The Japanese Translators Association has a new stance on the changes coming to the industry, and it looks like jobs for manga translators may start to dwindle after AI’s recent entry into translation work. It’s supposed to be a battle against piracy, but translators have a different opinion.

Shogakukan Publishing House, JIC Venture Growth Investments and other companies in coalitionShogakukan has invested 2.92 billion yen (about US$19 million) in Orange, a company that will use AI to translate around 50,000 manga into English over a five-year period.

The manga industry claims this is to reduce piracy of the titles – and the translations immediately appear in a clandestine manner. However, Translators believe that it is not that simple and that rushed and low-quality translations will drive consumers away from the numbers:

“Translation errors undermine consumer confidence, opening the way for pirated versions to emerge. Considering that manga is an important facet of Japanese culture and one of the many ways people are introduced to Japan for the first time, it is even more important that the words we use to convey these stories are not undervalued.

On the other hand, the Manga Translators Association also takes into consideration the fact that employees who have dedicated their lives to the profession would be discarded simply because there is something that makes “their job” “faster”.

“Furthermore, Over-reliance on AI risks putting professional manga translators out of work.who have supported the sector for years, and turns valuable human resources into disposable commodities. We are deeply concerned about the careless disregard of so much accumulated experience and skill in the interests of cost reduction.”

The manga sector defends itself by saying that there will be a human review of the numbers, so there is no need to mention ingratitude and unemployment. However, manga translators are of the opinion that editing is not paid in the same way as translation, which is a true fact. Let's see what will happen in the future, what do you think? Which faction do you support?

What's happening with AI in the manga industry?

Manga translators are firmly opposed to AI interference in the industry and have issued a strong statement:

“First of all, in its current form, AI translation has not yet demonstrated the level of quality needed to adequately represent the nuancescultural or character traits, which are fundamental to a work of fiction. The use of machines to produce large quantities of translated works in a short period of time (according to official announcements, 50,000 works in five years, with a shorter turnaround time of two days per work) runs the risk of considerably diminishing the value of the work itself.

However, Orange has already been hired, we will have to see what kind of actions the translators can take from now on, at least to protect themselves. However, it seems that there are problems for workers – in general – in the manga industry, remember the recent report of exploitation of animators at Studio MAPPA.

On a darker note, let's take a look at what's going on with everything manga and anime.