Season 2 - Episode 5/10

Alexander O. Smith—who goes by Alex—is a translator, writer, and photographer living in Kamakura, Japan. As a translator, he's worked on games like Final Fantasy 12, novels in the fantasy, sci-fi, and mystery genres, and manga. He's written for Magic: The Gathering, DeNA mobile games, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, and is currently writing at game studio Camouflaj on an unannounced VR title.

Alex chose to chat about the sci-fi novel—which later became a blockbuster movie staring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, Edge of Tomorrow—All You Need Is Kill, by Hiroshi Sakurazaka and translated from Japanese by Joseph Reeder and edited by Alexander O. Smith.

"When the alien Gitai invade, Keiji Kiriya is just one of many raw recruits shoved into a suit of battle armor and sent out to kill.

Keiji dies on the battlefield, only to find himself reborn each morning to fight and die again and again. On the 158th iteration though, he sees something different, something out of place: the female soldier known as the Bitch of War.

Is the Bitch the key to Keiji’s escape, or to his final death?"

J-EN Translations translation review of All You Need Is Kill

Website: Kajiya Productions

Twitter: @aokajiya

A podcast where professional Japanese to English translators and editors chat about their favorite translations.

Hosted and edited by Jennifer O'Donnell

Music by Alex Valles

Logo by Katherine Soldevilla