JManga announced today that the Manga Translation Battle 2012 is open for public voting on their facebook page.

The goal of the contest is to provide an opportunity for aspiring manga translators to become professionals while at the same time opening up manga culture to as wide an audience as possible.

     

Professional and aspiring manga translators alike tried their hand at translating three of Japan's finest manga properties "COPPELION" by Tomonori Inoue (Kodansha), "Chocolate Cosmos" by Nana Haruta (Shueisha), and "Shindo" by Akira Saso (Futabasha). Among a number of submissions, top selected 11 are entered into final judge and for online voting.

In addition to the winner selected through the open voting, translators will be judged on their Japanese-English translation abilities by an esteemed panel of judges.

One winning translator will be selected for each series, and the best out of three will go on to become the Grand Prize Winner. The Grand Prize Winner will be awarded a trip to Japan and invited to a symposium during the Japan Media Arts Festival held in Tokyo, Japan in February 2013. Other winners will all receive new iPads.

Online voting polls will be open until December 2nd 2012 at 11:59pm (US Pacific Time). Final winners will be announced in December 2012.

From JManga's Press release.