miscellanea nipponica

For 15 years, Italian Simona Pini has been translating manga from Japanese into Italian and English. And not just any manga, but the big ones of the shoujo and shonen genres: Air Gear, Bleach, Steel Ball Run, Host Club or Nana! One quite special profession and I bet a lot of folks do envy her. How did she get there? PingMag visited Simona in Tokyo’s lovely Nakameguro neighbourhood where she currently stays…

Read on: PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things” » Archive » Dream Job: Manga Translator

Separated at birth?

To the left, the Edo-era emaki character now thought to be the inspiration for Nurikabe (ぬりかべ), the popular yōkai character from Gegege no Kitarō; to the right, the Mizuki version)

(via Blue Moa)

Edit: Speaking of yōkai, here’s a great post from Pink Tentacle on O-nyudo.