Shueisha Inc. and alu Inc., both headquartered in Tokyo, released on April 12 “MANGA Plus Universe” (hereinafter “MPU”), a global manga community platform for exchanging opinions with worldwide fans through AI translation regarding manga comic works listed on “MANGA Plus by SHUEISHA,” a free online manga content delivery service.
The community service will be available for about a month through May 13 as a project on the fifth anniversary of “MANGA Plus by SHUEISHA.”
URL: https://mangaplusuniverse.com/
– Outline of MPU
MPU is a global manga community platform enabling worldwide fans to exchange opinions across language barriers on the 15 manga works listed. Users can post comments and images, click “likes” and make replies to others’ posts, or cast votes, among others, within threads for expressing opinions on the works in question.
This service has realized natural translation of nine languages including English and Spanish, utilizing “Azure OpenAI Service” offered by Microsoft Corp. while also using “DeepL Translate” and “Google Translate.”
– Background of Release
In recent years, sales of Japanese manga comics overseas have continued expanding, thanks to media franchise strategies employed by global visual content platforms, such as Netflix, as one of the factors. In Japan, manga has been original works for animation, movies, dramas and so on, already playing the leading role in the IP content business. Yet, it has the potential to grow as global and larger content down the road.
Publishing house Shueisha has focused on overseas business expansion using various forms including “MANGA Plus by SHUEISHA” released in January 2019. Now, as part of such efforts, and against the backdrop of the rapid development of AI technology, the company released MPU with the support of alu, which has strength in marketing IP content harnessing new technologies.
Source: Shueisha Inc., alu Inc.
