Japan Takes a Stand Against Manga Piracy with Enhanced AI Solutions
Japan is ramping up its fight against piracy, not just for anime but also for the manga that inspires it. The country is set to leverage artificial intelligence to speed up manga translations, aiming to steer readers away from pirate sites. The Agency for Cultural Affairs plans to use AI to identify illegal websites that are costing the industry billions in lost revenue.
International fans often resort to pirated manga due to licensing hurdles or the slow adaptation of certain stories. Many also opt for illegal scans because they’re available days before the official releases and come at no cost. A report from a publishers’ association indicates that illegal online distribution is draining an estimated 8.5 trillion yen ($55 billion) annually from publishers, surpassing the Japanese content industry’s record overseas sales of 5.8 trillion yen ($37 billion) in 2023.
“The speed of manga translation has not kept pace with reader demand,” noted Yukari Shiina, a lecturer at Tokyo University of the Arts who studies manga’s global appeal. To address this, the Agency for Cultural Affairs is backing initiatives to train manga translators with AI, collaborating with various industry groups, universities, and vocational schools.
Applications for this program will be open until March 21, offering subsidies of 100 million yen each. The courses will focus on translation techniques and the effective use of AI. Private companies are also developing specialized AI tools for manga translation, such as Mantra, a startup tool from the University of Tokyo, which is supported by major publishers. Mantra can translate character dialogue and story settings, supports 18 languages, and significantly reduces translation times, handling 200,000 pages a month—equivalent to nearly 1,000 volumes.
Having been in use for two years, Mantra can translate text directly from a page, automatically adjusting speech bubbles if the text exceeds their size. “AI has reduced simple tasks like replacing words,” said Mantra CEO Shonosuke Ishiwatari, while emphasizing that human input remains crucial for localization. The goal is to enhance translation speed to meet market demands while ensuring accuracy through human oversight.
The Agency for Cultural Affairs is also planning to implement AI for detecting pirate sites by the next fiscal year, moving away from the current manual and labor-intensive methods. The government aims to create a system that can automatically submit takedown requests and issue warnings to site operators.
Currently, only about 10% of manga published each year is translated into English, with even lower rates for older titles and other languages, highlighting a significant opportunity for growth. To tap into this potential, the government intends to collaborate with the private sector to boost exports of Japanese content, targeting 20 trillion yen in overseas sales by 2033.
As AI technology continues to evolve, the anime industry is expected to see significant growth by 2025. However, this shift raises concerns among voice actors about job security, as AI could potentially replace them with celebrity voices or advanced technology. Even subtitles are being affected, with some notoriously poor translations appearing on streaming platforms. As AI becomes more integrated into manga, fans can anticipate both challenges and familiar worries from readers and creators alike.
