schuburner
@schuburner.bsky.social
Japanese to English translator. 日英翻訳家. Accepting new manga clients ONLY. TLs include: Loner Life, Jeweler Richard, Watanare, Formerly Fallen Daughter of the Duke Posts about skateboarding, jujutsu, dance, video games, and books!
Also played Z.A.T.O. - I Love the World and Everything In It over the weekend. Short (~3 hours), heartfelt LN on our place in the universe, self-love, and mental illness. Interesting prose style; it mirrors J->E translation heavily and is just beautiful in places. Great self-contained experience.
Read Dan Simmons' Hyperion series on recommendation of a friend. A rollercoaster of a series--long, meandering lead-ups followed by precipitous drops into pure hype. When I was in, I was in. When I wasn't, I wanted to throw the books at the wall. Found the poor portrayal of women off-putting.
THE CASE FILES OF JEWELER RICHARD (LIGHT NOVEL) Vol. 12 This acclaimed mystery tale about a young man teaming up with a handsome jewelry appraiser inspired a popular anime—manga also from Seven Seas! Out today in print/digital! See RETAILERS section: sevenseasentertainment.com/books/the-ca...
Finished reading Thomas Pynchon's Bleeding Edge on the recommendation of a colleague. An accessible intro to Pynchon. Appreciated some elements--the obsession with physical space in a novel ostensibly about virtual space, for one--and less charmed by others. Would like to read more.
"Formerly, the Fallen Daughter of the Duke" - Volume 6 eBook Out Now! Claire’s final exams are interrupted when she and her friends are transported into a dreamworld version of her first life. But they aren’t alone! Can Claire remove this unwanted interloper from her dream? bit.ly/3To8HbI
Finished reading Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. Loved it, loved it, loved it. Enamored with the decision to describe Eleanor's "dream homes" in loving detail and completely skip over any physical description of the House upon its introduction. Ate up the Eleanor/Theo love story too.
Also read Uketsu's Strange Houses (trans. Jim Rion). Simple and neat but not without deceptive depths. Great fun for a casual architecture fan. I understand the Uketsu hype now. Rion's translation is deftly done and observes good practices for translating mysteries.
Read Morrow's 100 of Ray Bradbury's Most Celebrated Tales. Having inhaled Bradbury short stories ad nauseam from the ages of 10-12, this felt like revisiting an old friend. Bradbury remains a masterclass in crafting short stories and a foundational pillar of my writing style. I adore his SF.
Delighted to have translated this adorable, yet powerfully emotional story! Give it a read.
J-Novel Club@jnovelclub.bsky.social · last mo.OUT NOW from J-Novel Club: Last Summer Sparkle It’s the summer before the end of high school, and the lives of longtime best friends Kyohei and Eiji are about to change forever. Change is abrupt. Change is scary. But most of all, change is magical. buff.ly/rsvYwI7
Finished reading Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Wickedly funny, which I hadn't expected. Loved the narrative structure. Would die for Nelly Dean.
Read Ian Toll's Pacific War trilogy on recommendation of a colleague. A deft blend of narrative and analysis. Limited somewhat by the language barrier and scope of the work but a fascinating, informative work nevertheless. The last half of the third volume was emotionally challenging to get through.
Reread Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis this weekend after hearing the news of Satrapi's passing. As witty and poignant was ever. Having last read Persepolis as a teenager, this reread benefited from an adult's political knowledge and my experiences of being a wayward young adult.
Read Patrick Wyman's The Verge, a solid review of social and economic shifts in late 15th century/early 16th century Europe that contributed to eventual Western global dominance. Very accessible, if perhaps over-reliant on narrative. Would have liked to see more of substance on the Ottoman Empire.
Calling all localization industry professionals attending Anime Expo! We're hosting a casual lunch or dinner meetup for networking and chatting about the state of the industry. Interested? Please indicate your availability here: forms.gle/YMP5nbWHXPUn... Date + location to be emailed later!
