The manga for The Ancient Magus’ Bride will return as a simultaneous English and Japanese publication but with AI translations. Bushiroad will use the AI translation program Mantra Engine from Mantra, which specializes in translating manga.
According to Bushiroad and Mantra, the companies intend to add simultaneous manga releases in other languages. From May 2024, for example, you can read AI-translated manga in Simplified Chinese. Bushiroad will upload these chapters onto Comic Growl, which is the company’s new online magazine and comic venture.
While Bushiroad and Mantra are only focusing on manga and magazines for now, they plan on using this technology to translate other forms of entertainment and release them at the same time as the original Japanese. Notably, companies within and outside of Japan already use Mantra, translating 250 to 300 volumes’ worth of text every month.
The majority of reactions to this news have been negative. In general, most consumers do not react well to AI due to the implications behind its usage. Some have even stated that reading scanlations or fan translations is more morally correct than reading AI-translated work.
Direct replies to the official The Ancient Magus’ Bride account announcing the AI translations are critical as well. One person notes that there is no point in doing this if no English fan will read it due to AI taking away jobs from actual human translators and localizers.
The AI-translated version of The Ancient Magus’ Bride is available on Comic Growl as of December 21, 2023.
