Frederik's Fans (2)

Frederik L. Schodt

Author profile

gender

male

website

http://www.jai2.com/

genre

Comics & Graphic Novels, Nonfiction

influences

Osamu Tezuka

About this author

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Frederik L. Schodt is an American translator, interpreter and writer.

Schodt's father was in the US foreign service, and he grew up in Norway, Australia, and Japan. The family first went to Japan in 1965 when Schodt was fifteen. They left in 1967 but Schodt remained to graduate from Tokyo's American School in Japan, in 1968. After entering the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1970 Schodt returned to Japan, and studied Japanese intensively at International Christian University (I.C.U.) for a year and half. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1972, and after a brief bohemian stint at a variety of jobs and traveling became a tour guide in Los Angeles for Japanese tourists, also escorting them to Canada an...more Frederik L. Schodt is an American translator, interpreter and writer.

Schodt's father was in the US foreign service, and he grew up in Norway, Australia, and Japan. The family first went to Japan in 1965 when Schodt was fifteen. They left in 1967 but Schodt remained to graduate from Tokyo's American School in Japan, in 1968. After entering the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1970 Schodt returned to Japan, and studied Japanese intensively at International Christian University (I.C.U.) for a year and half. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1972, and after a brief bohemian stint at a variety of jobs and traveling became a tour guide in Los Angeles for Japanese tourists, also escorting them to Canada and Mexico. After trying to interpret for a group once at Sunkist, he realized that he could become an interpreter, but needed further training. In 1975, he was awarded a scholarship from Japan's Ministry of Education, to return to I.C.U. and study translation and interpreting. After finishing his studies at I.C.U. in 1977, he began working in the translation department of Simul International, in Tokyo. In mid-1978 he returned to the United States, and since then has worked in San Francisco as a free-lance writer, translator, and interpreter.

While working in Tokyo in 1977, he joined with several university friends in contacting Tezuka Productions. They sought permission to translate the Phoenix comic into English. Schodt is notable in manga and anime fandom for his translations of works such as Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix, Tezuka’s Astro Boy, Riyoko Ikeda’s The Rose of Versailles, Keiji Nakazawa’s Barefoot Gen, and others.

His best known book is Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics, published in 1983 and reprinted several times, with an introduction by Tezuka. Manga! Manga! won a prize at the Manga Oscar Awards in 1983. Furthermore, in 2000 Schodt was awarded the Asahi Shimbun’s Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize "Special Prize" for his outstanding contribution to the appreciation of manga worldwide.(less)

combine editions
Books by Frederik L. Schodt

Average rating: 3.96 · 1,135 ratings · 110 reviews · 30 distinct works

	Manga! Manga!: The World of Japanese Comics 3.89 avg rating — 83 ratings — 3 editions	My rating:
	Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga 3.75 avg rating — 69 ratings — published 1996	My rating:
	The Astro Boy Essays: Osamu Tezuka, Mighty Atom, and the Manga/Anime Revolution 4.22 avg rating — 27 ratings — published 2007	My rating:
	Inside the Robot Kingdom: Japan, Mechatronics, and the Coming Robotopia 4.00 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 1988 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Native American in the Land of the Shogun: Ranald MacDonald and the Opening of Japan 3.00 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2003 — 2 editions	My rating:
	America and the Four Japans: Friend, Foe, Model, Mirror 2.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 1994	My rating:
	Professor Risley and the Imperial Japanese Troupe: How an American Acrobat Introduced Circus to Japan--and Japan to the West 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — expected publication 2012	My rating:
	Dreamland Japan: Writings On Modern Manga 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	My rating:
	Astro Boy, Vol. 1 by Osamu Tezuka, Frederik L. Schodt (Translator) 3.82 avg rating — 229 ratings — published 1993 — 7 editions	My rating:
	Astro Boy, Vol. 3 by Osamu Tezuka, Frederik L. Schodt (Translator) 3.96 avg rating — 108 ratings — published 1965 — 7 editions	My rating: