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Ian Sacks

@iansacks.bsky.social
165 followers 225 following 491 posts

🇺🇸 in 🇯🇵 Manga translations for JNC, Seven Seas. Horror fiction out and forthcoming at various. Non-horror at Pithead Chapel, Jersey Devil Press. Opinions my own. Former Dragon Ball fandom presence. iansacksworks.com

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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
A short horror piece of mine about anomalous construction site trappings is out at @aftermidnightmag.bsky.social! Thrilled to be part of their first issue. aftermidnightlitmag.com/2026/09/29/f...
aftermidnightlitmag.com
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Hiroki hadn’t expected to hear his name. They were next to the construction site between the Miyada and Enoda homes. Toward the…
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
You're wondering how I'd feel about making a shmaltzy drama surrounding the creation of the bomb that shies away from presenting the horrors of its real-world consequences?
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I also finally saw Interstellar. Like basically all Nolan films except the Dark Knight, it made me feel like a big hater. Sorry. letterboxd.com/iansacks/fil...
letterboxd.com
A ★★½ review of Interstellar (2014)
Something happens to me with Christopher Nolan films that breaks my brain. They are smarter and more emotionally affecting than most Hollywood spectacle films of their scope and scale, which makes me ...
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Braved the typhoon to catch a restoration screening of Godzilla vs. Mothra in Yokohama (the film's climax setting) yesterday. The most important review I've ever written of the most important film I've ever seen: letterboxd.com/iansacks/fil...
letterboxd.com
A ★★ review of Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992)
Saw at a 4K restoration screening in Yokohama, near the site of the film's climax. There's something fun and delightful about the way even the worst Toho Godzilla movies embrace sheer enthusiasm for m...
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Canonical way to translate 色々訊きたい
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Horror Tree @horrortree.com · 13/09/2026
🩸 🩸 Trembling With Fear🩸 🩸 Ian Sacks shows us the horror in forgetting in this week's feature story, ‘𝗘𝘅-𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻’. 💧 Tom Gdisis seeks what lurks beneath in 𝗛𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝗡𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗲 👻 Stephen Tenerowicz teaches us not to trust our senses in 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝘀𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗻 𝗧𝘂𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹𝘀 🧟‍♀️ Sean Sims undergoes a change in p
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I say mostly for horror, but I do have to get MOTU on here so I can note both it and Backrooms as twin "I did not expect anything of this when I heard it was greenlit and it blew me away" surprise 2026 experiences.
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I dun started a Letterboxd, mostly to log horror-movie viewing as my partner and I are 1) doing a lot of it, and 2) have wound up with a pretty set 1 to 10 standard in terms of communicating our thoughts to each other afterward. Fillg out the last few months of viewing. letterboxd.com/IanSacks/
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Only thing holding it back at all for me is Clark feeling slightly stock, but it is such a thematically tight script, expressed through a minimum of dialogue combined with suggestive visuals and a couple of key wording flags.
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
...and both left unsure of what space they occupy and urgently asking the other to make sense of it got me a little choked up, unexpectedly. Also, will be mad if it doesn't win some best set design awards, and not even just for the surreal spaces. For the pitch perfect uncanny '90s decor.
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Anyway, it just came out in Japan, so I saw it late. Neck and neck with MOTU for my favorite film of 2026 so far for very different reasons. Maybe loved it? Final conversation with the memory/subjective world metaphor and two characters both dealing with exploration of the mind (MRIs, therapist)...
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Backrooms Twin Peaks 🤝 Using surreal horror to explore the inscrutability of subjective experience and the impossibility of receiving external meaning
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Resurrected my basically unused personal/professional Instagram: www.instagram.com/iansacks/ Looking to follow other writers and translators especially, so connect on there if it's your thing!
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Elsewhere, a short doppelganger piece ran in the August issue of Macabre Magazine. While there's still one update to be made to the bio and some micro-edits to the text, formatting now displays correctly on mobile as well as desktop, so I'm excited to share it! macabremagazine.com?p=2532&previ...
macabremagazine.com
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Two things to plug! My horror-adventure piece, "Speak If Though Wilt," is in The Dread Literary Review's "Final Girl" summer theme issue. It's a follow-up to a straight-forward horror piece coming out elsewhere 9/13, but meant to work on its own! the-dread-literary-review.ghost.io/summer-2026-...
the-dread-literary-review.ghost.io
SUMMER 2026: Final Girl
“Final Girl” by Lorrie Ness Like a corpse’s receding skin, the pram’s canopy shrivels from its overturned frame.  Chrome supports jut from the brambles & weeds.  Only the skeleton remains  in...
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
The answer may surprise you
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Adverbs are codeswitching. They are freeing. During my MFA, I wouldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole. Writing genre though? Give me one. Give me ten. They are an invitation to the reader; come on in, we're having fun
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Why is the concept of a social contract with your nationstate so fucking alien to these people?
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Garry @thegmcconnachie.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
This is why Dolly Parton will be remembered and loved ❤️📚
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Evan Greer @evangreer.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
in a world of JK Rowlings be a Dolly Parton
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I've long felt that treating debate as a sport with points to award and encouraged divorce from personal stake in issues of import has done us no favors as a society.
