Orange Inc exec clarifies AI use for emaqi manga localization

AI is a hot topic in almost every creative profession nowadays. Unsurprisingly, there are several companies in Japan and the US taking on the challenge of using AI-assisted technologies for manga translation and localization. Several of these startups have received hefty investments from major Japanese publishers, including Shogakukan, Shueisha, and Kadokawa. 

Orange Inc. (not to be confused with anime studio Orange that produced Trigun Stampede and Beastars) is a manga publishing startup that bounced onto the N. American comics publishing scene in Spring 2024 with an announcement that they received $2.92 billion yen (roughly $20 million USD) in pre-Series A round funding. At that time, they hinted at their next steps to “to create a world where everyone enjoys manga,” would be a digital manga publishing venture called emaqi – a pun that refers to “emaki,” or the narrative picture scrolls that are considered a precursor to manga. 

After convention appearances and previews of emaqi at Anime Expo in Los Angeles and Anime NYC, emaqi.com launched on September 3, 2024. Emaqi isn’t an all-you-can-read manga subscription site like Shonen Jump or Azuki or even a “some free, some pay-by-chapter” site like K-Manga or Mangamo. Emaqi offers ebooks for sale as complete volumes on an ala carte basis (meaning you pay $4.99 – $17.99 per volume) with the option to read sample chapters before purchase. This makes emaqi more like an ebook store, similar to Amazon Kindle, Bookwalker, or Rakuten Kobo. Like most other ebook stores, most of the manga you buy on emaqi can generally only be read on emaqi.com. Nothing new here.

But what makes Orange unique, and why is emaqi, their new manga ebookstore, getting a lot of attention in the manga publishing world in N. America now? Mostly because emaqi features manga that uses AI-assisted technologies to translate, letter and produce the exclusive manga series they’re showcasing on their site. Their localization team, Studio Mikan (“mikan” means tangerine in Japanese) is also responsible for the translation/lettering of several one-shot manga stories published on Shueisha’s Manga Plus site/app that’s also offered as free-to-read titles on emaqi.

 

Some manga readers and manga publishing professionals, including translators and letterers, have been sharply critical of the use of AI in manga localization. They haven’t been shy about expressing their thoughts on the subject either. 

But now that emaqi.com has launched, and readers (albeit only in US and Canada) can see what they have to offer, ComicsBeat met with Rei Kuroda, Orange’s VP of Product, Head of International to hear their side of the story. In our conversation, we talked about Orange’s global manga publishing ambitions and how their localization team, Studio Mikan, “co-works with” AI-assisted technologies to bring more “manga masterpieces” to readers around the world, and how emaqi is being received by manga publishers and creators in Japan. Kuroda also responded to people who are skeptical of Orange’s intentions as a new manga publisher and distributor. 

DEB AOKI: Thanks for taking the time to chat with me today. I don’t know if you noticed, but early this afternoon, I took emaqi for a test drive, and I started sharing some of my initial impressions of emaqi.com on my Twitter/X account today.

REI KURODA: Oh, I didn’t see your posts yet. Thank you for sharing. I love seeing user impressions, so I’ll check it out.

AOKI: I’ve worked in user experience design and content design, so some of my comments about my first impressions of emaqi.com come from that background. I guess I tend to look at things like purchase flows, content hierarchies…  maybe that’s why I’m a bit more attentive to those sorts of things sometimes. 

But that said, I basically have test drove almost all the manga and webtoon apps that are out there now, and ones that have come and gone in the past, and boy, I’ve seen really bad ones. (laughs) So yeah, the road toward making manga available online on apps and websites over the years has been quite a bumpy one.

KURODA: (laughs) Yes, some manga apps, even in Japan, don’t have great user experiences for purchasing manga, so I hear what you’re saying.

AOKI: So the good news is that when I tried out emaqi.com for the first time today to browse, read sample chapters and buy a book, I was able to figure out how to use it pretty easily. So there’s definitely a lot of nice things about the design, for a first version out of the gate.

KURODA: Thank you. UI and UX is one of the important parts of a product or service, as you know. When we were planning emaqi, we wanted the purchase process to run smoothly and have several ways for people to buy the books. So for example, if you tap the cover art, a pop up window will appear and give you the option to read a sample chapter or to purchase the book. It then takes you to a Stripe checkout window, where you enter your payment info, and you can immediately start reading. We wanted to make it easy for readers to do that.

AOKI: I went through the whole purchase process, and I entered my credit card information once. If I want to buy another book, I don’t have to enter that info again. I do have to buy these books one at a time… but that doesn’t bother me that much now, since I’m at the point where I’m just sampling what emaqi has to offer and am not buying multiple books at a time. But as it is now, it doesn’t allow for things like buying several volumes at once, or applying any discount codes or credits. Again, not super important now, but might be something to consider later.

KURODA: There’s more that we’d like to improve in the future, like features and functionality related to purchasing and browsing. But for now, this is our launch version, and it’s basically a minimum viable product.

It’s a very simple online store now. You can browse and read sample chapters, and you can purchase ebooks, and that’s all. In the questions you sent ahead of our session, you asked why it was only a website / mobile web experience, and not an iOS or Android app. One reason for that is that it’s much easier for us to make updates to a website / mobile web experience than an iOS or Android app, which requires more time and resources to develop and make updates, much less get it accepted onto the Apple App Store or Google Play.

So for now, having emaqi as a web site allows us to make frequent, probably monthly updates and improvements.

AOKI: When you say “monthly updates,” do you mean you’ll be adding new manga titles monthly, or you’re adding new features monthly? If you’re referring to features / functionality, how are you deciding on these features? Are these changes / additions / improvements part of your existing product roadmap, or are you planning on making changes based on feedback you’re getting from readers or manga publishers?

KURODA: We’ll be doing both. On the manga side, we already have 6000 volumes of manga available to read and purchase on emaqi, and we will add new titles every week. For example, we’ll be adding new Shueisha / Manga Plus one-shot stories several times a week. 

On the technical side, I’m not sure about updates every month, but at least every three months, we’ll be updating features in the emaqi store. We are working from a product roadmaps based on our internal discussions, but we are also going to make some adjustments based on user feedback, including readers and our manga publishing stakeholders. It takes a combination of both things to make a great online manga experience.

AOKI: Gotcha. So one thing that I noticed that was different from the initial PR for Orange and emaqi a few months ago, and seeing the press release for the debut of emaqi.com is seeing a change in your messaging. By that, I mean the initial rollout was more like, “we’re an AI startup, and we’re doing AI manga translation.” 

But the tone in the most recent press release announcing emaqi… the messaging seems more focused on “The translation and lettering on emaqi is the mostly product of human translators, editors, letterers with some AI-assisted technology.”

KURODA: Oh, I’m not sure I agree with that assessment. From the start, we’ve always emphasized that we here at Orange are just manga lovers, we’re just manga publishers, and manga localizers, and emaqi is just a platform for manga to be read and purchased.

We want to create a world where everyone enjoys manga. This is the mission of Orange. We’re just manga lovers first, and we want to deliver all kinds of manga to readers all over the world. This hasn’t changed. I also want to emphasize that we have always felt that the human touch is really important in this process.

Manga is created by human artists and authors for human readers and fans. The human touch is a really important aspect of localization. So we’re using AI technologies to streamline the localization process. 

AI technologies are a controversial topic. Everyone wants to focus on the AI aspect of this company, but what we want to do is to make the great masterpiece of a manga available to readers around the world, by offering it in English, and eventually, other languages. To do this, we do use AI technologies, but the manga we localize is the product of a lot of work by a lot of humans, myself included.

AOKI: One thing that struck me in the press release for emaqi that went out this week was that this time, you’re a lot less vague about how much you’re using AI for manga localization. 

For example, in the press release, it says:

To maintain the integrity of the original works and build trust with the readers, artists and publishers over time, no more than 10 percent of the content on emaqi will be translated using AI support at launch, as the team continues to evaluate and refine its approach for the future

So that was interesting to me – that you’re putting out a number – that no more than 10% of the manga localization for the Studio Mikan / emaqi-exclusive manga content  is going to be from AI. 

But I’m still trying to wrap my brain around stuff like, how does localization through Studio Mikan work? For example, does a manga localization project start with an AI-generated Japanese-to-English translated script, and then someone cleans it up? Or… can you explain what your current work flow is like now?

KURODA: That’s a great question. Studio Mikan is our localization team and how it works is like… well, I saw you ask, “is the first version from AI, and humans proofread it? Or does it start from a human-translated script that the AI reviews? Or are humans doing most of the translation and only using AI-assistance when they have questions or need extra help?” The answer is that everything you’ve described is correct.

Manga localization is very hard, it has a lot of steps, as you know. So we have to receive data from publishers, and we have to erase Japanese original words, or, like, onomatopoeia-based sound effects. After that, we have to translate the Japanese to English, or  other languages. After that, the pages need to be lettered with the English text. We also have to do proofreading. 

To produce one localized volume of manga in another language requires several difficult, time-consuming, and complicated processes. What Orange is doing is using AI technology to try to streamline the more tedious tasks required for manga localization, so humans can spend more time focusing on what they do best. 

For example, from the production side, erasing the Japanese original text from a manga page, AI-assisted automated tools are good for things like this.  

On the translation side, we sometimes use Japanese-to-English translation that is 100% done by human translators, with no AI assistance. We also have some cases where we start with an AI-generated translation, and human translators will use that as a starting point to review and make edits or adjustments, if needed. But what is really important for us to emphasize is that we NEVER publish anything that is only an AI-generated translation. 

There is always some sort of human touch, human review of each manga translation produced by Studio Mikan, as well as all lettering, and all editorial reviews. Rather than relying solely on AI, Orange’s approach is to have human translators, letterers, and editors co-working with this technology, and using AI to streamline processes, but not as a replacement for humans who do manga localization.

AOKI: Just to clarify – is the first step of the localization process to start with a script or manga page that has been produced with AI first, and human translators review and edit it, or is the translation done by a human first, then AI cleans up? Or is the translation handled by human primarily, and the translator maybe goes to an AI-assisted tool and says, ‘I have a question,’ or ‘How would you translate this?’ to get suggestions, kind of like using an automated translation library/reference resource? 

KURODA:  It’s going to be both. For example, the first basic translation could be made by AI, and the human localizer would work on retouching and fixing stuff.  Also, translators, while working on translated script might want to discuss with another translator or get suggestions for how someone else might translate a particular Japanese word or phrase into English.

With Japanese to English translation, there can be many possible choices. In cases like this, I can ask manga agent AI for possible options for translating a particular word or phrase. So that’s how it works. So it’s not like AI does this task, the human does another task. It’s always co-working. I always say it’s like Nobita-kun and Doraemon, or Luke Skywalker and R2D2: humans and technology co-working together. Translation is an art, and that’s why humans should continue to be involved in localizing manga from Japanese to other languages. 

AOKI: I see, I see. So ultimately, the final decision is by a human.

KURODA: Yes.

AOKI: Okay, so you’ve heard the old saying in IT, right? “Faster, cheaper, better. Pick two.” Basically it means that it’s pretty hard to get all three: fast, cheap, and high quality. Given that, what is Orange’s priority with emaqi and the manga localization produced by Studio Mikan? 

KURODA:  “Better” refers to the quality? Right?

AOKI: Yup. 

KURODA: Yes, we always focus on quality and speed.

AOKI:  But then that means it’s not cheap, right? (laughs)

KURODA: (chuckle) I can’t answer that!

AOKI: (laughs) Okay, fair enough! But what that saying refers to is that every company wants to do things faster, cheaper, AND better, but usually you end up with only two out of the three for various reasons.

KURODA: Yes. Well, what we want to do is to produce more translated manga. So that means we need speed to produce localized manga on a large scale. But we don’t want to sacrifice quality for speed, because quality is the most important part. If the quality is not good, no one will enjoy the manga. So we always want to focus on quality. 

So maybe quality first, and speed second. To ensure quality, in all of our translation steps, there’s always a human involved. We have professional translators, professional letterers, professional designers, and also editors. So while many people think we are an AI company, we’re basically just a manga company.

AOKI: Back a few months ago, when Orange announced its entry into the manga localization and publishing market, there was a fair amount of pushback – people reacting to the use of AI for manga translation and lettering. So given that, what do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your company and your offerings, and how are you responding to that? 

KURODA: Well, we just want people to know that we’re manga lovers too. We want to bring the great masterpieces of manga to readers in North America, and readers worldwide as well. 

As a manga publisher, we want to respect the domestic fan culture and readers, and publish manga, just like any other manga publisher in the US and Japan. We don’t just want to do everything with AI – we think there’s always the need for the human touch to deliver the manga in other languages to the fans all over the world. I understand that many people will focus on the AI aspect of Orange, but that’s just part of the story. There’s always a human touch in everything we do. I think it is important to let the community know that. 

AOKI: I picked up the sample manga booklets that were handed out at the Orange /emaqi booth at Anime NYC, and read through them. I also visited emaqi.com. I checked out a few of the sample chapters of the emaqi exclusives and the Shueisha one-shot stories, and even bought one of the books.

KURODA: Oh? Which title did you buy?

AOKI: I bought Tokyo Girl by Chiaki Matsumoto! 

Overall, I’d say what I read, translation and lettering-wise, it was 80 or 90% there. If I didn’t know beforehand that it was AI-generated, I wouldn’t have noticed except for a few glitches here and there. It was fine, for the most part, but there’s a few things I thought should be addressed, like some of the hyphenation of longer words, which was a little… off. Not horribly unreadable, but not perfect either. I think some of these things can be addressed by making some adjustments on line breaks or maybe picking synonyms, shorter, alternative choices for words that might help it fit in the word balloons a little better.

For example, on the first page of Vermilion Mask, the character is trying to smash a mask, yelling “Shat-ter, damnit it! Shat-ter!” An alternative to this without losing the meaning might be “Argh!” Break, dang it!” perhaps.

Because I was reading it all carefully, I noticed some minor typos, small things here and there, but I really had to dig to find them. For the most part, the translation and lettering on the emaqi exclusive manga sample chapters that I read were basically okay. It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t painfully clunky to read either.

One thing that I did pay attention to was the character’s voice and tone differences, which is an aspect of manga translation that requires some finesse and attention to cultural nuances. It takes a little extra effort to have the different characters, men, women, the gangsters and the office workers, the children, the elderly, the people in fantasy settings, the people in realistic settings – have them all speaking differently, with distinct voices that match their characters. That can be tricky, even with translation that’s done 100% by humans. 

But for the most part, I thought everything was basically readable and didn’t have too many distracting flaws. The stuff I did see, like the odd word hyphenation here and there, I think that can be fixed with a little more attention at the QA stage. 

KURODA: Yes, thank you. That’s great user feedback, so we’ll work to improve it.

AOKI:  I’m gonna pick on you a little bit here….  You mentioned earlier that Orange wants to bring “manga masterpieces” from Japan and publish them in English, but I’m gonna be blunt… your first bunch of titles, well, they’re kind of middling.  

So one thing I’d like to know is, how are you picking these titles? Are the editorial staff at Orange selecting these titles? Or are Japanese manga publishers or manga creators giving you recommendations for what they want to see translated and offered on emaqi?

