“Passion Can Cross the Line”: Jujutsu Kaisen & One Piece Staff Discuss Online Hate

To say there can be some toxicity within the anime and manga community might be a bit of an understatement. For every fan who adores and appreciates what they’re reading/watching, there’s someone who takes their displeasure with creative choices, character decisions, artwork, or dialogue too far, attempting to contact the team behind it with malicious messages. This is especially true with major series like One Piece and Jujutsu Kaisen, and some veteran manga translators have recently opened up about the backlash they often unfairly receive because of their work.

During an interview with Gizmodo, veteran manga letterers Stephen Paul (One Piece), David Evelyn (Undead Unlock), and Casey Loe (Spy x Family) discussed their work and the misconceptions fans have about how manga translating actually works. “[Fans] think it’s just like one shadowy person pulling the strings and making sure they don’t have a good time,” David Evelyn said of the misconceptions about their jobs. “Most people don’t even know that there’s a translation team working on something.”

Several Manga Translators Have Been Bullied Off Social Media

“It definitely happens more with combat and big [shonen] series,” Stephen Paul said. As well as translating One Piece, Paul also works on the English translations for Akane-banashi and Vinland Saga. His work on Akane-banashi “could not be more different from One Piece,” Paul revealed, partly due to the lack of scanlations for Akane-banashi, but also because that show’s fan base isn’t caught up “arguing over stuff.”

“It’s a different type of series, so it doesn’t necessarily engender that kind of argument,” Paul continued. “I would say passion, but passion can cross the line. [Argument] is definitely more prevalent for big battle series, for sure.” David Evelyn agreed and revealed how the intense backlash from fans can stop translators (who are also major fans of the series) from interacting with the fan base. “It’s very unfair,” Paul said. “Some translators want to interact with the community and show trivia and language choices and it will immediately get sh-t on by the majority of people.”

In the past, this has led several manga translators to step away from social media due to intense backlash from fans. Stephen Paul recalled My Hero Academia’s translator, Caleb Cook, who once frequently interacted with fans of the series, but had to stop after online harassment became too much. “[Cook] used to talk about all of his choices on Twitter for every chapter,” Paul said. “And then people had disagreements about stuff, and they would bother him. Eventually, he just got sick of it, locked his account, and moved on.”

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Even Jujutsu Kaisen‘s Voice Cast Piled Onto the Translation Hate

It’s one thing for fans to unfairly pile onto manga translators, but it’s even worse when the English voice cast of the anime adaptation joins in. That’s what happened to John Werry, the long-time translator of Jujutsu Kaisen. Werry was repeatedly the target of online hate from fans. But, Adam McArthur, who voices Yuji Itadori in the show’s English dub, piled on in 2024, sharing a meme that took shots at Werry’s translation — ironically, he spelled Werry’s surname wrong.

“It broke my heart because [McArthur] didn’t have to do that,” Evelyn commented on the incident. “What are you gonna gain from that aside from a few thousand likes on Elon Musk’s masturbation platform? We’re only a single person. We can only do so much.”

The solution should be simple: for manga readers to better educate themselves on how the industry actually works, and to understand that the online profiles they’re anonymously attacking online are all run by real people. Unfortunately, asking the internet to be a kinder place is as futile as expecting a good Junji Ito anime adaptation.

H/T: Gizmodo