Following the announcement of major Japanese companies investing heavily in AI translation startups to boost manga exports, illustrators of Kengan AshuraDaromeon, recounted an interesting story on twitter.
Daromeon revealed that the manga Kengan Ashura The English release was almost met with difficulties because the professional translators responsible for translating the manga did a very poor job.
Sticking to official translations would cause serious problems because the illustrator believed that no one would read them.
The situation was resolved later by delivering the manga translation Kengan Ashura for a fan translation group.
However, Daromeon also wondered whether AI translations could help solve this situation.
“The English translation of Kengan Ashura was a bit peculiar and we ended up giving it to an amateur group who illegally translated and uploaded the manga without permission. This is because their translation is much better than the official version.
If we kept using the official translation, things would be pretty bad. No one will read it. I think there have been many works that were not well received abroad due to translation problems. I wonder if AI can help with that.”
One fan pointed out in the replies that the official translation of Kengan Ashura that Daromeon refuses is done by AI (AI Translation of Mantra). They imply that manga translated by AI will not fundamentally solve the problem of poor translation.
In response, the illustrator admitted that although the previous translation in question could have been generated by AI, it was developed before the advent of advanced models such as GPT-3.
Daromeon also cautioned against assuming similar results from AI models separated by years of technological advancement.
“I'm not sure how the recent AI translation was built, but that translation was before GPT3. you cannot assume similar results from AI models years apart,” Daromeon said.
Furthermore, Daromeon expressed skepticism about the qualifications of some professional translators and that decision makers often have difficulty distinguishing between good and bad. and bad translation.
“I think the problem is that many professional translators are not very good and most competent people cannot tell the difference.”
Kengan Ashura is a Japanese manga series written by Yabako Sandrovich and illustrated by Daromeon. It was serialized on Shogakukan's Ura Sunday website from April 2012 to August 2018, with the chapters compiled into 27 tankōbon volumes. A sequel, titled Kengan Omega, began in January 2019.
It was adapted into an original animated series (ONA). The 12-episode first season premiered in July 2019 on Netflix; The 12-episode second season premiered in October of the same year. The second season premieres in September 2023; The second season is scheduled to premiere in August 2024.
Source: Twitter