KURODA: We do have in-house editors on our team, and they’re massive manga fans. They know just about everything about manga. So they pick prospective titles for emaqi. We also have discussions with manga publishers, and there are some titles that publishers tell us they want to publish in North America or the global market. 

AOKI: That said, I do appreciate the variety of genres and stories in this first batch of emaqi exclusive titles. There’s action, slice of life stories, fantasy, horror manga stories, some romance… basically a little bit of everything. So this mix is nice to see.

But to be honest, I didn’t see any real “wow” titles in this batch. By “wow,” I mean a new or classic/older manga series that would make me think, ‘This looks amazing!’ or ‘I’ve heard so much about this one – I can’t wait to read it.’ 

I know you might not be able to answer with any specific titles, but I was wondering if we could look forward to seeing some emaqi manga exclusives that might have a little more buzz, more “wow” factor. Also, can readers suggest manga that they’d like to see translated and offered on emaqi?

KURODA: Yes, of course. We have a title request form on emaqi.com (Go to Help > Frequently Asked Questions > Book requests and feedback). Anyone can request previously unpublished titles, untranslated titles, the kind of manga you’d like to see on emaqi this way. We’ll read and consider these requests, and if it’s possible, we’ll talk to the publishers about getting those titles. 

AOKI: Are there any publisher limitations? Like, readers can only request titles from certain publishers, for example.

KURODA: Well, right now readers can request almost any manga that’s not currently published in English. We do have some publishers that we already have relationships with, and of course some publishers that we’re not working with at the moment, but please feel free to send in any requests.

We do want to provide manga that people really want to read. For example, at Anime NYC, we were giving out sample booklets featuring Anjo-san: The Mischievous Girl by Yuichi Kato. We heard from fans who said,  “Wow, we were waiting for an official English version of Anjo-san.” So I was very happy to hear that. That’s the kind of thing we want to do for manga readers here.

AOKI:  I’ve worked with publishers to try to pick manga to license from Japanese publishers and publish in English – but it’s not so easy! The usual reasons why most US publishers opt to turn down a particular manga series for publication in English are usually because it’s too long (has too many volumes), it’s too old, or it’s too weird. (laughs) 

There’s just a LOT of manga from Japan that just never gets any kind of English translation, official or otherwise. So given this, that there’s SO MUCH manga out there that could be translated and published like this, and emaqi can’t possibly attempt to localize and publish all of them, what do you see as the gaps you’re trying to address? What’s your focus? What kind of manga is emaqi trying to publish in English that just isn’t possible by the current publishing and distribution channels that exist today?

KURODA: Piracy is a really huge issue in this manga industry. Every Japanese publisher is concerned about the piracy problem. There are a lot of manga that are translated and distributed through scanlation sites, but they don’t give anything back to the original manga creators or the publishers in Japan; none of the profits they make from piracy goes back to the mangaka or publishers.

With manga piracy, there’s also concerns about quality control, because these pirate manga sites translate and publish manga online without any supervision or approval from the original publishers or creators. 

We have to address the piracy problem by streamlining the manga localization and publishing processes, to make more official versions of these titles available to readers. If we can do that, then the whole industry benefits: publishers, manga creators and readers. 

AOKI:  I‘d say almost all of these creators you’re showcasing in this initial group of emaqi exclusive manga titles have probably never had official English versions of their work published before. How is emaqi helping these manga creators? 

KURODA:  Emaqi supports manga creators in two ways: streamlining the localization process via Studio Mikan, and distributing and selling their work through emaqi. 

AOKI:  I’m sure it must be amazing for these Japanese manga creators to see their work available in English, officially for the first time. What kind of reactions have you been seeing from them, now that emaqi has launched, and their comics are now available in English to readers in US and Canada?

