Machine Translating Manga - Amimaru/Kodansha/Manga Plus

[InuYashaCrusade]

Machine translating manga received a lot of attention last month after ANN reported the following:

Manga Localization Company Amimaru Allegedly Trials Machine Translation For Commercial Manga Releases

"An anonymous translator has told ANN that the manga translation and lettering company Amimaru has been trialing edited machine translations for commercial manga releases, calling it an "an excuse to pay translators less than they already do and mechanize the art of translation."

ANN has received documents which indicate the existence of a machine translation project at Amimaru. One of the clients was identified by an internal codename referring to Kodansha Comics.

Kodansha Comics has denied investing in machine translation: "Kodansha USA believes translators are vital members of the manga community. We remain committed to healthy working relationships with translators and are actively taking steps to build closer ties with them. For these reasons and more, Kodansha USA does not currently employ machine translation for any of the manga and books that we distribute – nor are there any plans for this to change."

Manga Plus has joined in with the following:

"Momiyama said in the interview that translation costs are currently very high. He said that the quality of machine translation is still very low, but that "in 10 years it should improve," adding that "if we can produce high-quality translations in many different languages, it will be a game-changer all over again."

Sources:

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/int...manga-/.180576

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/int...-house/.181396

[BigOnAnime]

Machine translation is probably never going to be that good. One of the things machine translation greatly struggles with Japanese to English is the fact it struggles to get the context. With Japanese, you basically say more with less. Not to mention the grammar structure is entirely different.

Heck, when I use the "Translate Tweet" feature on Twitter powered by Google Translate, it always translates "san" to "Mr.", even when the person was talking about a female character.

It's depressing how so many companies desperately want to replace translators with machines to save money. Said translators tend to be underpaid much of the time to begin with despite how important they are.

[BigOnAnime]

Looks like Kadokawa has joined in... If you wanted to read the light novels for Higehiro, you're in for an awful experience.
https://animeuknews.net/2022/01/kado...g-translation/

[papagirton]

I've always felt that the nuances and emotions conveyed in manga are so unique and sometimes subtle, so I'm curious to see how machine translations handle that. I understand the concerns about it being an avenue for companies to cut costs, but if done right, it might bring more manga to international fans faster.

Anyway, what these machines do nowadays with the help of AI and automation is crazy! For example, nowadays, machine translation has reached new levels because there exists automated legal translation that is very accurate. I've used their services once, and they really nailed it. The speed at which it was done was the highlight for me.

[BigOnAnime]

A really bad translation is worse than no translation at all. I'd rather have less manga brought over than more due to machine translation that can get things wrong with a very context-heavy language where you say more with less. Google Translate also keeps translating "san" as "Mr." even if it's about a woman and should be "Ms." or "Mrs."

I'll leave this here for no reason at all...

Originally Posted by Andrew 'Steiner' Hodgson

https://twitter.com/animeuknews/stat...38745570795520

Kadokawa actively trying to sound out how low they can bring the bar before people stop buying. It's just a shame authors and their stories will have to pay the price during the experiment.

https://twitter.com/DistantValhalla/...81131286396931

[Darkex]

Thanks god that I learnt japanese and can now read my manga in japanese.

The problem with machine translation is that if the machine doesn't understand a sentence it just makes things up.

[InuYashaCrusade]

The AI takeover continues...

The Ancient Magus' Bride Manga's Return Gets Simultaneous English Release Using AI Translation

The official Twitter account for Kore Yamazaki's The Ancient Magus Bride announced on Thursday that Bushiroad is using AI translation by Mantra to release the manga simultaneously in English and Japanese for its return from hiatus. Mantra is also providing AI translation services for simultaneous English releases of Yamazaki's Ghost and Witch manga. In addition, the companies plan to add simultaneous releases in Simplified Chinese starting in May.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/new...lation/.205774

[Tylerfan]

What shite

[MiaLeeSakura]

Does anyone know if Ablaze comics has been using MTL? Ik there have been accusations particularly with their release Centaurs, but haven't seen any evidence past TL anlaysis, which guess I'd like to give benefit of the doubt for ahahaha ^^:;;. Also This Witch of Mine the only series I own from them has only a TL credit to Munhakdogne publishing which seems to be the Korean publishing company, can't find much info about them though. It's not the same translation as available on Tappytoon

[InuYashaCrusade]

50,000 Manga Titles Translated by AI Are Set to Come Overseas

Major companies, including manga publisher Shogakukan, will invest in a startup aiming to bring 50,000 manga translated by AI overseas.

https://www.cbr.com/manga-ai-transla...ional-release/

[BigOnAnime]

This didn't get posted here but let's further drive the point home as to why AI/machine translation is bad.

