫画家の描くギャグマンガだなっていうことですね。それが大好きです。

Translator: I think the the best gag manga of like maybe all time is, Kazuo Umezu's "Makoto-chan" which,... I don't know if that's out in English?

Ryan Sands (Interviewer): No.

Translator:  It is not? I'm sorry.

Audience: *Laughter*

Translator: ...But the way Umezu does this thing where he takes up the, you know, the human condition as it were, and turns these pulls the laughter out of it, and makes these jokes, and really like, you know, digs into human complex, you know, the complexes of the human mind and neurosis and just like gouges it out, to sort of create, you know, jokes and laughter from that. I really think that, you know, Umezu is a great example of like a horror manga artist who successfully navigates humor as well, and I just love his work.

Ryan Sands (Interviewer): I think I'm speaking for folks in the audience, but we like when you make us laugh and not just terrify us.

• Although she has extensive knowledge of Junji Ito's works and manga culture, she seems unfamiliar with other Japanese manga artists that only Japanese people would normally know. There was a scene where she looked confused every time Ito mentioned another manga artist's name. In addition, when Ito was asked by another interviewer what horror movie had influenced him, Ito mentioned "死霊館 (shiryokan)," which is actually the American movie "The Conjuring," but it was given a unique Japanese title, and she couldn't translate it either. However, since only researchers of Japanese horror culture outside of Japan would know these details, it's not her fault.
• The phrase "digs into human complex" corresponds to the Japanese phrase "人間のコンプレックスを深くえぐった". To be honest, this expression doesn't feel quite right in Japanese, and I think it's a unique phrase from Junji Ito himself. However, she managed to translate even this part impressively. She also translated the same phrase as "gouge it out," which I also thought was a very fresh expression.

This concludes this article. Thank you for reading this far.

Are there any readers who feel inspired to become translators after reading this far? As a native Japanese speaker with a good command of English, I once considered becoming a translator. However, after seeing the work of this professional translator, I realized that it was completely beyond my abilities, and I gave up that dream.

However, even if you can't reach the top level like they can, I personally believe that learning a language is a valuable pursuit for the learner. Although I'm not an educator, so I can't speak to the specific benefits, I think it's incredibly cool when an English-speaking netizen effortlessly reads Japanese in response to the common "What does this Japanese product say?" posts on Reddit. After all, reading the text in images is something machines can't...