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/