Hanashi marches on
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I haven't read Hanashi's Tsukimichi releases myself, but a friend does and has had similar complaints, like names changing between volumes and characters doing things they should not be capable of doing (kneeling next to themselves) which does feel like a human did not review the text.
As far as the release pace, Seven Seas used multiple translators to get Mushoku Tensei out faster, but that had similar consistency problems with names changing between volumes. The volumes I read were otherwise largely fine and did not cause me to suspect any use of MTL/AI. In other words, it's possible Hanashi is also using multiple translators, but I don't think anyone external to Hanashi would be able to answer definitively.
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@unknownmat the only thing I’ve read from them that felt like AI were the broken first releases of Another World 3-4. For Tsuki the mistakes seem no worse than many Yen titles aside from one volume where they swapped the hero names a few times. Pet Saintess had that English as a second language thing where people use proper names in place of pronouns - “does Steve like the tea?” When talking to Steve.
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@HarmlessDave Fair enough. I tend to agree. I'm overall happy with Tsukimichi and New Gate, and in isolation would not suspect them of AI.
Do you have any thoughts on the translation pace, though? I'm pretty torn about this. I really like how frequently we get new drops, but I just can't see it being possible for a human translator. If they have multiple translators as suggested by @myskaros, then why not attribute them in the copyright page or on the website?
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@unknownmat - my wild and evidence-free guess for the speedy pace of Tsukimichi releases is they found a translator who is working on it full-time as their main job instead of as a weekend side job or as one of several titles.
I'd guess they've found some contractors who are hungry for work and willing to meet 3-month cycles on the translations for other titles, and that Hanashi might be rolling the dice a little by not being as careful about polishing the translations as JNC is.
If so, that might not be sustainable over years if they burn out their translators, so gradually slowing down releases from 3 months to 4 then 5 might make sense.
That's all guessing, I'm a software developer not a publishing insider :)
Back to AI for a moment, I'd be very surprised if AI can do light novel translations of this quality - not for the sentence-by-sentence generation but for maintaining context within and across the novels. If such an LLM exists, I'd pay good money to have someone point it at the Deathbound Duke's Daughter web novels :)
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@HarmlessDave said in Hanashi marches on:
I'd be very surprised if AI can do light novel translations of this quality - not for the sentence-by-sentence generation but for maintaining context within and across the novels.
That's actually pretty convincing. You're right that Tsukimichi would require a monster of an editor at least to maintain the current level of quality given the typical LLM output.
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@unknownmat As one of the faster translators in the business, I translate 100 pages (of source text) a week. An average length light novel is 300 pages, so one a month is easy. If that's your only/primary series and you're full time, even translators working at half that speed can easily manage an every other month release.
