Name: Kengan Ashura Illustrator Picks Fan Translators Over AI Translations
Item: Kengan Ashura
Author: @adamada

Kengan Ashura is a fighting manga with an anime adapatation written by Yabako Sandrovich and illustrated by Daromeon.

TL:DR of the issue was that the AI translations in English were son bad that he compared it to fan translations which ended up having the company hire the fan translators instead.

It started with Daromeon's X post:

https://twitter.com/daromeon/status/1787560049583477164

Google Translation:

The English translation of Kengan is a bit unique, so we decided to leave it to a group of amateurs who translated it without permission and uploaded it illegally. Their translation was far better than the official one. It would be pretty bad if they used the official version. No one would read it. I think there have been many works that didn't go over well overseas because of translation issues. I wonder how that would be with AI.

To further clarify the misunderstanding, here's a X post from a former member of the fan translation group in question which made an brief and concise thread summing up the issue.

https://twitter.com/FogMediocrity/status/1787893801681314128

Why AI translations needed funding instead of hiring overseas translators in the first place? There has been a rise of dissatisfaction with woke localizers in delivering the official English translations. It's a rabbit hole on its own but the gist is that some of the dialogues and context from manga and anime adaptations get lost in translation due to localization which is understandable to some degree as you need to suit the language to local audience. But woke localizations, tend to insert unnecessary agendas in the dialogue which changes the context of the scene and this upsets the fans.

By spending more money in the development of AI translations, companies can reduce the costs of hiring multiple local translators and remove the threat of inserting political bias into the intellectual property but current technology still hasn't reach a satisfying point where the quality of the translations are good enough. It so happens that Daromeon is fluent in English which helped spot these errors before releasing an official translation to Western anime fans.

Even without the threat of woke localizes ruining the intellectual property, it's not unlikely that companies would explore the use of AI translations to reduce costs and raise efficiency. There are a lot of great manga published monthly in Japan and their rise to fame is limited the availability of translators.

While fan translations can be frowned upon due to piracy reasons, depending on where you stand on the issue, I think fan translations made it possible to expand the reach of these stories to a global audience before the official translations are out.

Thanks for your time.

Comments · 6

@demotry(66)· 792d

fansub d best.

@hivebuzz(74)· 792d

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@ryivhnn(73)· 792d

I think comic artists like David Revoy had the correct idea collaborating with a bunch of fans on translations. He does everything CC-BY though which doesn't work for everyone.

@x5ksub30(60)· 792d

Does the woke part apply to censorship of “tasteless” topics based on cultural differences? I’m personally not a fan of changing the context or intent through any form of censorship or correction unless it’s in service to both. Changing a concept isn’t necessarily a bad thing in cases such as when idioms are used; in different cultures and languages, the original Japanese could be directly confusing and actually harm the experience if it means something drastically different in the translated language.

An example of where this really bugs me: changing currency or character names to fit the region it’s being translated to if it doesn’t take place in that region or have characters of the ethnicity of said region where it would enhance the story.

I haven’t seen the agenda thing yet in manga or Anime but the free French RPG Maker 2003 Indie game OFF! had its entire ending changed by the English translators through a mixture of political bias and certain French words used having multiple meanings. In that case, though, the change didn’t fully harm the game. The original intent was still conveyed and I personally found the changes fascinating

@seki1(71)· 792d

Just another entry on the AI technology stealing human jobs...

Although I think the real issue here is the woke societies who tend to purposely misread and misunderstand the translations... I feel some of them are just actively looking for the bad and trying to constrict the words.

AI is a good solution (unfortunately) but it hasn't developed to the point where it would know the exact word or phrase to use dish out the exact intent needed.

I think the solution for now is to simply hire the fan translators...

@cjlugo(75)· 792d

I am particularly a fan of a good translated work, as a reader I speak, but the issue of IA is a deeper matter.

It is evident that many companies will do it because it reduces their costs, but I think that in the end it is very limited because they lack that human part that in a translation can accommodate according to the audience and give a more real and deeper sense to the reading.

I am only sorry for the translators, who may lose work flow, but if there are few translators available for the demand, let's say it is justified, but at a great risk. They may lose readers.