TO Books Launches English Corona EX Manga Site With Machine Translation

Fukatsu's The Swordwoman With Curse manga posted using Google Translate

Japanese publisher TO Books launched the English version of its Corona EX manga website on Monday as a paid subscription service, featuring both previous translations of its works from various English publishers (such as Seven Seas Entertainment or J-Novel Club), as well as works machine-translated through Google Translate, which the site admits may possibly contain errors. The service has a US$4.50 monthly subscription cost.
The site currently contains the Ascendance of a Bookworm manga, the Sorcerous Stabber Orphen: The Youthful Journey manga, The Swordwoman With Curse manga, and The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash. The individual page for each work on the site indicates whether it contains translations previously released by other companies, or if it contains content translated using Google Translate. Of the four listed works, Fukatsu's The Swordwoman With Curse is listed as using Google Translate, while all three other titles use prior translations by J-Novel Club or Seven Seas Entertainment.

The machine-translated The Swordwoman With Curse manga contains entire untranslated panels and text (often handwritten), among other errors.

The service will leave bonus material, such as short manga, short novels, or author afterwords untranslated.

Bushiroad previously annouced in December that it would use the Mantra Engine to machine-translate Kore Yamazaki's The Ancient Magus' Bride and Ghost and Witch manga.

Shueisha's MANGA Plus service began releasing Daisuke Miyata's Rugby Rumble (Saikyō no Uta) manga in English last October, crediting the AI localization company "Orange Inc." along with Media Do Co., Ltd. for lettering and editing. After a backlash on social media about the lettering quality, MANGA Plus released a new version within a week, crediting the manga's translator Mei Amaki (Mugen Creations LLC.) as letterer and editor alongside Orange and Media Do.

Source: Corona EX website via Siliconera

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/new...lation/.209468

Originally Posted by Andrew 'Steiner' Hodgson

Wanted to check out how bad this was for myself. Thankfully one of the series proudly translated by Google has a chapter available for free. Let's see how it-- Oh. Okay.

Yeah they didn't even have someone post-MTL edit this, it's just raw output.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GKF8N7dW...=jpg&name=orig
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GKF8UUIX...=png&name=orig
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GKF8_-ZX...=png&name=orig
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GKF9BSpW...=png&name=orig

https://twitter.com/DistantValhalla/...37457931948471

Originally Posted by Andrew 'Steiner' Hodgson

Also I guess it couldn't detect handwritten parts, so anything not in standard bubbles is left completely untranslated. This is comically disastrous and I hope it fails.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GKF9dAtX...=png&name=orig
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GKF9di8W...=png&name=orig
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GKF9fiZX...=jpg&name=orig

https://twitter.com/DistantValhalla/...37717387317663

Originally Posted by Andrew 'Steiner' Hodgson

Me interjecting:
"The swordsman's habit is to use a hidden whip."
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GKGAL9IX...=png&name=orig

https://twitter.com/DistantValhalla/...40848745722359

Originally Posted by Andrew 'Steiner' Hodgson

Looked back at this service since I noticed they added a few more titles. The quality of their MTL has not improved. In fact this one I'm looking at today even feels rougher.

Ironically they chose a series about a translator to do it to this time.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GNH1SrNW...=jpg&name=orig

https://twitter.com/DistantValhalla/...85527596855500

Originally Posted by Andrew 'Steiner' Hodgson

So right off the bat we've got stiff phrasing, but the AI doesn't realize that イアソン should be "Jason" (as in the mythological Jason). It also typos Argonauts for some inexplicable reason.

Untranslated text in image 2, as well as a discrepancy between S-Rank and S-Class.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GNH1eLzW...=jpg&name=orig
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GNH2AEWX...=png&name=orig

https://twitter.com/DistantValhalla/...85531455668433

Originally Posted by Andrew 'Steiner' Hodgson

Here it gets the subject wrong. Angelina's statement in the bottom right is unintentionally warped to be about herself, when it's actually referring to how Shion shouldn't have to give his stuff back. She's also supposed to suggest pretending they lost it in the next bubble.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GNH2KM_W...=jpg&name=orig

https://twitter.com/DistantValhalla/...85536039973154

Originally Posted by Andrew 'Steiner' Hodgson

For these two, if you know even rudimentary Japanese then you can tell at a glance exactly what it ****ed up and how it did it. I didn't need to look at the raw to know what either of these were.
Left is more Yahoo/Yippee/Hurray, right is something more like "Excuse me..."
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GNH2uliW...=png&name=orig
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GNH24ooX...=jpg&name=orig

https://twitter.com/DistantValhalla/...85540435660802

Originally Posted by Andrew 'Steiner' Hodgson

Here we see the AI TL struggle with something intrinsic to this work. The monsters use a lot of katakana in their dialogue. The MTL parses this phonetically and spits it out instead of translating it. Hence "Naruhodo," and "Human koros". It's not equipped for the tone nuance.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GNH3O0CW...=png&name=orig
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GNH3dEuW...=jpg&name=orig

https://twitter.com/DistantValhalla/...85543963005023

Originally Posted by Andrew 'Steiner' Hodgson

Adding on to this, it struggles with "temee" being in katakana on the left here (we saw similar in the other work) but it also shows that it fails with slangy, constructed terms also. 'Hebogift' is just ヘボギフト, the bad guy calling the protag's 'gift' (translation) shitty.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GNH4bUPX...=png&name=orig

https://twitter.com/DistantValhalla/...85547406639249

Originally Posted by Andrew 'Steiner' Hodgson

I'll close on this one since I thought it was funny. The guy didn't 'hook up' with the protag, he tried starting shit with him. The bottom panel is a total mess too. Bubble on the right reads wooden, bubble on the left is wrong. He means to say he's gonna get some revenge.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GNH43SJW...=png&name=orig

https://twitter.com/DistantValhalla/...85550632001634

Originally Posted by Andrew 'Steiner' Hodgson

This is the type of unfiltered slop you're going to get when you remove humans from the equation. But even post-editing the MTL wouldn't be able to massage out some of the context errors the machine failed to parse. It would be easier to have a person do it from the start.

