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How AI translations of manga continues the 'enshitification' of the medium, and why Japanese publishers are "less precious" about it [Popverse Jump]
Translating a manga from Japanese to English isn't a straightforward process, which is why AI will always be terrible at it.
We’re all tired of hearing about AI and its constant encroachment on the things we love, but we also can’t seem to escape hearing about it every time it rears its ugly head. The manga and anime industries seem to be particularly susceptible to this; earlier this year Orange Inc. made headlines by offering manga that was translated by GenAI to questionable results. Then at the start of a particularly packed Summer 2025 anime season, Crunchyroll rolled out subtitles for Necronomico and the Cosmic Horror Show that were so obviously a product of ChatGPT that the company had to put out a statement about it.
With the focus on GenAI clearly not going away as companies seek new ways to push up profits, I wanted to find out exactly what is happening in the manga localization industry. So, I spoke to several people
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