Joe Mio

Japanese localization QA and engineering for SaaS · Japan · joe@joem.io

You probably got an email from me pointing out problems in your product's Japanese. This page is where you check that I'm real and what working with me costs.

My premise is simple: your Japanese product has been translated, but nobody who reads Japanese has checked whether it works. I open the shipped Japanese build, read it as a native speaker, and report what is broken in English.

Hiring me for an audit

I do one thing at a fixed price: an audit of your shipped Japanese product for $980. One flat fee — no retainer, and you don't need a call to get a number.

  • CoverageUp to 20 key screens
  • FindingsEvery issue listed; the 10 highest-impact written up in depth with fixes
  • Turnaround5 business days
  • ReportWritten in English

How it goes:

  • Email me the product URL
  • I test the actual Japanese product
  • You get an English report with screenshots and paste-ready fixes in 5 business days

Implementation fixes and ongoing QA are quoted after the audit.

Where I'm coming from

In 2011 I built websta (webstagram), a third-party Instagram web viewer that reached around 200 million monthly page views at its peak. Before that, in 2004, I co-founded @WIKI, Japan's largest wiki hosting service, and sold it to a listed company in 2019.

I've spent 20+ years doing full-stack web engineering alongside Japanese–English translation practice. I read the code and the copy, so findings come with the string and the place it breaks.

Some of the press around websta, 2011–2012: Gizmodo, Business Insider, CNN, THE TODAY SHOW (NBC), Lifehacker, The Daily Dot.

What a finding looks like

Screenshot pending
Placeholder: a Japanese button label overflowing its container on the pricing page, marked in red. Nothing here requires reading Japanese.
Screenshot pending
Placeholder: an untranslated English string and a raw {variable} left inside a Japanese checkout flow.

Sample audits

I'm publishing two full audits of well-known Japanese product builds so you can see the format before you buy it. Links will appear here.

Questions I get

Why not just use AI?

Generation and verification are two different jobs. In most localization pipelines today, the only thing grading the output is the system that produced it.

A string can be correct in the file and still fail on the screen. The translation is accurate but wrong for the context it renders in. The Japanese runs longer than the English and clips inside its container. Formal and plain registers alternate between two steps of the same flow, which reads to a Japanese user the way a contract that slips into text-message tone would read to you. None of that is visible in the strings; it is visible in the running product.

What do I get?

A report written in English about your Japanese product. Each finding carries the exact location (URL, screen, element), a screenshot with the problem marked, a back-translation into English so you can judge the Japanese without reading it, and a corrected Japanese string you can paste into your files.

The report also states which areas are fine as they are. Machine output is acceptable in plenty of places, and marking those explicitly is part of the deliverable.

Who are you?

Joe Mio, an independent engineer in Japan. The track record is above.

Send me the URL

Include the Japanese pages or screens you care about most, and whether checkout, billing or onboarding is the priority. I'll reply by email; no call required.

joe@joem.io