[For those not needing the full backstory, my resume is right here!]
My name is Dylan Reilly, and I translate Japanese print and digital media into English. I’ve done so in both official and unofficial qualities, ranging from policy documents and editorial work for the Embassy of Japan to strategy pages and specific cards for Ygorganization.com, the foremost English-language Yu-Gi-Oh card game news site. When I can, I also enjoy writing my own articles on the process, most often detailing etymological and referential background that goes into Japanese popular media, as well as the effort necessary to convey it to English-speaking audiences.
While my experience with the Japanese language dates back as early as my middle school days, my four years at the College of William and Mary mark where my studies truly began to take off, as well as where the thoughts of Japanese-English translation I had entertained became an increasingly realistic possibility. This in turn led to a two-year stint at the University of Pittsburgh, allowing me the opportunity of a more translation-oriented research plan, a summer study at the KCP Language School in Shinjuku – my long-awaited Japan debut – and finally, a thesis examining translation and localization practices in Japanese games and manga.
As the number of my translations – and writing about translations – has grown, I’ve created this site as a way to gather them all for easier archiving and reading…and, I admit, to show off a little. That’s also why I’ve included a small gallery of my own art here. It’s not the main showcase per se, but I’d still like to share that I’m decently proud of the work I’ve done, as well as provide an easily-viewed track of my own progress in that regard.
Though as time goes by, I’d like to use this blog to share more of what I find fascinating, both within the media I enjoy and within the process of bringing that media into the English language. Elements of wordplay or background reference, for example, can be particularly impressive to readers once fully unpacked; the structure of Japanese lends itself very well to packing multiple meanings into a single word or phrase, and the skill of translators who can convey that in English is just as worthy of praise as the skill of the original writers’. Which, I suppose, is the ultimate message I’d like to get out there using this blog: translation itself is an art. It is appreciable on its own as a creative process, as a sort of puzzle-solving; it is also a vehicle to share new information, to add further dimensions to the other forms of art it comes in contact with. And that’s…pretty cool, I’d like to think.
With the grandstanding out of the way, I’d like to once again welcome you to my site, and I truly hope you find what you’re looking for here.
(And don’t forget, if you’re looking for me in particular, just go ahead and click here! That, or on that Contact button up on the main menu and in the bottom-right corner.)