The title reads correctly! I am currently putting together some questions for David Ury. Now, for those of you who don’t pay particular attention to the names in the front of your manga volumes, David Ury is a pretty prolific translator and adaptor of manga. Aside from doing two of my personal favorites (Genshiken and more recently Pastel) he has worked with Viz Media, TOKYOPOP, and a host of others that I can’t remember but are on his site which I also forgot the link to. It’s at work, so I’ll add it back up later. Anyway, I will be putting together the list of questions later this afternoon, he will pass them by his editors to make sure I don’t ask about trade secrets or why they suck so much, and then he will answer them, send them back, and I will post them here.
That’s how it works. Don’t worry. I’ve done this before with game industry people. ANYWAY! I have a lot of questions in mind, but I plan to keep it down to 15 or so, and if you guys have any questions, feel free to post them here, at which point I will completely ignore them and carry on as if nothing had happened. In all seriousness though, I’ve probably already thought of whatever you want to ask, and plan to either ask or it not based on my immense knowledge of how interesting a response might be. I am expecting some good answers as Mister Ury is one funny bastard (and/or motherfucker). You can quote me on that, if your publication so allows.
Here are some links to help you get acquainted. I will add the personal site I have when I get back to work, as it contains more useful information.
- IMDb Biography
- IMDb Main Page
- ANN’s Useless Page
- Hilarious VZW Parody starring David Ury (You’ve probably seen it)
- David Ury’s actorsite.com page Has a nice list of manga titles he’s worked on and some acting info about him.
Yes, yes the news is coming. This was more important, damnit. MUCH MORE IMPORTANT! Anyway, the interview will be up soon, and you can go grab copies of Ury’s work on Genshiken, Wallflower, Pastel and others at your local book… retailer… jiggy. And to anyone thinking of bitching about this or that inaccuracy in this or that volume, please just go and die. I mean, feel free to post here, but understand that things work the way they work and retail copies of books have fine line to balance(fickle market and all). You can’t argue that David Ury, and on a larger scale, Del Rey, haven’t done an awesome job. I mean, lots of manga, especially Genshiken and the like, would be made up largely of cultural explanations if certain things weren’t changed. The important part is that the feeling is kept intact and the things that are changed aren’t just for sake of getting a social recognition when someone is reading a piece of literature from another country. That is all. Please look forward to the interview.
P.S. Just so you know, the purpose of this interview is to help give some insight into the people and the ideas behind the manga that we consume. Translators are largely unsung heroes in the industry, but it’s still good to know what’s going on back there and who’s doing what to whom on what and with how many, or something.