In-Depth Comparison of Manga Translation Tools — Tested Five and Found Recommendations and Drawbacks

For localization reasons, I wanted to translate the manga images on this site into English...

I tried about five major manga translation tools! ※It's surprising there are so many.

This summarizes my impressions from actually trying them, including "what was good" and "what was a bit disappointing." I'm not at all knowledgeable in English, so my assessment of translation accuracy is entirely subjective.

Evaluation Criteria

Naturalness of translation
- Are the lines understandable and not overly long?
- Prefer paraphrasing rather than literal translation
Visual quality
- Do translated lines stay within speech bubbles?
- Are font size and placement appropriate (considering vertical-to-horizontal text conversion)?
- How are sound effects (drawn characters) handled?
Comparison using the previous article as a reference

We will base the comparison on this

manga-translator🍓

There are three platforms: a Chrome extension, an Android app, and a web version. The Chrome extension translates the currently open site. The web version uploads images for translation.

Impressions after trying

The Chrome extension and Android app did not work well.
The web version was the most stable. It was convenient to convert files bundled in a zip!

Pricing

Free: up to 20 pages
Paid:
- Tier1: $5.99/month (~¥900) → up to 300 pages per hour
- Tier2: $19.99/month (~¥3,000) → supports images already in English as well Also, available models differ by tier

Rating

★★★☆☆

Translation takes about 30 seconds per page (slow).
Dialogues are scaled down to fit panels. Some are so small you need to zoom in to read.
Text tends to be somewhat long. Paid plans might provide more stable translation accuracy.
According to comments, there seem to be errors with gendered pronouns (he/her, etc.).

Translation results

The last line is a translation mistake. What is "SHINGEI" supposed to be?

Torii Image Translator

This also has a Chrome extension and a web version. The mobile Firefox extension is a unique feature.

Impressions and pricing

The web UI is stylish and easy to read
Free: up to 20 pages
Paid: for heavy users?
- 2,500 pages → $5.99
- 6,000 pages → $12.99
- 15,000 pages → $29.99

Rating

★★☆☆☆

Translation speed is reasonable (about 10 seconds per page).
It also translates parts that were originally in English — not ideal.
Many dialogues overflow their panels.
Dialogue translations themselves feel good. It seems extra attention was given to the final punchline, though it's too small to read...

Translation results

The "ププーッッＷ" becomes "PUUSHISYO". Master Puu?

Manga Translator

I couldn't get it to work, so this is just an introduction. Usage: open the site and it translates if there are manga images. Supporting many overseas manga sites might be a benefit, but they all look like pirate sites...

Chrome extension

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆ Could not evaluate because it did not work.

Image Translator

Chrome extension only. Processing speed is outstanding!

Chrome extension

Impressions and pricing

The site requires manually selecting the images you want to translate. On sites with many images, selecting them may be troublesome.
Free: up to 10 pages
Paid:
- Subscription → $9/month (a bit pricey)
- Pay-as-you-go → from $5 for 50 pages to $50 for 1500 pages

Rating

★★☆☆☆

Speed is impeccable (a few seconds per page).
Translations are nearly identical to Torii, likely using similar OCR/translation tools.
However, the pricing feels expensive.

This one also yields the "Puu Master" result. Like the others, is there not a more readable font? This seems to be the standard for translated manga, but I would prefer something serif-like.

TranslateManga

There are a lot of similar product names... Web version and extension available. A notable feature is 50 free pages per week.

Impressions and pricing

The extension produced translation errors and did not work
The web version works fine (upload-based)
Free: up to 50 pages per week
Paid: pricing is similar to others
- 1,000 pages → $4.99
- 3,500 pages → $9.99
- 10,000 pages → $19.99

Rating

★★★★☆

Translation quality is the best. It handles paraphrasing nicely.
It's a plus to have a free allowance.
Downsides: it also translates English text, and some text is reduced too much and becomes unreadable.

Extra: Langaku

Langaku (sponsored by Shueisha) is an app.

It's an English learning app, and translations seem to be done manually. They use AI in part.

※This is not a translation tool

Notable points and positives

Like other tools, font sizes are reduced, but the output is not overly long and remains readable.
All text uses the same font type. I would have liked some variation...
They translate sound effects (drawn characters) — impressive!
The translations are not overly literal and feel good! You can tell the difference when professionals are involved!

Overall impressions and conclusion

Here's a summary of the tools tested.

Tool	Rating	Comment
manga-translator🍓	★★★☆☆	Well balanced. Good UI. Slow.
Torii Image Translator	★★☆☆☆	Fast but many visual issues
Manga Translator	☆☆☆☆☆	Did not work...
Image Translator	★★☆☆☆	Very fast but pricing is a concern
TranslateManga	★★★★☆	Free allowance. Good accuracy

In summary...

Fully automatic manga translation still feels difficult.
There were translation errors, and using these as-is for publication is tough. On smartphones, some parts are unreadable without zooming in, which is critical. These tools are probably more suitable for personal use.
Japanese→English translations inevitably expand the text, so good paraphrasing is needed, but that seems difficult for these tools.

Among them, the web version of TranslateManga was still the most stable to use.