One Piece is one of the best-selling series whose official AI translation is being pushed forward

June 27, 2024

Shueisha and several other major companies have invested in the artificial intelligence translation service Mantra to export manga worldwide, including series such as One piece We are already receiving AI translations in selected areas.

Some of the world’s biggest manga publishers, including Shueisha, Shogakukan, Kadokawa and Square Enix, have invested in Mantra to advance the translation of manga series using artificial intelligence. Through Nikkei and PR Times, the publishers, investment funds and others have invested 780 million yen ($4.8 million) in Mantra, which was founded by the University of Tokyo in 2020. The software uses its proprietary AI technology stored in the cloud to recognize dialogue in speech bubbles and translate them before a human translator handles the output. The investors say the translation could be done in half the time required by purely human translation.

Luffy from Gear 5 of One Piece, Super Saiyan Goku from Dragon Ball Z and Gojo Satoru from Jujutsu Kaisen

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One Piece, Spy x Family, Ancient Magus’ Bride and more are already being translated by AI

The report identifies Mantra’s success in solving common problems associated with AI translation, such as identifying the correct speaker and placing the text in its true context. The error rate for the former was 1.6%, although no method was described as to how this was achieved. Mantra is already being used for Shogakukan’s Kengan Omega And Ashura King in English and Bushiroad Works’ The bride of the old magician And Ghost and Witch in English. Shueisha now also uses Mantra to translate One piece And Spy x Family into Vietnamese and Bye, bye, bye And I’m so hungry, I could eat Basashi in English. Mantra supports 16 other languages, including Chinese and Portuguese.

AI investors and Japanese developers have different opinions on translation

The news follows a similar investment in AI translation service Orange, which aims to translate up to 50,000 manga within five years. While Japanese content publishers and even Crunchyroll cite the benefits of AI in scaling to meet global demand, translation is derided by many inside and outside Japan. The Japan Association of Translators (JAT) released a statement saying that AI translation in its current form is unable to capture nuance and is a betrayal of the translators who brought Japanese content to the world stage.

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Similar reservations have been expressed abroad, with many adding that rebranding translators as “editors” of AI results is a misnomer. Translators must independently translate from Japanese to confirm the accuracy of AI results. The need to portray AI as “fast” and “cheap” is likely to encourage poor quality assurance.