Bonus Translator’s Afterword & Glossary

Before the final installment of the glossary, I would like to use this space to discuss this series’ translation in general. The first issue presented itself before I’d even opened the first volume—the title is a pun. Otaku Kanojo no Tsukurikata (オタク彼女の作り方) can mean either one of two things: “How to Get an Otaku Girlfriend” or “How to Become an Otaku Girlfriend.” I believe the English title that was eventually selected carries the same ambiguity as the original, so the reader is free to interpret it as a description of Kagetora’s search for a date or of Kokoro’s efforts to become more attractive to otaku boys.

Once I did start the book, I had to contend with the two aforementioned characters. With one being an introverted otaku and the other an extroverted gyaru, their dialogue in Japanese was distinguishable at a glance, but they also sounded realistic enough to pass for normal high schoolers. Japanese has a lot of grammatical features that make simultaneously achieving both these goals really easy, but in English, we’re afforded no such luxury; each line had to be painstakingly calibrated to fit its character.

The next and biggest challenge was establishing guidelines for translating otaku-related terms and tropes. Changing words such as moe or tsundere was out of the question since the story is entirely built around Japanese otaku culture. However, leaving everything untranslated would have made the prose completely unintelligible to most readers and janky to the rest. The rule that helped me and the editor find a balance between these two extremes was a simple one: the reader should have all of the context they need to understand the story right in the book. If you were already familiar with this kind of media, you probably already knew what a maid café is, and if you weren’t, the tweaked dialogue hopefully gave you enough hints to understand what the characters were talking about.

The glossary at the end of each volume contains information that, while not strictly necessary to understand what’s going on, can deepen your understanding of the story. This is all based on the assumption that all readers would either be knowledgeable about otaku culture or interested in learning more about it—if neither applies to you, props for reading till the end anyway.

Character Cafés

We’d seen a few examples of maid cafés in previous volumes, but this time we got a glimpse of a different yet related trend—character cafés. The most straightforward type is that where the whole establishment is themed around a certain franchise, like the “Sangrio Café” that Yume tweets about. The decor, the dishes, the glassware, the music, the staff uniforms, and just about everything else feature the characters from that franchise. In the case of the Sangrio Café, which is based on the Sanrio Café in Tokyo, you would most likely have Hello Kitty-shaped pancakes, staff wearing My Melody costumes, and so forth.

Something to keep in mind is that these cafés cater almost exclusively to fans, which means that only the most famous series get a whole venue completely revolving around them.

The Lemon Slayer collaboration café that Kokoro and Yuya choose for their date, however, is slightly different. This is a normal café that, for a limited period of time, features a few dishes inspired by a currently popular franchise (such as Demon Slayer), which often come with a little collectible to entice the fans to order them, like a character keychain, acrylic standee, or something to that effect. Note that this isn’t exclusive to cafés; restaurants, fast food joints, bakeries, convenience stores, and the like often feature “collaboration” events like these as well.

Homeroom

Apart from the usual classes, Japanese schools also have homeroom. This time is used for activities that involve the class as a whole, such as assigning seats, discussing non-academic topics with the teacher, planning school trips, and more. When no such activity is available, students are often allowed to spend homeroom as they please, so long as they don’t leave the classroom. In Kokoro’s case, since she’s on her way to graduate high school, it’s likely that she was using this time to prepare for university entrance exams.

Karaoke

Originally, in the novel, Kagetora expressed his surprise at Kokoro’s choice of karaoke as a first-date option without elaborating on why that would be surprising. The “small, soundproof room” description was added to make his reasoning clearer. Nowadays, if you invite someone in Japan to karaoke, that person will assume you’re inviting them to a karaoke box.

Karaoke boxes have several small, dimly lit rooms with a large TV, microphones, and a powerful audio system in them. The soundproofing ensures that, for the most part, strangers won’t be able to hear you singing, avoiding you needless embarrassment. On the other hand, this extreme privacy may be tantalizing for the ill-intentioned—so much so that many karaoke boxes have posters reminding customers that “any activity involving the removal of one’s clothing is forbidden.”

Even if we can completely trust Yuya not to try anything funny, karaoke remains an unusual first date choice, but an appropriate one for Kokoro. In selecting which songs to sing, one can imagine that she rarely strayed from the “anime songs” category, which is a typical otaku way of showing which shows you enjoy without having to talk about them.

Love Confessions

Love confessions have been a central motif throughout the whole story, and some cultural context on them may help you better understand the relationship between Kagetora and Kokoro. Try as we may to avoid any sweeping generalizations, we have to come to terms with the fact that dating, in Japan, is more formalized than in most Western countries. The famous “what are we?” talk would make little sense in Japanese, as ninety-nine percent of relationships are started with a love confession and a request to become one’s partner.

In particular, I want to bring attention to a specific translation decision: translating the Japanese word tsukiau (付き合う) as “dating.” While I believe this brings the point across well enough, it unfortunately causes some confusion—Kagetora was going on dates with Mashiro, but he wasn’t dating her, as neither of them had ever officially confessed to each other.

Love confessions, of course, come with a series of related tropes, and we get to see one of the most common ones, the school rooftop, near the end of the volume. Speaking of which...

The School Rooftop

In most Japanese schools, because of obvious safety concerns, students can’t even access the rooftop. The trope, however, shows up a lot in entertainment, especially when the characters need a private place to interact without teachers or other students getting in the way. You usually expect to find one of three things on the school rooftop: an aloof student eating lunch alone because they have no friends; a delinquent doing things they don’t want the teachers to see, like smoking; or two soon-to-be lovebirds, one confessing their love to the other for the first time. Despite Kagetora’s obliviousness, the Japanese reader probably knew very well what was going to happen as soon as the two protagonists moved to the rooftop.

This concludes the final glossary for Guide to the Perfect Otaku Girlfriend. I hope I was able to bring across the nuances of Japanese otaku culture in a way that was understandable yet entertaining. Thank you for reading!