AI engine developed to help translate Japanese manga into English more quickly

There’s now an Artificial Intelligence-powered manga translation engine that can easily translate Japanese manga into English!

In the latest issue of “Kizuna,” the Japanese government’s official e-magazine, AI research graduates from the University of Tokyo introduced Mantra Engine, a machine translation system that can recognize text placed in the manga and quickly translate it into English and identify its proper order.

This innovation aims to help bring more manga titles worldwide without the translated versions’ downtime and prevent readers from resorting to piracy.

According to Shonosuke Ishiwatari, Mantra’s co-founder and CEO, more than 10 companies in Japan and overseas have already adopted this new AI system.

“If we heighten the efficiency and release translated versions without any time lag, we can prevent pirated manga translations from emerging,” he said.

This article was first published at GMA News, on March 6, 2023.