Alexander O. Smith

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Alexander O. Smith is a professional English / Japanese translator and author. While his output covers many areas such as adaptation of Japanese novels, manga, song lyrics, anime scripts, and various academic works, he is best known for his Japanese video game localizations. His most noted works are the English scripts for Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy X. His Vagrant Story localization has been widely praised, and it has the extremely rare distinction of being considered by some to be technically superior to the original Japanese script it is based upon. Whereas Vagrant Story's Japanese script was straightforward, Smith added extra flavor to his translation by way of various anachronistic English idioms and slang. In Final Fantasy X, Smith referenced the Macarena. In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney he used leet-speak for the dialogue of character "Sal Manella."

He has also used his knowledge of Japanese culture and language in other game media, such as Magic: the Gathering, specifically its Shinto-based Kamigawa block.

The lyrics for both the title track and Otherworld on The Black Mages' second album The Skies Above were written by Smith, who also performed the spoken intro to Maybe I'm A Lion on that album. He also wrote the English lyrics for "Melodies of Life" featured on Final Fantasy IX

Smith recently translated and localized the Final Fantasy XII demo for its November 2006 release in North America. He was also the localization lead on the English localization of the full game which was released in October 2006.