Forum - View topicNEWS: Shogakukan Plans to Release Light Novel App in U.S., Canada Using AI Translation
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DamianSalazar
Posts: 759 |
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This will blow up in Shogakukan's faces.
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Gamen
Posts: 254 |
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One person's work of art is just another person's content, I suppose. Somehow not surprised it's another Japanese publisher trying to cut out the middlemen and make a quick buck.
Still, a nice reminder that most anime, manga, light novels, and so on are just disposable pop culture trash, just like all our TV shows and superhero films and NYT Best Sellers. I feel sorry for the translators who take their jobs seriously, respect the original creators, and deliver us faithful translations ...that woke up to this slap in the face. Wonder if any of these works will still be licenseable. Both in terms of availability, and in profitability. |
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Electric Wooloo
Posts: 314 |
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I can't think of a worse thing to use AI on than the vague writing of a Light Novel
That's not a dig at light novels, it's simply how Japanese works as a language, often entire parts of a sentence are left out and assumed by context AI can't even properly translate the pronouns of a character into English (Often defaulting every 私 to he), it's gonna have no hope with dialogue |
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Ataru
 Posts: 2327 Location: Missouri (Strikeman) |
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Well, I can think of a few hundred worst things you can use AI for. Translating light novels into English is pretty far from that list.
Probably not how it is right now. It's not like people are actively working on something to akin to a universal translator. |
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SinisterOracle
Posts: 371 |
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*Using my best Princess Fiona voice and wave* Fare thee well, Shogakukan.
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FilthyCasual
Posts: 2368 |
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Oh boy, another platform to ignore. I hope this doesn't kill any fan tls.
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mdo7
 Posts: 6370 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Yeah, something tells me that this is not going to go well for Shogakukan. I hope Viz Media can tell their parent company (reminder: Shogakukan is one of the 2 owners, the other being Shueisha that owned Viz) that this is a bad idea and will ultimately failed in the end.
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GATSU
Posts: 15543 |
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Flooding the market always benefits the consumer.
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kpossibles
 Posts: 148 Location: USA |
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Avec ou Nous
Posts: 148 |
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I was under the impression a lot of English localization was not very well received because it wasn't that accurate and that's why a lot of people push for this kind of thing in general. |
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TsukasaElkKite
 Posts: 4013 |
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AI translation? Hard pass.
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Cho_Desu
 Posts: 238 |
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Just in half, huh? Surely you can do better than that, Shogakukan. Isn't the point of replacing people with computers to take away 100% of the translation costs? Better replace the original authors with computers as well. Writers are annoying and ask for money; computers are cool and work for free. I've done the math and made a line graph (the line means money for the CEO and board of directors, and the line's going up really high). Get on it, Shogakukan, ASAP. |
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Gamen
Posts: 254 |
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I mean, everyone has their own opinion. For me, on the one hand I'm not sure video games are ever translated faithfully, whether now or in the era of Woolsey. On the other extreme the high profile incidents with light novel translations (Seven Seas) have been caused by editors cutting or changing the translator's work. And anime and manga seem to be far closer to the latter than video games. There's been some high profile incidents, of course, with like one or two translators that treat some anime like embarrassments they don't have to translate seriously, and other's like they have issues that need correcting, or to be thoroughly recontexualized, but the majority are just... professionally translated by people just doing their job. ...Which means on a budget, which means corners get cut, and there isn't time for funny business. The caveat is that all of my interaction with translators (and editors) is on the JNC forums, so my impressions are heavily biased towards the light novel side of things. JNC can occasionally "overlocalize" (e.g. I couldn't stand how they localized the MC's rough and rude language in Now I'm a Demon Lord! by having him swear like a sailor, and understanding why they did it doesn't help, and a few people object to the Japanese pop culture references and memes that are unfamiliar even in Western anime fandom being swapped out with more familiar ones, and some people get upset about JNC doing its best to replace Japanese honorifics with appropriate English registers in many series), but the most they'll do for "editorializing" is insert trigger warnings, and only in the serialized prepubs, not the final books. Regardless, just like came up with the Ancient Magus' Bride thread, people who want the Japanese publishers to use "AI" translations because they think they'll be more accurate, more faithful, and dare I say "woke-free" than translations from real people who are familiar with both languages and cultures, are going to be disappointed. They're just going to get MTL garbage. And I would not be surprised if they censor the content to fit what they think most Americans want. |
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FishLion
 Posts: 209 |
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This is what happened when anime was first being licensed more broadly in America. Companies censored or cut things according to strict guidelines to avoid controversy and appeal to specific demographics. There is no reason to believe that a company who controls even more of the translation process would cut or censor things less. |
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Electric Wooloo
Posts: 314 |
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Well then maybe they should wait until it's done to use it for stuff like this It's like selling you a really good car that doesn't have a steering wheel but don't worry they're really close to finishing the steering wheel so just buy it now! |
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