Apart from video games, online movie streaming services, and various social media platforms, manga and comics have remained to be a common source of entertainment for youth and adults alike. From Dragon Ball, Shigeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan, My Hero Academia, Hunter x Hunter, Naruto, and One Piece, to Star Wars, Archie, Marvel, and DC Comics, this form of visual literature has definitely shaped childhood and given inspiration to the lives of many. Manga, or the comics of Japan, has been a popular form of literature not only in Asia but in America, Europe, and many parts of the world. Korean manhwa, French Bande dessinée, and the Chinese manhua, albeit not as popular as manga, have survived the test of time and continue to flourish in their respective regions. Most notable, however, is the rise of digital comics in a vertical format called Webtoons. Webtoons are a new type of comics originating from Korea which follow an infinite scrolling style, creating a more immersive experience, especially for audiences reading from their smartphones.
For the past 10 years, CCC International has contributed to the spread of manga (manhwa, manhua, etc.) and comics culture through its manga and comics translation service. We help translate Japanese manga, American comics (digital comic books), Korean manhwa, French Bande dessinée, Chinese manhua, digital comics called Webtoons, and many more, into major Asian and European languages.
You may be interested in – Best webtoons to read in spring 2022.
Quality manga and comics translation
With our long experience in creative translation through our manga and comics services, we ensure that every project is taken care of on a micro and macro level: taking into consideration all the slight nuances in the language and culture, as well as making sure that the story and characters remain as cohesive and solid as possible. Along with naturalness in the language, we certainly prioritize our clients’ preferences (e.g. making the manga or comics more suitable for a certain audience or demographic). We make small and huge adjustments on the level of the sentence, phrases, word usages, or typography to meet the clients’ needs, while ensuring a high level of entertainment for the intended audience no matter the genre, whether fantasy, light novels, seinen, shōjo, shōnen, josei, romance, slice of life, action, or anything else.
Manga and comics translation process
We follow a multi-step process in our translation. From the preparation phase, translation phase, checking phase, and finally, proofreading step, our team of linguistic experts and manga, comics, and Webtoon fans come together to provide the highest quality of translation for readers of the target language. We understand that high language proficiency does not automatically yield to naturalness in translation. That is why we have always employed native speakers in our team, to ensure not only the accuracy of the translation but also the proper delivery and usage of slangs, colloquialisms, idiomatic expressions, proverbs, and many other linguistic and cultural nuances that only native speakers can understand and express.
Below is our usual translation process:
The difference between creative and technical translation
CCC International offers 100% human manga and comics translation as one of its flagship services and has a dedicated team of translators for the project. This is because the process and the expertise needed for this type of translation highly differs from that of other types of translation such as web content, document, or other technical translation. The work is highly creative. Based on our and many other manga and comics translators’ experiences, the work does not only require translation and linguistic skills but also writing skills.
This is also why CAT (Computer-Assisted Translation) tools are not often employed in creative translation; the work goes beyond word-for-word conversion from one language to another. Rather, it is translating feeling and experience in a way best understood across specific cultures. For example, a saying such as “The early bird catches the worm” need not be translated literally; instead we find a saying equivalent to that in the target language: “Le monde appartient à ceux qui se lèvent tôt” which means “The world belongs to those who get up early.” Not literal translation, but professional localization.
Multilingual manga and comics translation
With teams in Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Armenia, we cover a wide range of languages for our manga and comics translation. From translation of only Japanese raw manga and into official English versions, we now readily offer the following language pairs:
- English to French manga, manhwa, bande dessinée, manhua, Webtoon translation
- English to German manga, manhwa, bande dessinée, manhua, Webtoon translation
- English to Spanish manga, manhwa, bande dessinée, manhua, Webtoon translation
- English to Italian manga, manhwa, bande dessinée, manhua, Webtoon translation
- English to Arabic manga, manhwa, bande dessinée, manhua, Webtoon translation
- English to Thai manga, manhwa, bande dessinée, manhua, Webtoon translation
- English to Indonesian manga, manhwa, bande dessinée, manhua, Webtoon translation
- English to Russian manga, manhwa, bande dessinée, manhua, Webtoon translation
- Korean to English manga, manhwa, bande dessinée, manhua, Webtoon translation
- Chinese to English manga, manhwa, bande dessinée, manhua, Webtoon translation
- English to Japanese manga, manhwa, bande dessinée, manhua, Webtoon translation
Aside from these languages, we have resources for more than 30 languages; if your needed language isn’t in the list below, please feel free to contact us and we’ll try our best to find solutions for you.
