What is RuneManga? A manga and manhwa translator
RuneManga translates manga and manhwa pages and fills in the background under the old text. What it does to a page, what you can choose and where it works.
RuneManga is a manga and manhwa translator. You give it pages in Japanese, Korean, Chinese, English or one of six other languages, and it gives the same pages back with the text translated into your language and set inside the speech bubbles. The old lettering is erased and the background filled in, instead of being hidden behind a white box. You can use it in the WebApp or in the browser extension.
RuneManga is in beta. Machine translation can contain mistakes, so treat the result as a reading aid and not as an official release.
What happens to a page
- Find the text. The speech bubbles on the page are located. Captions and narration boxes are not handled yet.
- Read it. Text recognition turns the lettering into characters. Japanese uses a reader built for manga; Korean and Chinese are supported and their recognition is still improving.
- Translate it. RuneLingua, our own AI translator for manga and manhwa dialogue, does this on every plan.
- Erase the original lettering and fill in the background underneath.
- Typeset the translation in the same bubble, in a size that fits.
The three modes
- Translate: changes the text only. This is the mode to use for black-and-white manga and for colored manhwa, where the colors stay exactly as they are.
- Colorize: adds color to a black-and-white page. It is planned, not available yet: our colorizer is still in development.
- Translate + colorize: both in one run. It is in development for the same reason.
For real reading today, choose Translate.
Where you can use it
- The WebApp: add pages, a folder or a ZIP, pick the languages and download the result as images or as a ZIP. It needs a free account: sign in with Google, Discord or with a link we email you.
- The browser extension (Chrome, Edge, Opera and Brave today, Firefox in review): translate the pages you are reading, in place, on the reader site.
What it does well, and what it does not do yet
- Works well: text in speech bubbles on clean, large scans, and colored webtoon pages.
- Not yet: text outside bubbles, such as narration boxes and loose text on the art, and sound effects. These are not translated yet and stay as drawn. We are working on both.
- Harder cases: vertical lettering, stylized fonts and very small or blurry text.
Languages
RuneManga reads Japanese, Korean, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Indonesian, Vietnamese and Thai, and Auto-detect can pick among them. It translates into 89 languages, among them English, Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Russian, Indonesian and Vietnamese. Arabic and Thai are experimental: their lettering is not verified yet.
Who it is for
- Readers who want a chapter in a language they read, when no translation is available to them.
- People who follow a series in the browser and want pages translated where they read them.
- Anyone with their own pages, such as a creator or a small team, who wants a quick first pass to review and correct.
What it costs
The Free plan costs nothing, and every plan, Free included, translates with RuneLingua, our own AI translator. Every plan counts in credits, one per translated page: every account can claim 20 free credits a day on the site, new accounts also get 30 once that never expire, Supporter ($2.99) adds 1,000 a month, Pro ($4.99) 2,500 and Ultimate ($9.99) 5,000, and credit packs you buy never expire. The paid plans and packs are on sale now.
Your pages and your rights
Pages are processed on our servers and deleted about an hour after the job finishes. Use RuneManga only on pages you have the right to process, such as your own work, licensed work or material you may read for personal use.