Wendy Uchimura on the New Edition of The Great Shu Ra Ra Boom

By Avery Fischer Udagawa, Bangkok

The Great Shu Ra Ra Boom by Manabu Makime, translated by Wendy Uchimura, is a humorous YA novel that is also action-packed, suspenseful, thought-provoking, and full of tantalizing food. Set in the vicinity of a large and ancient lake northeast of Kyoto, it features two families with mysterious powers somehow connected to the lake, which have propelled them to prominent social status but also obliged them to deal with a generations-old conflict. The novel’s main character, a 15-year-old boy in one of the families, who comes to stay with his lordly cousin the same age—on the grounds of the clan’s main branch, essentially a castle—struggles to comprehend this situation while fitting in at a new school. I got to ask the translator, Wendy Uchimura, about her experience translating The Great Shu Ra Ra Boom, which came out for the Sony Reader in 2014 but got reborn in Kindle format in 2022.

Wendy Uchimura

Avery: Hi Wendy! What led to The Great Shu Ra Ra Boom getting launched in the Kindle format? Do I understand correctly that you got to do another editing pass to refresh it?

Wendy: It’s been on the cards for a long time from what I can tell. It’s just there are a lot of excellent books getting relaunched from the Shueisha English Edition series, so it had to wait its turn! And I did get to look at it again. It was strange delving into the story once more after eight or so years and quite daunting – I’m one of these translators who once I’m completely satisfied with how I’ve translated a work, I’ll release it into the world and let it make its own way. There will undoubtedly be a few flaws, but at least I can say I did my best.

So, I was nervous going back in, but it was like meeting an old friend that had just improved with time. Looking at it with more experienced translator and editor eyes gave me a new appreciation for what a great story it is.

Avery: If I’m not mistaken, all the lineages and powers and myths that come up in this book are made-up—but am I off there? Does Japan have real-life myths to do with Lake People who turned into powerful clans? Has the water at Lake Biwa been considered divine, and/or the lake associated with a dragon??

Wendy: Makime is amazing at building realistic worlds that are steeped in history, culture, and fantasy. It means that as you’re reading you can imagine these things happening as they’re not that far removed from reality and yet they go a step beyond. More than once while I was translating, I found myself checking the maps and topography of the area around Lake Biwa because I thought I could pinpoint exactly where the Hinode Castle was. Maybe I did! It made me realise too that there is a huge amount of mythology tied to water in Japan. It has the power to purify, provide life, and give rise to legends.

I didn’t know before translating this book that lakes have lifespans. Most of the lakes we know now are less than 18,000 years old. Lake Biwa is estimated at being more than four million years old! That’s a lot of history and you can’t help feeling that something that ancient must have mystical powers. It’s a fact that its shores have been inhabited since around 9,000 BCE and a great number of shrines dot the area. Who knows what type of people gathered there and what they did.

The island located on Lake Biwa and featured in the story is Chikubushima and there have been several water goddesses enshrined there. Originally the main deity was Azaihime-no-Mikoto, who protected wayfarers across the lake and later on, from the Heian Period, Benzaiten took her place, who is both a Buddhist and a Shinto deity, as well as being both a goddess of water and of knowledge. Although more associated with the island of Enoshima, legend says that Benzaiten married a dragon king with her residing atop the island and the dragon below. As the story unfolds, you can see how these myths are drawn on and flow into a more modern setting.

Readers might be excited to know you can go to that island and see the clay cups that play a small yet important role, as well as write a wish on them and throw them down into the waters of the lake, just like Ryosuke and Patter-ko did.

 

Avery: I relish how the book serves up humor alongside its drama. The Hinodes’ menu selections alone make for endless comic relief, from the abalone packed for lunch (and mistaken as a mushroom) to the French toast served (and stolen) in the Castle dining room near the climax.

Wendy: The mentions of food are wonderful, aren’t they? This again is an example of how Makime balances that line between fantasy and reality. There are almost urban myth-like stories in Japan of children appearing at school with their lunchboxes stuffed full of lobster and other delicacies, either by parents wanting to establish some kind of status for their child or just very overenthusiastic and doting grandparents. But here this comic effect is very much in matching with Tanjuro and building up the impression that he is indeed a lord. I love the contrast between his huge lunches and Hiromi’s paltry rice balls. The scenes in the castle dining room just get more and more extravagant too, especially the serving of noodles!

