Smith first gained an interest in Japanese after attending an
exchange program in northern
China. He obtained a
Bachelor of Arts degree in Japanese from
Dartmouth College/
Keio University in 1995, and a
Master of Arts degree in Classical Japanese Literature from
Harvard University in 1998. Just before graduation, he interned at
Sega, during which he was asked to perform voice-over for
Winter Heat. His first work in translation was as a subtitler for
Japanese television dramas. Smith joined
Square after earning his master's degree, working as part of
Richard Honeywood's nascent
localization team. On his first project,
Final Fantasy VIII, he and the other translators were not given access to the game files; they were instead forced to hack in their new dialogue using
GameSharks during testing. In 1999, he worked as the main English translator for
Yasumi Matsuno's
Vagrant Story. Reviewers noted the high quality of the English script, in which Smith utilized various
archaic English
idioms and
slang that distinguished the game from its straightforward Japanese counterpart. His last major work as a Square employee was on
Final Fantasy X, for which he was awarded "Best Localization" of 2001 by RPGamer. Smith left Square in 2002 to found Kajiya Productions—a freelance translation and localization company—with Joseph Reeder, his co-translator on
Final Fantasy XII, though he would continue to collaborate on Square and
Square Enix titles. By working as a contractor, he found that he had better access to the development team to aid in his translation process, free from the fetters of corporate communication protocols. Smith joined the
Final Fantasy XII project after Yasumi Matsuno, the original director, had left and was not able to collaborate on the script with him directly, unlike with
Vagrant Story. Principal voice recording took place over eight weeks, with months of translation work both before and after that. Smith worked with Matsuno again on the 2011
PlayStation Portable remake of
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (titled
Wheel of Fortune), which received a brand new translation. In 2011, Smith co-founded a book translation and publishing company called
Bento Books with his friend Tony Gonzalez and his Kajiya Productions partner Joseph Reeder. The company's first major work was
Math Girls, a mathematics-themed
young adult novel by
Hiroshi Yuki. In addition to translation, Smith has composed English lyrics for a number of
Nobuo Uematsu's vocal tracks, including "Melodies of Life" from
Final Fantasy IX, "Otherworld" from
Final Fantasy X, and "Eternity" from
Blue Dragon. He also arranged lyrics for "The Skies Above" and "Otherworld" on
The Skies Above, the second album from Uematsu's band,
The Black Mages, and performed the spoken word intro to "Maybe I'm a Lion" as well. ==Process==