Gemini:
Ah, I see! You're referring to Orange Inc., the Japanese manga localization startup. My apologies for the initial confusion with the French telecom giant.
Orange Inc. is a Japanese company that has garnered significant attention recently for its innovative approach to manga translation and global distribution. Here's what's notable about them:
* Mission: Their core mission is "Creating a world where everyone enjoys manga" and their vision is "Every manga to every language." They are dedicated to making Japanese manga accessible to a global audience, regardless of language barriers.
* AI-Powered Localization: Orange Inc. stands out by leveraging advanced AI technologies, including computer vision and natural language processing (NLP), to significantly speed up and reduce the cost of manga localization. They claim to be able to localize up to 500 manga volumes per month from Japanese to English, a substantial increase over traditional methods.
* Human Oversight: Crucially, while they utilize AI, they emphasize that human translators still play a vital role in refining the AI-generated output to ensure high quality and accuracy, recognizing that AI alone isn't "smart enough to understand context fully."
* Digital Manga Store "emaqi": In September 2024, Orange Inc. launched its own digital manga store called "emaqi" in the U.S. and Canada. This platform features titles localized by Orange and aims to provide an engaging and personalized experience for manga enthusiasts, often with AI-powered recommendations.
* Partnerships with Publishers: They have secured translation, publishing, and distribution rights from leading Japanese publishers like SHONENGAHOSHA, Futabasha Publishers, and Akita Publishing. Notably, they also formed a partnership with Shueisha Inc. to localize many "One Shots" from the popular Shonen Jump+ magazine app, often offering them for free.
* Funding and Recognition: Orange Inc. has successfully raised significant funding (around JPY 2.92 billion or USD 19.5 million in pre-Series A financing as of early 2024/2025) to further develop their technology and expand. They were also selected for the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's "J-Startup" program, which supports promising Japanese startups. They were even showcased as the only Japanese company in Anthropic's (an AI company) latest LLM release (Claude 3.5 Sonnet in October 2024), highlighting their technical collaboration.
* Global Expansion: While starting with Japanese to English localization and targeting North America, their long-term goal is to localize manga into other languages to reach fans worldwide.
In essence, Orange Inc. is at the forefront of combining technology and human expertise to overcome the challenges of bringing the vast world of Japanese manga to a truly global audience.
