📖 Manga OCR Translator

🚀 Extract text from manga images using Nano Banana AI

Automatically extract and translate text from manga panel images using advanced AI technology. Process manga images to identify all text regions, extract the text in its original language (Japanese, English, Korean, or Russian), and translate to multiple target languages simultaneously. Perfect for manga translators, publishers, and enthusiasts who need to extract and translate text from manga artwork.

Target Audience: Manga translators, publishers, digital artists, manga enthusiasts, and anyone who needs to extract text from manga images for translation or processing.

Primary Use Cases: Manga text extraction, translation workflows, manga digitization, text recognition from images, and manga processing pipelines.

What Does Manga OCR Translator Do?

This tool automatically extracts and translates text from manga images using advanced AI vision technology. It processes manga panel images to identify all text regions, extracts the text in its original language, and translates to multiple target languages simultaneously while maintaining context across all text excerpts.

Key Features:

• Automatic Text Detection - Identifies all text regions in manga images
• Multi-Language OCR - Recognizes text in 16 languages: Japanese, English, Korean, Russian, Chinese (Simplified & Traditional), Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Arabic, and Hindi
• Multi-Language Translation - Translates to multiple target languages simultaneously
• Context-Aware Translation - Maintains context across all text excerpts from the same image
• High Accuracy OCR - Uses Nano Banana AI for reliable text recognition
• Confidence Scores - Provides OCR confidence scores for quality assessment
• Batch Processing - Process multiple images simultaneously
• Source Tracking - Links each text region back to its source image with file name and index

Business Value: Manual text extraction from manga images can take hours. This tool extracts text from multiple images in minutes, enabling faster translation workflows and manga digitization projects.

Input

To start extracting text from manga images, simply fill in the input form. You can provide:

• Image URLs - Upload manga panel images directly (JPG, PNG, WebP). You can upload multiple images - each will be analyzed to extract all text regions.
• Original Language - Select the language of the text in your images:
  • Japanese - For Japanese manga text (default)
  • English - For English text
  • Korean - For Korean text
  • Russian - For Russian text
  • Chinese - For Chinese (Simplified) text
  • Chinese (Traditional) - For Chinese (Traditional) text
  • Spanish - For Spanish text
  • French - For French text
  • German - For German text
  • Italian - For Italian text
  • Portuguese - For Portuguese text
  • Thai - For Thai text
  • Vietnamese - For Vietnamese text
  • Indonesian - For Indonesian text
  • Arabic - For Arabic text
  • Hindi - For Hindi text
• Target Languages - Select one or more target languages for translation. The text will be translated to all selected languages simultaneously.

Here's what the filled-out input schema looks like:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ParseForge/apify-assets/09fce7928fc039a20e5e7e8f220f73c403cc1c76/manga-ocr-translator/input.png?raw=true

And here it is written in JSON:

{
    "imageUrls": [
        "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/S8l2sknfAAra9YPZ7/records/Chapter_113_Title_Page.jpg"
    ],
    "originalLanguage": "japanese",
    "targetLanguages": ["english", "spanish"]
}

Output

After the Actor finishes its run, you'll get a dataset with all extracted and translated text regions. Each text region includes the original text and translations to all selected target languages. You can download the results as CSV, Excel, or JSON.

Here's an example of what you'll get for each text region:

{
    "textOrder": 1,
    "imageFileName": "Chapter_113_Title_Page.jpg",
    "imageFileIndex": 1,
    "originalText": "ヘアピンは\nやめよ･･･",
    "contextTip": "female character, thinking, slightly annoyed tone",
    "translatedTextEnglish": "I should stop with the hairpin...",
    "translatedTextSpanish": "Debería dejar de usar el pasador...",
    "confidence": 0.96,
    "sourceImageUrl": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/S8l2sknfAAra9YPZ7/records/Chapter_113_Title_Page.jpg"
}

What You Get:

• textOrder - Reading order number (1, 2, 3, etc.) - text regions are ordered right-to-left, top-to-bottom as in manga reading order
• imageFileName - The filename of the source image
• imageFileIndex - The index of the image in your input (1, 2, 3, etc.)
• originalText - The recognized text in its original language
• contextTip - Contextual hint to improve translation (e.g., speaker gender, tone, visual context) - helps with accurate translations, especially for gender-sensitive languages like Spanish
• translatedTextEnglish - Translation to English (if English is selected as target language)
• translatedTextJapanese - Translation to Japanese (if Japanese is selected as target language)
• translatedTextKorean - Translation to Korean (if Korean is selected as target language)
• translatedTextRussian - Translation to Russian (if Russian is selected as target language)
• translatedTextChinese - Translation to Chinese (Simplified) (if Chinese is selected as target language)
• translatedTextChineseTraditional - Translation to Chinese (Traditional) (if Chinese (Traditional) is selected as target language)
• translatedTextSpanish - Translation to Spanish (if Spanish is selected as target language)
• translatedTextFrench - Translation to French (if French is selected as target language)
• translatedTextGerman - Translation to German (if German is selected as target language)
• translatedTextItalian - Translation to Italian (if Italian is selected as target language)
• translatedTextPortuguese - Translation to Portuguese (if Portuguese is selected as target language)
• translatedTextThai - Translation to Thai (if Thai is selected as target language)
• translatedTextVietnamese - Translation to Vietnamese (if Vietnamese is selected as target language)
• translatedTextIndonesian - Translation to Indonesian (if Indonesian is selected as target language)
• translatedTextArabic - Translation to Arabic (if Arabic is selected as target language)
• translatedTextHindi - Translation to Hindi (if Hindi is selected as target language)
• confidence - OCR confidence score (0-1, higher is better)
• sourceImageUrl - URL of the original source image

Download Options: CSV, Excel, or JSON formats for easy integration into your workflow

Why Choose the Manga OCR Translator?

