On June 4, the Japan Association of Translators (JAT) released an open statement against a joint initiative by the Japanese government and private sector companies to use AI for high-volume translation of manga. The association cited that AI’s current limitations and lack of oversight would result in badly translated manga being produced en masse. They argue that this would greatly diminish the value of the works themselves, increase demand for better pirated translations and ultimately damage Japan’s soft power.  

The initiative that JAT are opposing was announced at the beginning of May. According to The Nikkei, ten companies, including major manga publisher Shogakukan and the Japan Investment Corporation (JIC), which is affiliated with Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), have invested 2.92 billion yen in Orange, a start-up company that uses AI to translate manga. The project aims to make manga translation at least 10 times faster, producing around 50,000 works in 5 years. The ultimate goal is to dramatically increase the number of manga exports and to promote the growth of Japan’s content industry. 

However, the Japan Association of Translators has opposed this move on several grounds. Firstly, they are concerned that AI is currently unable to correctly infer context. Japanese is a high context language in which information is often left out of sentences- meaning that AI can easily end up coming out with an incorrect translation or getting the tone wrong. JAT explains that “AI translation is extremely unsuitable for translating high-context, story-centric writing, such as novels, scripts, and manga. Quick and easy AI translation not only risks hurting the translation industry or the manga industry, but it is also not in the country’s best interests.”  

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