J-Drama Fansubber Spotlight: Who is Ais? (SARS Fansubs, Skeweds Translations, etc) Text Transcript from amandamaziiing interview

Note: As the interview was boring compared to my kouhai, Rjgman56, thought I just make a transcript for people to read. I will partly make corrections as I go through with the original video with my answers. Honestly, I kinda wish now that it was a video interview, but then again, I’d rather be prepared like that semi-candid video a decade ago haha

Prologue:

A subber since 2003 (supplementary video from 10 years ago in this link), Ais has been part of well-known fansubbing communities such as SARS fansubs and at present, Skeweds Translations (formerly known as Skewed Studios Fansubs and Scanlations, then renamed to SkewedS Translations, then not so recently renamed to Skeweds Translations (now plural of Skewed, and shortened to TL-Skeweds)).

To keep his identity partially private, this interview was conducted via Discord.

Notable works include:
- HanaKimi karaoke, First Kiss karaoke, Galileo karaoke, Mukodono Ending karaoke, HachiKuro karaoke, Gokusen 3 karaoke, Zettai Kareshi karaoke (source: SARS-Fansub Staff Profile).
- As the above are quite old, like more than a decade old, newer works can be found at the TL-Skeweds Website. Most recent as of writing being Hell Girl 2019 Movie. As for people who are into Johnny’s and for Amanda’s channel viewers, she also reviewed Sakamichi no Apollon Live Action Movie which Ais also translated (but we discourage distributing our English subtitles as Thailand’s Boomerang distribution has included official English subtitles in their digital media release).

Question 1: What’s the story behind your fansubber pseudonym?

Which pseudonym? I tend to use a lot and some closer friends find it funny that I “troll myself”.

Sorry to say that very early in this interview, unless I have worked with you in projects, I don’t think it’s right I tell about many of my offshoots. I personally made those offshoots of myself for my sanity ROFL

But to make it simpler and to have a more definite answer to your question, I started out as zeldAIS. It’s a combination of Zelda, the internet moniker of my favourite Hikaru no Go character, Waya, whenever he plays internet go, and Ais, my real nickname in real life.

Closer friends in the fan translating community know me more as Ais. Heck, even on this Discord, the two kanji is pronounced as “Aisu” which means Blue Eternal. But I tend to use many monikers depending on what I’ll do for a title.

Question 2: Who is Ais outside of the fansubber persona?

I’ll probably have my real name private as I tend to have a problem growing up using my real name, always being compared to my father who’s a genius in the academe, always get compared why I am not (yet) like him (or better).

As for age, I’m probably old enough to have a family of my own, or old enough to not disclose it LOL I can probably say I’m batang 90s and very Tito (Translation: Uncle) age.

I live in the same province where the Brains of the Katipunan and the National Hero of the Philippines were born and raised — so I love to study and learn a lot. But I lived in Ibaraki for half a decade when my father took his PhD in one of the respected and highly regarded universities in there.

As what I do professionally, my default answers tends to be either these three depending on situations: student, business owner, consultant — but you’ll see more about what I really do when you go to my website — AisIceEyes.com.

Question 3: Quick random facts about you.

1. Philomath
2. Polymath(?)
3. Polyglot(?)
4. Engineer
5. Artist
6. Sound Signal Analyses Researcher
7. Natural Language Processing Researcher
8. (Human-Computer Interaction Researcher as I combine both #6 and #7 for it)

Question 4: What are your main motivations for subbing and how much has the community changed since you started, based on your opinion.

To be honest, when I started out, I want to have more people get into the disbanded band idol group, ZONE back in Zone Forever Subs. Then when I joined TV-Nihon, I just wanted to reverse engineer the codes in karaokes and effects in the “special moves” of the tokusatsu super heroes (tokusatsu = Kamen Rider, Sentai, Ultraman, etc) that’s why I got into the knack of coding.

I think I find coding and learning and solving the puzzle how people pull it off sounds fun.

Of course, I would lie if not because of the community. Being in the community of like minded people is fun — but that’s also what changed for me the most compared to what started compared to now. I’m fan translating for me, not for others anymore. If you check my signature in D-Addicts — quoting the signature what one of my favorite translators said “But I always felt a slight pang of guilt when someone said something along the lines of “thanks for doing all this for us — for the community.” Because that’s not accurate. I did it for me, because putting up my translations here gave me motivation to translate more stuff, and that’s what I like to do. With that said, I felt happy when someone said reading something translated by me made them laugh or cry, made them love H!P or one of its idols more deeply, gave them inspiration to do something in life, gave them the courage to try something new, or made them feel open enough to share very personal feelings”

Question 5: Out of all the dramas you’ve subbed, which one is the most memorable and why? Any least favorites?

I would probably say ROOKIES for JDramas. Because “Flutter towards your dreams, glitter into tomorrow”. I got one of the lines of the songs I’m finishing from that JDrama too.

As for least favorite, I can’t say for now. I wouldn’t pick up any title if I don’t want it in the first place.

Question 6: What are the most fulfilling aspects of fansubbing? The most challenging?

Knowing the original language is like 40% of the work. Translating to the target language, and most of the math and work is 60% or so. Kung gusto mo translation lang, mag-google translate ka na lang (Translation: If you want translations, just use Google Translate).

Making it sensible in the target language is most of the hard work.

Though now since I’m also a Natural Language Processing Researcher, nakakatulong sa akin mga math ng natural language whenever I translate especially nuances. Like for example, ang simple “Sha!” sa Japanese pwede “Hell yeah!”, “Yes!”, “Okay!” depends on situation.

It’s like there are “levels”. Like “ikemen”, if you use “stud”, it will sound old so “hottie” will be used instead. Heck, already used some of the tools I coded which helps me in translating to have more natural English. There’s a difference in localization / localisation sa translating. (See what I did there? localiz/sation haha)

Question 7: Your favorite dramas and movies

1. Chihayafuru trilogy
2. Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora 2010
3. ROOKIES
4. H2
5. Galileo

Question 8: Your most admired fansubbers or translators

Most of them are outside of the JDrama community. Some are professional translators talaga since they’re good at localization:

• Don Brown (professsional translator of Japanese movies being shown at film festivals)
• amrayu (SARS-Fansubs )
• Henkka (WotaInTranslation.com)
• Heat (Over-Ti.me — great localization especially in liberal translations and very natural in English)
• estrea (Hello!Project Translations (Discord Server) https://twitter.com/HPTDiscord)
• Vince (Hello!Project Translations (Discord Server) https://twitter.com/HPTDiscord)
• Stephen Paul (old scanlator turned professional translator for Kodansha, Viz and more)
• Zack Davisson (professional manga translator as I get wow’d especially his insane vocab how to translate Japanese onomatopoeia)
• Jennifer Ward (professional manga and light novel translator)

…and many more but will stick to them for now.

Question 9: What’s next for Ais?

Finish many of my research papers and get them published, finish many of the songs I have to finish to artists I musically produce, finish my graduate studies and hopefully get the PhD at least. MD next as this is one of my life goals. And fan translate more titles and probably fulfill my dream to be one of the official English translators of movies from Takahiro Miki.

Question 10: Finally, your message to fans of your work.

Even though right now, I fan translate mostly for me, I personally want fans to support the original work. I hope you support the directors, scriptwriters, producers, actors, and staff behind the titles you watch by buying official merchandises and watching through official media of the titles.