My first career was as a civil servant, a translator for the US Patent and Trademark Office. By day I helped attorneys decipher Japanese intellectual property ranging from sanitary napkins to nuclear reactor components. But at nights and on weekends, I found myself living a second life, translating video games and writing for websites and magazines about my passion for the Japanese heroes, robots, and monsters that had first inspired me as a child.

In 2003 I left my homeland of America for Tokyo. There I co-founded AltJapan Co., Ltd., a company that specializes in localization — producing the English-language versions of popular Japanese video games, comic books, and other forms of entertainment. This work immersed me in what Japan calls the “media mix,” an interconnected creative ecosystem of products, publications, productions, and producers. It is a place few foreigners ever get to see, the beating heart of Japan’s pop cultural machine. This background, coupled with my fluency in the Japanese language, has given me a seat at the table with the nation’s top creators for many years. My conversations with them have given me a singular understanding of the ways Japanese tastemakers create, and a chance to see the unpredictable moment when new concepts spark into life.

I still translate today. But my true passion is harnessing a unique combination of insider experience, linguistic skills, and investigative insight to deliver compelling stories that have never been told in the English language. Japanese pop culture, and the ways it is made and consumed both in Japan and abroad, is more than my hobby or my reporting beat. It is my lifeblood.

I was the co-host of the popular NHK World television show Japanology Plus from 2015 to 2022. My essays and cultural commentary regularly appear in a variety of media outlets, including The New Yorker online, BBC Culture, CNN Go, The Economist 1843, Wired, Slate, The Independent, The Japan Times, and Newsweek Japan.