Fans expressed their disappointment about Kadokawa’s machine translated works on Twitter, commenting about the poor quality of translation in their simulpubs. Most of them called for Kadokawa to opt for human translations and improve the quality of their works.

On Jan 20, 2022, Kadokawa posted a link to an online survey on their official Twitter account. The survey aimed at getting feedback from overseas audiences, so that they could “create titles and systems” that will make them happy.

Fans did not shy away from taking this opportunity to point out that the machine translated works on their simulpub platforms were not up to the mark. They also called for human translators to be hired to better the translations.

Some comments even stressed on the quality of publication, saying that providing good translations should be any editor’s goal.

Most of the other comments made on Kadokawa’s tweet were also in the same vein. Complaints were even made about the recently released HigeHiro light novels.

At the time of writing, Kadokawa has not replied to any of these comments made on their tweet.

Kadokawa had announced earlier that “in response to requests from fans” they would be delivering speedy translations of Japanese comics and Light novels to audiences in the west.

They planned to simulpub the manga chapters with their release in Japan on the online ebook store BOOK WALKER Global, which is operated by a Kadokawa group subsidiary. And the new volumes of light novels would be translated to English chapter by chapter as they launched.

As part of this simulpub program, Kadokawa had added three new light novels to its repository this year;

• First part of Higehiro: After Being Rejected, I Shaved and Took in a High School Runaway by author Shimesaba and artist booota (Jan 11, 2022)
• First chapter of The Insipid Prince’s Furtive Grab for The Throne by author Tanba and artist Yunagi (Jan 31, 2022)
• First Part of I’m Quitting Heroing by author Quantum and artist Hana Amano (February TBD)

The publishing company had stated that the number of titles it plans to add to this simulpub program “is expected to exceed” 100. The titles will also be available at a few other online stores.

Source: Twitter