Google Lens alternatives for translating manga
Google Lens is quick for one line but not for a chapter. Five tools that translate whole manga pages, compared by price, languages and how they work.
Google Lens is free and quick when you want to know what one bubble says. For a whole chapter it gets tiring: one image at a time, and the translation is shown over the picture instead of being set in the bubbles. These five tools do more of the work for comics. The facts come from each tool's own pages, checked on 29 October 2026.
What to look for
- Where it runs: a website, a browser extension, an app or your own computer.
- Whether it re-letters the page, with the translation set inside the bubbles, or only shows the text.
- How you pay: a free plan, credits, a subscription or nothing at all.
- What happens to your pages and how long they are kept.
RuneManga
A WebApp and a browser extension made for manga, manhwa and webtoons. It erases the old lettering, fills in the background and sets the translation inside each bubble, for a whole chapter at once from images, a ZIP, a CBZ or a PDF. The Free plan gives 20 credits a day, one per page.
Torii Image Translator
An extension for every major browser, Safari included, and a web app with an editor and a colorizer. It re-letters the bubbles too, and you pay with credit packs that do not expire.
Ichigo Reader
A reader-first subscription service with an upload page, a Chrome extension that works on manga sites and apps for phones and tablets, with a free trial and 18 target languages.
Papago
Naver's translator reads the text in pictures in 14 languages on its website, after a Naver login, and in its apps, and it is strong for Korean. The paid Papago Plus adds batches of up to 100 images and a Chrome extension.
Yandex Translate
Its website translates one picture at a time, free and without an account, in 48 languages, and Yandex Browser can translate all the images on a page. It translates any picture, so it does not fit the text to speech bubbles.
Questions
Why is Google Lens not ideal for manga?
It translates one image at a time and shows the result over the picture. It does not take whole chapters or set the translation inside the bubbles.
What is the closest free alternative?
Yandex Translate's website is free without an account, one picture at a time. For whole chapters with the text in the bubbles, RuneManga's Free plan gives 20 credits a day.
Which alternatives work right on reader sites?
RuneManga, Torii and Ichigo Reader have browser extensions that translate the pages on the sites you read.