The translation of manga occupies a special position within the translation of comics in general. This is due to several factors, among them the difference in style and visual language between manga and Western comics, the chequered publication history of manga in Western languages and het strong interest in (and influence on) mange translations exerted by fan groups Translating manga confronts the translator with decisions about the reading direction, the question of whether to leave, to imitate or to translate onomatopoeia and the question of if and where to insert footnotes. Some of these decision involve the use of the Japanese alphabets in an otherwise translated text, and the unique visual language lf manga makes footnotes a more natural decision than they would be in translations from one Western language into another. The history of manga translation over the past years shows how translation strategies moved form adapting texts so that they would fit into the target cultures' existing markets for comics to special translation strategies reserved for manga, which preserve the cultural specificity of the texts.