KURODA: They’re really enthusiastic and excited about seeing their manga published globally. I’m not a mangaka, but all artists want to see more people read and enjoy their stories. That’s the dream for most artists, and mangaka are no different. So yes, the mangaka who are part of this first batch of emaqi exclusive titles are really excited about their work getting published in English for the first time.  Yajima sensei, the creator of Neko-Oji is also really happy to see the official English versions of their manga on emaqi as well.  

AOKI: That’s great. So I did mention the variety of stories and genres in the emaqi exclusives, but noticed that there’s something that’s perhaps notably absent: boys love, yuri or more “adult” content. 

KURODA: Right now, we don’t have a plan to publish adults-only content on emaqi.

AOKI: Fair enough! I was also curious about the percentage of your titles on emaqi are your exclusives? 

KURODA: Right now, it’s only maybe, like 2% or, like less, less than 5% or 10%, I think.

AOKI: I know you’re just at the starting line at this point, but what’s your goal? How many emaqi exclusive manga titles are you hoping to get up by the end of the year?

KURODA: I don’t have a specific number right now, but we are planning to release a new title every week.  So given that, over the next three more months you’ll see maybe 12-15 new titles as emaqi exclusives. Stay tuned!  

AOKI: You mentioned earlier that the intention for emaqi is to reach readers globally, but right now it’s available to readers in the US and Canada only. Will you be opening this up to other English territories or publish your manga in other languages?

KURODA: Yes, we hope to do that. We do have plans to offer emaqi in other English-speaking countries. We don’t have specific plans for when this might happen, but we are definitely talking about emaqi being available in other English speaking countries. 

AOKI: What gets in the way of doing this? Why was this not possible at launch?

KURODA: Oh, it’s mostly due to technical issues. We have some titles that are previously released titles from some publishers, and in some cases, these titles are licensed for English publication only in North America. 

There’s also technical issues related to payments that need to be resolved before we can offer emaqi in other countries, other than N. America. For example, when you sell things online in different countries, these countries have different regulations and requirements around taxes and accounting. It’s not easy to launch and run a global web store! We want to, but it can be hard to do for various reasons.

That said, we do plan to offer emaqi manga in other languages, because our mission is to publish the classics and masterpieces of manga in every language. 

AOKI: Can you share your shortlist of languages that you’re considering? For example, French, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, Vietnamese…?

KURODA: Sorry, we can’t share that info right now, but we do hope to do so in the near future.

AOKI: Who do you consider to be the target reader for emaqi?

KURODA: One group of emaqi readers are enthusiastic manga fans – readers who love manga and manga cultures, who read manga a lot.  Our other target audience are people who might not know much about manga. 

We want to publish manga and get the message out there that manga is not only comics, but that there’s a manga culture. Many of us on the team, we’ve been deeply influenced by manga culture. So, they want to share the culture and experience with everyone.

AOKI: How will the emaqi team be sharing manga culture with readers? Could you give me an example of how your team will be sharing manga culture, beyond just publishing manga in English? Are you publishing blog posts, posting YouTube videos, or sharing interviews with the artists featured on emaqi? 

KURODA: Maybe through in-person events like Anime Expo and Anime NYC. And of course, by experiencing manga online. 

It’s important to remember that North America, maybe only gets 2% of the manga in English compared to what’s published in Japan. That means that the remaining 98% is left untranslated, and not readily available as official releases to English readers. So the first thing we have to do is supply more manga in English to this market, and to global readers too.

AOKI: Are you considering bringing some of these manga artists to the US for appearances, to meet fans here, at shows like New York Comic-Con, for example?

KURODA: Yeah, sure. US fans love to meet up with mangaka! But we don’t have anything to announce along those lines at this time.

AOKI: Will emaqi have a booth at New York Comic Con, or any other shows this year?

KURODA: Yes, we’ll be at New York Comic Con in October. That will be our last show for 2024.

AOKI: I know emaqi had a booth at Anime Expo and Anime NYC. Could you share any stories or impressions about fans’ reactions, or if your team experienced anything while interacting with manga readers that was surprising or fun?

