The answer was
inside the storytranslated in place
DETECT / OCR / CLEANinside the storytranslated in place
Manga-aware translation for Chrome Read the story.
Read the story.
Keep the artwork.
MangaLens detects Japanese manga text, removes the original lettering, translates it naturally, and redraws the result inside the artwork—without turning every speech bubble into a white rectangle.
Comic Days ready · vertical text · double-page processing · BYOK or hosted service
…small text kept
Two pages translated togetherparallel 2 / 2
12 TEXT REGIONSThe reading layer, rebuilt
Translation that belongs in the panel.
Find more than speech bubbles
Manga-aware detection covers vertical dialogue, narration boxes, small captions, and text printed directly over artwork.
Erase only the original letters
Server cleanup returns transparent inpaint patches and masks, preserving bubble borders, screentones, and nearby line art.
Fit the translation back in
Writing direction, region geometry, contrast, font size, and line wrapping are calculated per text block.
Process a full spread in parallel
Run one or two manga pages at once, with per-page progress and cached results for fast revisits.
Three-stage pipeline
From pixels to readable panels.
Detect & recognize
Specialized server OCR identifies text regions instead of treating the whole page like a document scan.
Clean & translate
Original letters are removed with a mask. Translation uses your OpenAI-compatible API or the hosted plan.
Redraw in place
MangaLens renders the translated text over the cleaned area while keeping the surrounding artwork visible.
A clear data boundary
Your reading session is not a content library.
BYOK keys stay in Chrome local storage. Hosted processing receives only the image tiles needed for detection, OCR, and cleanup. Generated assets expire automatically after seven days.
7 daysasset retention
Start free
Forty pages a week, then choose your pace.
Free includes 40 hosted-processing credits every week. Pro removes the weekly cap under a fair-use policy.
Free
$0
40 credits / week · Standard processing speed
Monthly Pro
$5.99
Unlimited high-speed processing under fair use
Questions before the next chapter
What readers usually ask.
Does MangaLens replace the original image?
No. The extension layers cleanup patches and translated text over the page. You can hide or clear translations at any time.
Do I need my own AI API key?
The free BYOK workflow accepts OpenAI-compatible Base URLs and keys. Hosted translation can be attached to paid plans separately.
Which manga sites are supported?
Comic Days is the first deeply optimized target. Generic image pages also work, and more high-traffic manga readers will be added.