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I have a short horror story in this one. It seems like a cool project, so if you follow me for lit or translation stuff (or even if you don't), give them a follow!
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Feedback logged. An artificial intelligence strategy in the cultural and creative sectors that is not "regulation" has no business being brought to the table.
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I actually did one other full-on joke one, but I wound up liking it enough that I'm tempted to save it for off-beat lit mags or comedy-horror submissions first
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
It was fun to cut loose and feel like I could break every rule for one piece. Artifice of an online post + purple prose? Found emergency outreach + mundane deviations? Dryly delivered brushes with horror shlock? Forget it baby, it's nosleep town
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ex-Lethality Jane @lethalityjane.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
You played the recorder in part to strengthen your fine motor skills and in part to introduce you to basic music theory concepts like rhythm, the C-major scale, and reading basic music notes. Your teachers wanted to make elementary music education available to all, not just the rich.
Threads post "And then for no reason, no reason at all, they made us all learn how to play the recorder"
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Based on an experience my partner and I had at sushi. This is still one of my least favorite sub-genres of horror (especially for the interplay between the posting artifice and the relatively conventional narrative prose that is expected to follow), but it was fun exercise.
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
While waiting for four accepted short horror pieces (+ several drabbles) to come out, I used the Japanese holidays to do a little semi-comic nosleep post, a genre I am admittedly prone to not enjoying, engaging in all the tropes while seeing what I could get through. www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/co...
reddit.com
From the nosleep community on Reddit
Explore this post and more from the nosleep community
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
In the future we're going to treat this kind of self-destructive AI use like smoking cigarettes
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Inbal Breda @greyannis.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Might as well post it here! A magical girl animation I've been slowly chipping at over the weekends for ages.
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Who am I to question Anthrax in 1991, but one of those is an eye-popping outlier in terms of whose choices are or aren't being made
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After Midnight Lit Mag @aftermidnightmag.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Y'aaall... We've gotten some amazing submissions so far! We're still open until August 15th, so send your #shortstory, #flashfiction, #poetry, #pedagogy, #bookreview, and #CNF our way! #writesky #booksky Link: www.aftermidnightlitmag.com
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Omoi: Manga App & Publisher @omoi.com · 08/08/2026
Reminder: Omoi uses 100% human translators, letterers, proofreaders, and editors for our exclusive series. We're proud to publish high-quality releases from skilled localization workers!
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Also bro what Anora won best picture in 2025 what are you talking about Own your weird movie
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Release the sex purge movie sex cut
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Aidan Clarke @cranchyroll.com · 07/08/2026
Thinking about the way Wayne Truman drew sound effects for manga that didn't match the style of the originals but still burst with energy. The full color version of Dragon Ball has the original sound effects so it's used for comparison here.
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_Mostly_Ghostly_ @mostlyghostly.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
Really old Ultraman doodles that I still find relatable 💀
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
I have bad news about how *checks notes* society and business function if you're this nervous over your labor subsidizing things from which you might never personally benefit
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
When I pay taxes that help the greater infrastructure around me and provide safety nets I could avail myself of in times of need, that is bad, but when my employer benefits from my labor and invests it outside of my department, that is good
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Subsidizing discounts you may not personally use is how a society functions. It's how business functions. It's how every social contract ever made has functioned. It's what separates us from the wolves, I would say, but they too act for pack benefit and "discounts they may never even use."
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Setting up a line of dominoes that starts with "Fourth grade teacher reading Harry Potter to kids in class" and ends with "Voting to determine wether staff must examine kids' genitals so they can play soccer" because we live in hell
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Nosleep as a genre: Now, I'm not a writer. I'd never even thought to tell anyone this before, but my friend said I should post my story, so I'm giving it a go. It all started when *proceeds to deliver the most purple and descriptive prose imaginable while discussing their encounter with the unknown*
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
I really want someone to do "I was a hyper-competent fantasy lady in another world until this hapless shmuck arrived and now he's supposed to lead the party?!"
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
This is highly specific, but I love scripting secondary plot-driving female characters in isekai manga translations who are purposefully given more characterization than the main guy
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
A small thing, but would it be possible to add a link to the story directly to these posts?🙏
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Rewatched Heretic, the 2024 horror film with Hugh Grant. Partner and I are in agreement that it's probably a perfect movie and it bumped itself into the "love it" category for me. Such a tight, tense, well-characterized and ultimately human script, explored through a horror lens
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
This but also for lit mag visuals and self-publishing art
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Wake up babe come play the blood Game Boy
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Ian Sacks @iansacks.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
I support Yu-Gi-Oh! getting relettered as every decent comics fan should
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