Avery: Under the surface, this novel touches on a range of social issues from shut-ins (via Kiyoko’s character) to environmental pollution (the litter in the lakebed) to the effects of social stratification (the Castle versus its depressed rural area; the Hinode ancestor’s entitled and tragic intervention in Old Gen’s life). Did you feel as you worked with the novel that it managed to bring up these difficult-to-approach issues precisely because of the author’s deft use of humor and drama? Were there ever moments when it was challenging to reconcile the gravity of the issues raised with the book’s rollicking comedy and excitement?

Wendy: I didn’t find any particular difficulty with the issues introduced and I think that is because the nature of the story and the humor carries across the messages without bordering on lecturing. I felt where it involved the characters, like Kiyoko’s social withdrawal and the treatment of Old Gen, there was sympathy and understanding for their situations. There’s a subtle use of the town as a representation of the separation between the different social levels and both the landscape and characters reflect the natural changes in thinking that occur across generations. The environmental issues are well addressed too and make us think. Water is a precious resource and needs respecting. Going back to my earlier point about the lifespan of lakes, it’s actually a scary thought that some lakes only exist for 1,000 years or even less, 100. That such bodies of water can be lost even within our lifetime should make us respect them all the more.

Avery: What is one scene or section that you felt particularly pleased about translating, and could you please walk us through why it stands out for you, and what challenges you faced when putting it into English?

Wendy: I have a constant reminder in my living room of exactly what scene stands out for me – a Carrom board. Just like Ryosuke, I had never even heard of Carrom until the scene where Kiyoko suggests playing it to take their minds off their impending fate. The scene has the four main young characters sitting around this mystery board with the game pieces being called specific names and moved across the board with particular hand movements. There are instructions available in English, but of course if you’re not familiar with a game, it’s really difficult to explain it using the correct terms and actions. I could really feel Ryosuke’s confusion because I was feeling it too! So I actually imported a Carrom board. It’s mentioned in the story, but it really is true that although Carrom used to be played across Japan, particularly among the upper classes of society, it is now confined to a small area of Shiga prefecture, so it wasn’t like I could just go to a toy shop or local Carrom club to look at one. My board isn’t lacquered or red though!

Wendy even has a dragon as her business logo.

Avery: I understand that your own family has some shared name-characters, like those that come up in the book. Would you be interested in talking about what your family’s shared characters are and what role they play?

Wendy: Yes. The characters in the book use shared kanji characters and elements related to water in their names within their families to signify certain meanings. It’s interesting how names can be used to convey connections. It does make it an extra challenge when translating, especially in this case where it’s an integral part of the story, but it’s also fun.

And in a strange coincidence, as you mention, my immediate family members have a shared kanji too – the character for dragon! Not me, of course, but my husband and two sons all have dragon in their names, so I like to think of myself as a dragon tamer!

Avery: Who would you most like to hand this book to in the English-reading world, and why?

Wendy: I think anyone who wants a glimpse into Japanese life and culture would enjoy this. It has something for everyone – fantasy, history, humor, cuisine, social issues, school life. It kind of covers all the bases for what you’d come across spending some time in Japan. OK, maybe not the bright red uniforms, horse-riding through the town, or something coming up out of the lake at you, but you never know!

And as always when talking about this book, I’d like to finish by giving a shout out to Keiichiro Ito, the designer of the cover for the English version, because where would a book be without its cover.

A Conversation with Wendy Uchimura

By Tony Gonzalez, Atsugi, Kanagawa

Tony Gonzalez is a cofounder of Bento Books, a publishing company that focuses on contemporary Japanese fiction. He interviewed Wendy Uchimura about her recent translation of The Great Shu Ra Ra Boom by Manabu Makime, published through Shueisha English Edition. Wendy lives in Yokohama.

Tony Gonzalez: Many literary translators have a separate but related day job. Is that the case with you? How did you get your break into novel translation?

Wendy Uchimura: I do a variety of translation work, both in-house and freelance, as well as proofreading and editing. There are several fields I work in and I find it helps continually hone my skills. I’ve been interested in literary translation since I did my MA in Advanced Japanese through the University of Sheffield, which made me think it would be an interesting challenge to translate a book. The opportunity to do that came up after attending a Translation Day event in Yokohama in 2012 that was run by SCBWI. Yoshio Kobayashi from Shueisha Creative was there and put a call out for people to write book synopses for possible translation. That became the Shueisha English Edition project, which has released a number of works, including my translation of Manabu Makime’s The Great Shu Ra Ra Boom!

If The Great Shu Ra Ra Boom was your first novel translation, how did you find the experience? If not, how was working on this novel compared to others you’ve done?

