Hello, I’m Jonathan! Part musician, part translator. I spend a lot of my professional life with my double bass and the Japanese language, and this website is dedicated to everything I’m doing involving one or both of those things.
Music
I graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with a performance degree in classical double bass and a Master of Teaching from the Unversity of New South Wales. I’ve spent the last 10 years performing on double and electric bass, composing and arranging in both Australia and Japan. Notable performances include the Distant Worlds Final Fantasy Orchestra tour in 2017 and several tours around Japan with my video game jazz ensemble, The Consouls.
The Consouls is my most notable ongoing project, an ensemble best known for jazz arrangements of video game music. In addition to our regular performances and live streams, we operate as a production house, composing and arranging for video games, podcasts, other content creators and much more.
I am actively performing and writing music, particularly in the jazz space, and am currently accepting commissions for bass tracking, composing and arranging.
Translation
I lived in Japan from 2017-9 working as an English teacher and freelance musician and after returning home to Australia, decided to try my hand at Japanese to English translation. I am a contributing translator and writer at voyapon.com (Japanese tourism and artisan products), and was previously a translator and contributor for nintendoeverything.com (video game media). I am currently accepting additional translation projects, and my areas of expertise can be found below. In this blog, you’ll also find some other translations I’ve worked on.
My areas of expertise include:
- Music – Specialising in jazz, classical and video game music
- Video Games – Industry materials like interviews, press releases, strategy guides etc
- Anime – I have provided Japanese to English translations for the following series:
- Kodocha (episodes 72-102)
- The King of Braves GaoGaiGar Final (full series)
- Bullet Train (live action, translation check)
- Mononoke (commercials and additional content)
- Animal Island Treasure (translation check)
- Lady Georgie (full series)
- Lupin III Record of Observations of the East (movie)
- Lupin III Sweet Lost Night – Mahō no Lamp wa Akumu no Yokan (movie)
- Tachigui: The Amazing Lives of the Fast Food Grifters (movie + additional content)
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha series (translation check, commercials and additional content)
- Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure (additional content)
- Pokemon Paldean Winds (Scripts, on-screen directions and director notes)
- Humanoid Monster Bem (full series)
- Star Musketeer Bismark (full series)
- Special Rescue Police Winspector (full series)
I also have experience translating in the areas of:
- Japanese tourism – Press releases, social media content, location guides
- Japanese products – Product description, company biographies, specialty products
Interpreting (Japanese/English)
In addition to my work in translation, I have some experience in Japanese to English translation, most notably as lead interpreter at the ONE Esports FIGHT! Tokyo Invitational which took place in November of 2022.
Testimonials
Jonathan captures the essence of his translations from Japanese to English while creating text that is easy to read. We completely trust his judgment when it comes to contextualizing the Japanese meaning into its English context.
Todd Fong
Co-Editor-in-Chief, Voyapon.com
If you’d like to get in touch for any upcoming projects you may have relating to either translation or music, get in touch with me here.