Anime Expo 2026 Localization Industry Meal Meetup Interest Check
Hello, friends! This is an interest check for a casual lunch or dinner open to all localization industry professionals. This meetup will be held at a restaurant near the convention center with vegeta...
forms.gle
Finished playing the NES original Legend of Zelda. Very charming! It's fun to go back to a series's roots. Also difficult, at least for a clumsy video game player like me. I would never have survived the NES era.
Finished reading Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet. Having not known what to expect, I loved the decision to center the novel on Agnes's feminine perspective and never name William Shakespeare directly. Powerful commentary on grief and the translation of personal grief to popular sentiment via art.
Finished two more children's lit series I wanted to revisit. Le Guin's Earthsea was excellent, containing the unremitting moral demands of Pyrdain with none of the sexism. Anger at disrespect for women and the disenfranchised is the river running through the text, and it is all the better for it.
Finished a reread of Stephen King's Dark Tower series. Fun, but just as much of a structural mess as I remembered it. King excels at short, tense scenes--connective tissue, not so much. Ending was sweetened by the nature of being a reread.
LONER LIFE IN ANOTHER WORLD (LIGHT NOVEL) Vol. 14 A sarcastic isekai comedy about surviving in a fantasy world with only the weirdest magic powers—inspired the hit manga and an anime! Out today in print/digital! See RETAILERS section: sevenseasentertainment.com/books/loner-...
Finished reading The Thursday Murder Club, which someone (? forgive me; I've forgotten who) in my circle was reading some months ago. I enjoy senior citizen shenanigans, but the humor didn't land for me. Sowing red herrings seemed to take precedent over proper plotting. A little disappointing.
Read Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind on a whim. The fantasy of Rhett Butler was sold well, but the glut of other fantasies made this book difficult to stomach. By the end of its extensive runtime, I, too, did not give a damn.
Finished reading Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot. I read a lot of King in middle school and high school (being 12 and going through The Shining under the covers by flashlight is the ideal reading experience) and like horror as an anxiety reliever. Fun but juvenile. An undercooked form of Under the Dome.
Finished reading Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore F. Cook's Japan at War: An Oral History per recommendation of @jinglespigtails.bsky.social. Beautifully edited, powerful collection of diverse views. Oral histories remain one of the most effective historical teaching tools available.
Brand new license announcement! THERE'S NO FREAKING WAY I'LL BE YOUR LOVER! UNLESS... SPIN-OFF COLLECTION (LIGHT NOVEL) by Teren Mikami and Musshu. A spin-off collection about the girls from the hit #yuri / Girls' Love series that inspired the anime! sevenseasentertainment.com/2026/02/11/s...
Brand new license announcement! THERE'S NO FREAKING WAY I'LL BE YOUR LOVER! UNLESS... SHORT STORIES (LIGHT NOVEL) by Teren Mikami and Eku Takeshima. A new collection of stories featuring Renako and all your favorites from the hit #yuri /Girls' Love series! sevenseasentertainment.com/2026/02/11/s...
Finished playing 428: Shibuya Scramble with a buddy. What a fantastic experience. It's clear why it's a classic. Great story, great goofs (esp. w/ the photography), classy TL. The mystery was fun and easy to follow, even when played across multiple sessions scattered across a year.
Finished reading Gregory Maguire's Wicked Years, something I've been wanting to do since I was about 11 and hadn't gotten around to until the Wicked films reminded me. In hindsight, I'm glad I waited until I was older. (As a preteen, I accidentally read Holder and Viguie's YA Wicked instead haha.)
Finished Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin. It resonated with my lived experiences. I found Kevin and Eva simultaneously understandable and deplorable with their needs for personal narratives arriving at the expense of others. Even the title is a way of saying "We need to talk about me."
Finished reading Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (trans. Louise and Aylmer Maude, w/ ed. George Gibian) and was utterly charmed with its character work and structure. It's hard not to love the humanity of these serious and silly characters, especially Levin. Enjoyed Maude TL for a casual read vs. P&V TL.