KURODA: It was a massively fun experience for us, because it was our first face-to-face encounter with manga readers. We gave away free manga booklets for 10 titles and had some gatchapon prize giveaways too.

We were glad to see that fans really, really enjoy seeing more manga titles out there. It was really fun and an exciting moment for our team. I hope that the visitors to our booth have enjoyed the manga they got from us and I hope they give us some feedback about what they like. Many of them read the samples, and asked, “How can I read the rest of this story?” I told them, please visit emaqi.com when it launches in September. Now those readers are visiting our site — reading and buying some of these manga, and enjoying the stories. That’s been really fun to see. This is a really exciting moment for us.

AOKI: I know it’s quite early days, since emaqi.com only launched a few days ago, but based on your Anime Expo and Anime NYC encounters with fans, and maybe just looking at the initial sales and traffic numbers, have you noticed any surprise hits? Like, ‘Wow, people really like this one!’ 

KURODA: (chuckles) I think it’s too early to tell, but I’m watching for that. Seeing readers’ reactions, and hearing how they’re enjoying the manga we’re publishing, that makes me very happy. Now that we’ve launched emaqi, after working on this project for almost a year, we can finally see users enjoying manga, and hearing from the Japanese publishers who are happy that they can now deliver previously untranslated manga to English readers. I’m really glad to see our stakeholders and readers alike enjoying manga via emaqi. 

AOKI:  Are the emaqi exclusive manga only purchasable and readable on emaqi, not on any other site like Kindle or Bookwalker?

KURODA: That’s correct. emaqi exclusives are only purchasable and readable on emaqi.com.

AOKI: It’s a pretty established fact that N. American manga readers really, really prefer to buy manga in print. Digital publishing is great for bringing more manga in English and doing it faster than print publishing, but for a lot of readers, getting their favorite manga series as a printed book is what they prefer to buy.

But there’s an interesting trend I’m noticing on other digital manga publishing websites and apps, where a title gets localized and released as a digital-only exclusive on that site or app, it gets popular, and then gets picked up for print publication and distribution by another company. For example, Azuki first serialized Hikaru in the Light from Futabasha and Mecha-Ude: Mechanical Arms from Pony Canyon, and it was recently announced that Scholastic Graphix will be publishing full-color print editions of these manga in early 2025. Another manga subscription service, Mangamo published gamer rom-com Loving Yamada-kun at Level 999, then Penguin Random House’s Inklore imprint is publishing it in print. Animate International started with digital-only ebooks of some of their boys love manga, and has recently started offering them as print books for sale at Kinokuniya. 

I was wondering if this is something that’s in the emaqi business plan as well? Can fans hope to see some of the emaqi exclusives perhaps someday getting released as print books? 

KURODA: Yes, we’re hoping to do some print releases in the near future. We don’t have any detailed plans about this that we can share right now, but we are considering print versions of our books. We met fans at Anime NYC and Anime Expo who told us that they really want to have a print version too.

We know core fans love getting a print version of manga that they love, but we’re starting with digital releases first. We’re still very new to the US market, so there’s stuff we need to figure out in order to do this. However, we do want to offer print editions of our manga too in the near future.

AOKI: That’s good to hear. It’s an exciting time to be a manga publisher in N. America because there are lots of different interesting options available to you now. Okay, to close things off, is there anything that you wish people knew about emaqi or anything that you think they don’t really know, but should know?

KURODA:  emaqi now has 6,000 volumes of manga available to read and buy, and we’ll be releasing at least one new English title every week. We will also be releasing new Shueisha one-shot stories several times a week. While we have stuff you can read now, there’s more to come, including hopefully more of those “wow” titles you mentioned that you’d like to see on emaqi.

We also really want the manga community to know that we are manga fans ourselves and that we understand the sensitivity of the topic of AI. We’re listening and are doing our best to continue to improve ourselves, while leveraging the technology to support a passionate human team at Orange to help bring more manga to more people.

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