Crunchyroll Shows You How to Translate Japanese Anime Logos Into English

Crunchyroll has just put out a detailed video showing some of the meticulous work that goes into bringing Japanese animes to Western audiences. The American anime distributor shared a concise breakdown of how its designers rework the logos of Japanese titles to its English-translated counterparts.

Running at approximately 14 minutes, the video is hosted by Crunchyroll’s Tim Lyu, who starts off by offering a brief introduction to how titles of Japanese animes are translated, before getting into the nitty-gritty of visual renderings. The original show must approve the English translation of its title before any designs begin. Once approved, Crunchyroll’s design team is “assigned to localize the logo and have it ready to be used in different assets, like promotional materials — posters, advertisements, thumbnails for videos and more.” The video then introduces designers of Crunchyroll’s creative service team for step-by-step walkthroughs on Japanese titles they personally reworked.

Senior Designer Peter Smith showed how he rendered the English logo for Rent-a-Girlfriend, a story about a man who finds a girlfriend-renting service through an app after being dumped. First, Smith did some background research on the anime to get a better idea of the “mood and storyline” of the series. He then looked for a base font that most resembled the style of the Japanese logo. “Jagged ends” and “large sweeping curves” were added to the logo for enhancement, followed by adjustments of character angles and subtler elements. Other designers explained how they did logos of So I’m a Spider, So What?, Strike The Blood and Science Fell In Love So I Tried To Prove It, demonstrating different approaches to expressing Japanese design elements in English.

Scroll above for a look at Crunchyroll’s explanatory video on how they translate Japanese anime logos to English.

In case you missed it, check out the latest trailer for Attack on Titan‘s final season.