Rae First - 2015

Rae First is creative professional passionate about animation, comics and gaming as well as popular culture media trends and is bilingual in both Japanese and English. Rae graduated from Lafayette College in 2015 with a bachelors in film and media studies. Before graduating, He had multiple internships, but most notably was the first American to hold a position at Tezuka Productions, one of the oldest animation studios in Japan, whose works include Tetsuwan Atom (Astro Boy), Phoenix, and Dororo. Rae is currently employed at Viz Media as an editor working on the localization for the English version of Shonen Jump and has edited hundreds of graphic novel volumes and serialized chapters of some of the world’s most popular manga titles. Some of these titles include Dragon Ball Super, Haikyu!!, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, My Hero Academia, Hunter x Hunter, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and the manga edition of the hit video game Persona 5. His work not only requires him to edit scripts for localization, but also edits lettering for serializations. He has an extensive skillset in the Adobe Creative Suite, creating multiple guides for other editors that include Indesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator, and is tasked with training new editors on Indesign when they join the editorial team at Viz Media.