My translating tools are fairly simple. I have eight dictionaries. That's right. Eight. Here's a breakdown:
                    1. Random House Japanese-English/English-Japanese dictionary. I *love* this thing. Let's put it this way: I love it so much the spine has broken. I'm going to eventually buy it in hardcover. It is a wonderful thing. Subarashii desu wa!
                    2. Martin's Pocket Dictionary English-Japanese/Japanese-English. Oh my god. I want to kiss the guy who did this one. I recommend it highly for anyone learning the languge. Why? It doesn't just give the dicionary form of verbs. You can find the negatives and the -masu forms of verbs. Plus, if you think a word is a cuss, it's probably in there. Do-suki ya!
                    3. Webster's New World Japanese Dictionary. Can I just say how much I hate this piece of shit? I haven't cracked it open since I got better ones. This was so an early purchase, before I knew better. I'm pretty sure I'm going to give this to my ten-year-old brother. Dai kirai da yo.
                    4. Kodansha's furigana Japanese-English dictionary. I saw this, and heard the angels singing. Sugoi, sugoi!
                    5. Kodansha's Compact Kanji Guide. My kanjidic (kanji dictionary). I like. It's a little too thin, though, but that's to be expected of anything calling itself "compact"--the vast majority of the kanji I need are there. Which makes it mega-obnoxious when the ones I need aren't. Juubun da.
                    6. The Japan Time's Nihongo Gitaigo Jiten. [Dictionary of Japanese Onomatopoeic/Mimetic Expressions] It's limited to repeated words, but this is so very necessary for translating manga. It just is. And it's dedicated to all the pandas in the world. I shit you not. This was a happy Iwase purchase. niko niko
                    7. 2001 Japanese and English Idioms. This is a godsend. There are some things you can't find in normal dictionaries, and idioms are one of them. This helps me with phrases where I understand every word, but it makes no sense--aftre all, idioms never make sense if you look at them--after all, just look at "the apple of someone's eye"--does that make sense if you look at it objectively? Some of the English idioms are out of date, so I know some of the Japanese one are as well, but this is still a damned useful book. Ki wo yoku suru!
                    8. Kodansha's Effective Japanese Usage Dictionary. I swear to God, I would kiss all the people at Kodansha except their dictionaries are too bloody expensive. This dictionary breaks down the subtle differences between words that are often defined the same way on conventional dictionaries, and then gives examples. Arigatou gozaimasu, Kodansha!

          On top of *that*, I have grammer dictionaries as well. Plus two online websites. I can't really scan in my dics and give 'em to yall, but I can get ya to the websites!

Jim Breen's WWWDic - http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/wwwjdic.html. My God. Is there anything this site doesn't have?

Jeffry's Japanese/English Dictionary Server - http://linear.mv.com/cgi-bin/j-e/jis/-aZc74/S=48/inline/dict. It doesn't have as much as Jim Breen's, but I tend to use this one first, because the interface is very clean. The way the link I'm giving you is set up gives you the Japanese-language-enabled version of the site, but there is a version of the site you can click on that will show you images of the kanji, if your computer doesn't grok JIS, Shift-JIS, or Unicode.