• ⚡ Fast Processing: Extract and translate text from multiple images in minutes instead of hours
• 🎯 High Accuracy: Uses Nano Banana AI for reliable text recognition and translation
• 🌐 Multi-Language OCR: Supports 16 languages for text recognition: Japanese, English, Korean, Russian, Chinese (Simplified & Traditional), Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Arabic, and Hindi
• 🌍 Multi-Language Translation: Translate to multiple target languages simultaneously
• 🧠 Context-Aware: Maintains context across all text excerpts from the same image for better translation quality
• 📦 Batch Processing: Process multiple images simultaneously
• 📊 Quality Metrics: Confidence scores help identify accurate extractions
• ✨ Easy to Use: Simply upload images, select languages, and get results

Time Savings: Manual text extraction from manga images takes 30-60 minutes per page. This tool extracts text from multiple pages in minutes, saving 95% of the time.

Efficiency: Process 20-50 manga pages in the time it takes to manually extract text from one page.

How to Use

1. Sign Up: Create a free account w/ $5 credit (takes 2 minutes)
2. Find the Tool: Visit the Manga OCR Translator page
3. Upload Images: Add your manga panel images (we'll show you exactly what to upload)
4. Select Original Language: Choose the language of the text in your images
5. Select Target Languages: Choose one or more languages to translate to
6. Run It: Click "Start" and let it extract and translate text from your images
7. Download Results: Get your extracted and translated text in the "Dataset" tab as CSV, Excel, or JSON

Total Time: 2-3 minutes to set up, then 10-30 seconds per image for text extraction

No Technical Skills Required: Everything is point-and-click

Business Use Cases

Manga Translators:

• Extract text from manga images quickly
• Get individual text regions for easier translation
• Process multiple pages in batch

Publishers:

• Digitize manga collections
• Extract text for translation workflows
• Process large volumes of manga pages

Digital Artists:

• Extract text from manga artwork
• Process manga for digital formats
• Prepare manga for translation

Manga Enthusiasts:

• Extract text from favorite manga panels
• Create text databases from manga collections
• Process manga for personal projects

Using Manga OCR Translator with the Apify API

For advanced users who want to automate this process, you can control the OCR translator programmatically with the Apify API. This allows you to schedule regular text extraction tasks and integrate with your existing translation workflows.

• Node.js: Install the apify-client NPM package
• Python: Use the apify-client PyPI package
• See the Apify API reference for full details

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How does it work? A: Manga OCR Translator uses advanced AI vision technology to analyze your manga images and automatically detect text regions. Each text region is extracted as a separate cropped image, and the text is recognized using AI vision technology optimized for the selected language.

Q: How accurate is the text extraction? A: OCR accuracy depends on image quality and text clarity. The tool provides confidence scores (0-1) for each extraction, with higher scores indicating more reliable results. High-quality images with clear text typically achieve 90%+ accuracy.

Q: What languages are supported? A: The tool supports 16 languages for text recognition: Japanese, English, Korean, Russian, Chinese (Simplified & Traditional), Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Arabic, and Hindi. Select the appropriate language when processing images for best results.

Q: Can I process multiple images at once? A: Yes! You can upload multiple manga panel images and they will all be processed in parallel, saving you time.

Q: How does translation work? A: The tool uses advanced AI models with long context windows to translate all text excerpts from an image simultaneously. This maintains context across dialogue, sound effects, and captions, resulting in more accurate and natural translations. You can select multiple target languages and all translations will be provided in separate columns.

Q: What image formats are supported? A: The tool supports JPG, PNG, and WebP image formats. Upload images in any of these formats for processing.

Q: Is my data secure?
A: Yes, your images are processed securely and stored temporarily only for the duration of the OCR process. You can download your extracted text regions and delete them from the platform at any time.

Q: Why am I getting a cached response?
A: Free users can only use the prefill values provided in the input form. If you use the exact prefill values, you'll receive a cached response to demonstrate functionality. To use custom input parameters and get real AI processing, upgrade to a paid plan. Paying users have unlimited access to custom parameters and real-time AI processing.

Integrate Manga OCR Translator with any app and automate your workflow

Last but not least, Manga OCR Translator can be connected with almost any cloud service or web app thanks to integrations on the Apify platform.

These includes:

• Make
• Zapier
• Slack
• Airbyte
• GitHub
• Google Drive
• and much more.

Alternatively, you can use webhooks to carry out an action whenever an event occurs, e.g. get a notification whenever Manga OCR Translator successfully finishes a run.

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Pro Tip: 💡 Browse our complete collection of data collection actors to find the perfect tool for your business needs.

Need Help? Our support team is here to help you get the most out of this tool.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any manga publishers, comic book companies, or art platforms. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.