Manga Million Explained, Why Everyone’s Talking About One Piece Publisher’s Bold New Manga Project

Last Thursday, the world of manga was shaken by the launch of a new global initiative from Shueisha, the publisher behind popular series such as One Piece, Dragon Ball, Naruto, and more. Manga Million is a new digital repository that makes over one million pages of Shueisha manga available in 100 languages. Launched to celebrate the company’s 100th anniversary, Manga Million is available worldwide except in Japan.

Details about this ambitious project have been revealed in a special one-shot chapter of the manga Onwards! The Expendable Expedition by Takeshi Sakurai. The manga, which has never been translated into English before, made its first appearance on Manga Plus, Shueisha’s digital reading app for international readers. In the one-shot, the author appears alongside a group of Shueisha editors to explain the Manga Million initiative.

The project has been in development for five years, and it aims to make Shueisha’s manga known all over the world, including countries that never received official translations into their languages. Manga Million launched with 400 series, with more to be added in the future. The huge volume of material to be translated meant that a lot of hard work was necessary to make this possible; as one of the editors says in the one-shot, what started as “an extremely extravagant plan” turned out to be “an endlessly boring data management project.”

Still, immediately after its launch, Manga Million was saddled with controversy. On social media, some accounts pointed out that Flitto Japan, one of the seven translation companies used for the project, describes itself as “a leader in AI translation solutions.” However, Flitto also advertises professional translations made by humans, so the claims about AI use remain unsubstantiated at the moment. Other fans are pointing out discrepancies in the translation credits for some series, but this could have nothing to do with AI. In the Onwards! one-shot, the editors clearly state that no AI translations were used for the project, and that the entire process was subject to “”a meticulous check system.”

Focusing on the most exciting parts of the announcement instead, many series are getting their first-ever English translation thanks to Manga Million, including TochiKame: Tokyo Beat Cops, the third-longest running manga in history. Fans outside of the U.S. can now finally read manga that are missing from Manga Plus and were previously only available through the Shonen Jump Plus app, such as Kingdom.

However, keep in mind that not all volumes of the series are available. This varies by manga: One Piece has its first 12 volumes available, translated into 102 languages (because One Piece doesn’t care about rules!), while series like Haikyu!! and Oshi no Ko got their first five volumes translated into 20 languages. Also, while Manga Million is completely free, the project will last until the end of 2027. It’s unclear if the platform will disappear after that or, more likely, if it will simply require a subscription to access.

Manga Million is giving fans all over the world a chance to read their favorite manga in their native language for the first time, and even bringing outside of Japan some series that have been popular for a long time but never got an English translation. Let’s hope that Shueisha will address the questions about AI soon, and that the platform will receive frequent updates to make even more chapters and volumes available for reading.