From the article:
The app will utilize Mantra’s AI-assisted translation system. Mantra is the service that is providing AI translation for the simultaneous English releases of Kore Yamazaki’s The Ancient Magus’ Bride and Ghost and Witch manga. Shogakukan invested in Mantra in June.
Also, I found this bit interesting. Will be curious to see what this ends up looking like and if the AI will mess this up:
The releases will also include word balloons with icons of the characters to display characters’ lines, as Shogakukan told Nikkei it has received feedback that “Japanese names are hard to remember.”
I know AI translation is improving in many cases, but this feels like it’s going to go badly.
A lot of people will barely put up with MTL on free sites, and there are more than enough properly translated works out there as alternatives that there isn’t a reason to put up with bad translation. I can see the service bombing pretty badly. But if it doesn’t bomb we then see a justification for flooding the market with lower quality works.
I don’t think AI translation is at a point where this doesn’t look like a lose-lose situation. It’s just testing to see whether the market can be enshittified in a profitable way.
I’m really hoping this absolutely falls off a cliff with respect to sales numbers.