Japanese manga publishing house, TOBooks, recently debuted a new website named “Corona EX,” which offers English translations of its manga titles to international audiences. Subscribers are charged a monthly fee of US$4.50 (AU$6.90) to access the platform, which uses two translation modes to convert the Japanese texts to English. The first is provided by partner publishers while the second uses Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) for translation.
The issue arose when it was revealed that one of the manga titles, ‘The Swordswoman With Curse,’ was translated by Google’s AI. Despite a disclaimer admitting that translation errors may occur using this AI method, users are still required to pay for the translated works. A sample translation from the first chapter of the manga showed English dialogue lacking subtleties – reportedly a common issue with machine translations.
Japanese Media Consultant and translator, Andrew Hodgson, also indicated that AI was unable to recognise and translate Japanese texts placed outside of speech bubbles, an issue not present in translations done by human translators. According to Hodgson, the final translated text showed no signs of post-machine translation editing, suggesting that TOBooks was simply using the raw output provided by Google’s AI.
This use of AI for translating manga titles has been met with a wave of disapproval on social media, with subscribers voicing their disappointment towards TOBooks for opting for an automated approach over the nuanced skill of human translators. Critics argue that the monthly subscription fee requires a higher-quality translation service, one that captures the details and essence of manga storytelling.
At the time of reporting, TOBooks has not responded to these criticisms or provided comments on their decision to use AI translation. The situation has sparked discussions on the cost-cutting measures of using AI versus the quality assurance of human effort, especially in a literary context where nuances in language and storytelling play significant roles.
