This initiative responds to the growing popularity of light novels outside Japan, particularly in North America. Competition from Kadokawa, which acquired light novel publisher J-Novel Club in 2021, was a major factor in this decision. Since the acquisition, Kadokawa has seen a notable increase in revenue from light novel sales in the region, reaching a fifth of manga sales.

Brand new It will feature AI-assisted translation to halve translation costs, allowing for a larger number of works to be published. In addition, light novels on the app will be presented in a vertically scrolling format instead of traditional e-book pages. With this strategy, Shogakukan aims to register one million users and generate millions of dollars in revenue by fiscal year 2027.

In Japan, digital sales of light novels have surpassed print sales in recent years, now accounting for approximately 60% of the market's revenue. This shift toward digital consumption reflects a global trend, and Shogakukan is looking to capitalize on this growth in North America.

Although, Fan reception was not entirely positive. The community has expressed concerns about the use of AI in translation, fearing that it could compromise the quality and fidelity of original works. While the technology can offer faster and cheaper translations, Many fans prefer human translations for their accuracy and ability to capture the subtleties of Japanese language and culture.

• «“You are cordially invited to pay for unedited AI translations.” What a glorious day to be alive! (sarcasm)».
• «But yeah, if you guys were waiting for some Shogakukan light novels to be released in English, it looks like one of you was holding the monkey's paw».
• «That's disgusting. I hope it's completely useless and they abandon this kind of crap, but unfortunately it's probably cheap enough to be profitable, even if it doesn't make much money.».
• «No thanks, and screw them. I saw what the same AI did to “The Ancient Magus Bride” and it made me give up on the manga. Shitty, tasteless translation, like reading the back of a cereal box.».
• «We hope the market will destroy them (even pirates have certain standards haha) and improve the reputation of the real localization companies we have compared to this garbage.».
• «Since they mention “Too Many Losing Heroines,” I wonder how this will affect Seven Seas’ ability to license future volumes since they’ve already released vol. 1 digitally. I hope they can still publish them with a real translator.».
• «I honestly hope this breathes some life into the light novel fan translation scene, because official translations are going to plummet.».
• «I hope they fire the company's executives. These kinds of stupid and senseless decisions do nothing more than cut jobs and hurt quality, all in the name of "growth." Instead, they could have made sensible decisions, like licensing more openly to English-language publishers. Shogakukan is already known as one of those publishers that has a hard time getting licenses, as they want physical editions as a requirement. (It's worth noting that the most active light novel publisher is J-Novel Club, which can't even choose which series it wants to print the most.)».
• «So will they at least have human editors to ensure these translations aren't completely AI?».
• «Is it a custom AI that was trained specifically for Japanese to English translation? Or is it the same terrible machine translation we already have? The former would interest me if the translation was 90% or more accurate.».
• «AI is a cancer now and I wish it would stay in search engines instead».

Source: Nikkei