United States- Russia
- France
- Japan
- Germany
- Italy
- Poland
United States
Russia 
France
Japan
Germany
Italy
Poland- Portugal
- Spain
- Philippines
- Armenia
- India
- Korea
- Sweden
Portugal
Spain
Philippines
Armenia
India
Korea
Sweden- China
- Turkey
- Iran
- Georgia
- Thailand
- Malaysia
- Ukraine
China
Turkey
Georgia
Malaysia
Ukraine- Vietnam
- Mongolia
- Cambodia
- Nepal
- UAE
- Saudi Arabia
- Belarus
Vietnam
Mongolia
Cambodia
Nepal
UAE
Saudi Arabia
Belarus- Qatar
- Belgium
- Indonesia
- Canada
- Hongkong
- Taiwan
- Slovenia
Qatar
Belgium
Indonesia
Canada
Hongkong
Taiwan
SloveniaLocalize, and let the world read your story
Are you ready to release your manga to the rest of the world and perhaps make it an anime adaptation? Team up with only the best manga and comics translators, and reach new fans and audiences with CCC International’s multilingual manga and comics translation services. Together, we’ll create new stories for you.
FAQS ABOUT MANGA TRANSLATION
We use several programs from Adobe Creative Suite but work mainly on Adobe Photoshop. For texts, we work with Google Suite applications. We also use several conversion and optimization tools to transition from one process to another over the course of the manga translation and typesetting.
Our manga translation team has become an independent division as all the processes involved are highly specialized. Translating comics or manga itself necessitates not only proficiency in the source and target languages but also creative writing. To be able to tell a story in a different language, one has to localize the content.
Through general observation or during translation and editing, we have observed several frequent Japanese terms that are commonly literally translated into English. When a manga is translated directly and literally into English, this may result in several odd English phrases. Moreover, it may be easy to overlook the unnaturalness or oddities in the English version.
We at CCCI are fans of manga ourselves who put heart and soul into our translation, and make it something we’d want to pick up and read for ourselves! That is why we have native speakers team, to ensure both the accuracy of the translation and the proper delivery and usage of many linguistic and cultural nuances.
Japanese comics are called manga (漫画), first coined in 1798. Composed of two kanji, it can be literally translated as “whimsical or impromptu” for 漫 (man), and “pictures” for 画 (ga).
Equivalent to manga, manhwa is Korean comics, while manhua is Chinese; all three, manga, manhwa, and manhua have the same etymology, meaning “impromptu or whimsical sketches.”
Explore their origins, definitions, and differences here.
Our manga content creator has compiled the all-time best manga with translation in an article. The compilation includes not only classic series, but also some recent ongoing series. We also had an article about the most popular manga and anime, which today’s youth have followed extensively.
If you are curious about the manga market, some metrics, main publishers, readers’ preferences, and more, we recommend you to read “Manga in France”, “Manga in America”, “Anime and Manga in the Arab World”, and “Webtoons and the Role of Webtoon Translation for Globalization” where you can find meaningful information about Korean market.
If you are looking for holiday-themed manga to read, consider checking the following blogs – “7 Best Manga to Read During the Holidays”, “Best Romantic Manga to Read or Give on Valentine’s Day”.
Speed varies per translator and per series. Of course, more complex themes require more time for research and translation. Our long experience in this work has allowed us to be able to finish more than 1000 manga pages or 100 webtoon episodes of translation per month. We can even scale up to double this amount in succeeding months. The key is for us to be given lead time to set and adjust to the styles of the language in the manga or webtoon, as well as to secure the quality during the translation of the initial chapters.
We follow a multi-step process in our translation – from the preparation phase, translation phase, checking phase, and finally, proofreading step. We ensure 100% human manga and comics translation for every project in 30 languages.
Manhwa is derived from Korean: 만화; Hanja: 漫畵; Korean pronunciation: [manhwa], meaning “whimsical sketches”. The general Korean term for comics and print cartoons is manhwa; however, in early 1990s, digital comics rose in South Korea as an alternative to the struggling manhwa industry. These vertical-scrolling comics, which were made to adapt to the increasingly smartphone-dominated world, were then called webtoon, a combination of the words web and cartoon.
To reach millions of webtoon fans across Europe, Asia, the USA, and all over the world, CCCI offers the following services to publishing houses and companies, webtoon artists, creators, and other interested individuals:
- Webtoons translation from Korean to English, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, Japanese, and other European and Asian languages,
- Webtoon typesetting, cleaning, redrawing, coloring, verticalization, and other related services.
Please contact us if you require official manga coloring, verticalization, typesetting, translation, localization, or other relevant services!
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