The Old School Otaku Lounge

https://ontheones.wordpress.com/2018/08 ... aborators/

So this is not my piece, but I was so blown away by it that I really wanted to bring attention to it here.

Please check it out, if anyone here has an interest in the man.

I had actually been thinking over the past year or so to try and do either some write ups about the late Toshio Hirata or possibly translate some interviews with the man, the few that exist. I had always wanted to dive deeper into this guy after being blown away by Bobby's Girl about 6 years ago. Unfortunately a bunch of his other work hadn't seen a release in English (official or otherwise) and hadn't really been a whole lot written in English about the guy besides Ben Ettinger's piece (which is still fantastic). That aside, my Japanese back then was also not at a point where I would have allowed myself to watch things raw.

When I started thinking about seriously doing said write-ups or translations recently, I scoured the internet for as many online Japanese resources as I could find. On a whim I also figured I should try to look again for what English discourse has happened since I last looked, and to my surprise I actually found that someone had put out quite a comprehensive piece about the guy a little over two weeks ago. This is way better than anything I would have been able to come up with, as there's tons of context I wouldn't have had about Toshio Hirata's collaborators.

I'm pleasantly surprised that I wasn't the only one out there thinking about bringing attention to Hirata. I still kinda want to take a stab at translating some Japanese writings about the guy, but I'm somewhat hesitant given that my translation ability is quite poor (not necessarily because I don't understand the text, but oftentimes because I have trouble taking Japanese text and then phrasing it in English in a way an actual human being would communicate, despite English being my native language )

Oh thanks for sharing! I definitely want to read this later!

finally got around to reading this piece and it's terrific, a huge overview of Hirata's work, some of which I'd seen and some of which I had not and some of which I'd never heard of. Always more anime to discover, seems like!

Quite a cool read - I can't say that I am all that familiar with Hirata's works (and only mildly familiar with some of his collaborators) so this was an enlightening piece all around.

karageko wrote: I still kinda want to take a stab at translating some Japanese writings about the guy, but I'm somewhat hesitant given that my translation ability is quite poor (not necessarily because I don't understand the text, but oftentimes because I have trouble taking Japanese text and then phrasing it in English in a way an actual human being would communicate, despite English being my native language )

Go for it! Often times in fandom, something never gets "done" until you put the effort into it. I am sure many of us here would be happy to offer some friendly critique, too.