This was my first novel translation. I’ve worked on large documents before, so I knew there would be a lot of graft work involved in creating the draft and getting the right context and style, all in addition to the actual creative process of translation. I found it was like running a marathon, as there is a certain pace you have to keep and you are your own timekeeper. There was a whole range of emotions I went through too that I didn’t expect. Some days I would really enjoy translating, and then other days I would agonize for hours over word choices and how to describe scenes so that readers would be able to follow what was going on. After the book was released, I did mention to other more seasoned literary translators how I’d felt during the translation process and they confirmed that it can be a real rollercoaster ride (in an overall good sense, of course!)

From the SCBWI Japan Translation Group’s interview with Yoshio Kobayashi, I understand that Shueisha English Edition is using a low advance/high royalties payment scheme. I’m curious as to your thoughts on that, and whether it’s a model that you think is good, bad, or neutral for literary translation?

I think because I have my ‘day job’ I personally don’t mind this type of scheme. I’m not fully dependent on receiving money, so if the royalties come in, that’s great, but I’m also just happy that a great title has come out in English for more people to read. In general, with Shueisha English Edition they seem to be quite careful in selecting books that are going to be of interest to English readers, so that should theoretically balance out for everyone. I know that if there were higher advances probably more books would be translated, however that would then have to be balanced out by putting a higher price on the book, so there would be fewer readers. When I think about it that way, I think this scheme leans more towards being a good thing for literary translation. More readers means that hopefully more translated novels will appear.

I see that The Great Shu Ra Ra Boom tries to stay very close to the source material, with extensive footnotes to explain aspects of Japanese culture and history that might be confusing to Western readers. How did you and the editors arrive at that decision?

The author Manabu Makime uses a lot of cultural and historical references in his work, so something integral would have been lost if that information was cut out. There’s something fascinating about Japanese castles, Japanese school life, and everything in-between, so I hope that readers can feel more part of Ryosuke’s world through the explanations. If it encourages people to find out more about some of the aspects introduced in this book, that’s even better! I thought I knew a lot about Japan, having lived here for nearly 17 years, but through this work I learnt new things too.

One particular editorial decision we had to make was about the title. There was actually already an English title for this book written on the Japanese edition: The Great Shurarabon. But even in Japanese shurarabon has no meaning. I suggested the word boom instead of bon as there are a lot of loud noises in this book, and the very talented editor Amelia Beamer was the one who suggested breaking up the words to give it some pizazz. And so it became The Great Shu Ra Ra Boom!

YA is currently considered one of the hottest genres in fiction publishing in the West, but books translated from Japanese generally have relatively limited mass-market appeal. Do you have any perspectives as to how we might work toward breaking out of the otaku niche that Japanese YA fiction seems to often be shunted into?

This may be a simplified view I hold, but it seems as if Japanese literature is split into either highbrow classic and contemporary literature or manga. Unfortunately, that means that Japanese YA fiction gets labeled more as something otaku would be interested in. It would be nice to see more translated Japanese works from various genres appearing in the West, as writers here seem to be able to portray things and approach subjects through writing that make you stop and think. It’s like looking at something from the other side of a fence and seeing, say, an everyday occurrence in a new, exciting light. The marketing of such works is probably going to be key to getting more Japanese YA fiction out there in the mainstream.

Do you have any valuable experiences from translating The Great Shu Ra Ra Boom that you would like to share? Was there anything you would have done differently? Did you face any unexpected challenges? Any directions you would like to head in the future?

From a translator’s perspective, the most important thing I learnt was not to stick to one style of translating. When I first approached this work and tried doing it in my usual style of working straight from the text into English, something just wasn’t clicking. It wasn’t until I separated myself from the source text by creating a rough first draft in-between the source text and what would have been my original first draft that I could see the story as it would be in English. The difficulty I had here was that it takes courage to break away and try a new translation style, especially when you’re working against a deadline. But once I switched over, it felt so much better—the sentences flowed, I was more creative. I wished I’d done it sooner. I guess this is a big difference between business translation and literary translation.

As I mentioned above, too, pacing yourself is essential. To a certain extent, you have to be strict on yourself and stay focused by setting sub-deadlines for each chapter and within that, the number of pages you need to get done every day.

I’d definitely like to translate more books and, while I hadn’t considered it up until now, YA fiction is an interesting area for me. I hope I get to translate more works like The Great Shu Ra Ra Boom, which I think works well as both a YA novel and an urban fantasy.