https://twitter.com/DistantValhalla/...85553505128881

Originally Posted by Andrew 'Steiner' Hodgson

(Dis)honorable mention. This one is absolutely baffling.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GNIFRPhX...=png&name=orig
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GNIFRx-W...=png&name=orig

https://twitter.com/DistantValhalla/...97884129751510

That last one I can read the original Japanese because it's all in hiragana (yay!). So the left is まずい! (mazui) and え? (e), and I'm also puzzled how it came up with "Unpalatable!" and "Picture?".

I'll also leave this here.

The REASON Google Translate FAILS at Japanese - YouTube

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by jat_org

JAT wishes to express its strong reservations regarding the initiative to use AI for high-volume translation and export of manga. AI is unfit to translate high-context, story-centric writing such as novels, scripts, games, and manga.

Full press release:
https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/00...000143535.html

https://twitter.com/jat_org/status/1797871173365014642

(English Version)

Statement on the Public and Private Sector Initiative to Use AI for High-Volume Translation and Export of Manga

The Japan Association of Translators wishes to express its strong reservations regarding the public and private sector initiative to use AI for high-volume translation and export of manga.

First, in its current form, AI translation has yet to demonstrate the level of quality required to adequately portray nuance, cultural background, or character traits, which are critical to a work of fiction. Using machines to churn out mass quantities of translated works in a short amount of time (according to official announcements, 50,000 works in 5 years, with the shortest turnaround being 2 days per work) risks greatly diminishing the value of the work itself.

Moreover, excessive reliance on AI risks putting professional manga translators, who have supported the industry for years, out of work and turns valuable human resources into throw-away commodities. We are deeply concerned about the negligent disregard for so much accumulated experience and skill for the sake of cost reduction.

This is to say nothing of the risk posed by releasing hastily produced, low-quality translations into the market. Poor translations undermine consumer trust, opening the window for pirated versions to flourish. Given that manga is an important facet of Japanese culture and one of the many ways that people are first introduced to Japan, it is all the more important that the words we use to convey these stories are not undervalued.

Based on our experience and subject-matter expertise, it is the opinion of this organization that AI translation is extremely unsuitable for translating high-context, story-centric writing, such as novels, scripts, and manga. Quick and easy AI translation not only risks hurting the translation industry or the manga industry, it is not in the country's best interests.

Our organization is deeply concerned that the public and private sector initiative to use AI for high-volume translation and export of manga will damage Japan’s soft power.

The Japan Association of Translators holds that expert translation by professional translators is essential to ensure that Japan's exceptional manga continue to reach and engage readers around the world.

We strongly propose that now is the time for careful and constructive dialogue between manga artists, businesses (publishers), the government, translators, translator organizations, readers, and all stakeholders, to consider the appropriate use of AI and machine translation.

Japan Association of Translators

https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/00...000143535.html

[Tylerfan]

America to Become Ground Zero for Shogakukan's AI Novel Translation Revolution

Originally Posted by Chike Nwaenie (CBR)

Despite fan and industry worry over AI-translated media, one of Japan's biggest manga and light novel publishers, Shogakukan, will launch a new light novel distribution service in North America by the end of the year.

Via Manga Alerts on X (formerly Twitter), Nikkei's new report "Shogakukan to use AI translation on a light novel app for anime-related works in North America" revealed that Shogakukan (Case Closed, Doraemon, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End) will launch the new app Novelus by the end of 2024. The app will be available in the United States and Canada, leveraging the AI software called Mantra for rapid translation. Mantra will be used to "cut translation costs in half and increase the number of works."

https://www.cbr.com/america-shogakuk...n-controversy/

Now I know what app to avoid

[BigOnAnime]

Originally Posted by Andrew Hodgson

https://twitter.com/MangaAlerts/stat...99200164774372

When there are errors in the front-and-center marketing, I dread to think of what the bulk of it is going to turn out like. This is what disrespect for the medium and your audience looks like. But hey, I'm sure Mantra's shareholders are happy.

https://twitter.com/DistantValhalla/...13497963782408

Originally Posted by Dobu_Dobu

Me "saving translation costs" by copying text from a txt file and pasting it into DeepL 1000 characters at a time for free then pasting it into a Word document without grammar checking it and selling it to dumb people for real money.

https://twitter.com/Dobu_Dobu/status...08736237617190