Indian webtoon app Toonsutra was featured in the developer showcase carousel of Google’s DeepMind website for its current prototyping with translation capabilities of Gemini 2.0 Flash which is currently available in experimental preview only to make their vast library of comics accessible to a diverse, multilingual audience.
With over 3,100 titles and 250,000 plus episodes, the app brings comics and webtoons to every corner of India in all its regional languages. Toonsutra co-founder and CEO Vishal Anand said, “In our early prototyping, we’ve been impressed with Gemini 2.0 Flash’s advanced multi-modal translation capabilities. Comic translation is uniquely challenging – it’s not just about the text in speech bubbles, but understanding the context, the tone, and the narrative within each panel. Gemini’s ability to provide accurate and culturally relevant translations has allowed us to make global stories truly accessible to India’s diverse, multilingual audience.”
Prior to the advent and proliferation of generative AI tools, the app would’ve faced several challenges in its translation workflow to translate hundreds of thousands of comic episodes across multiple languages with a high quality and consistency.
Toonsutra plans to continue using Gemini 2.0 Flash to expand its multilingual offerings. The company believes that this will provide Indian creators with a platform to share their work with a global audience.
Co-founder and chairman Sharad Devarajan said, “Toonsutra’s mission is to build the biggest community of passionate fandom across comics and webtoons, by bringing together the largest youth market in the world, India’s 700 million plus mobile market. With Gemini 2.0 Flash we finally have AI tools to help make that vision a reality and allow Indian readers the power to experience the best comic stories from India and the world, regardless of their language.”
The app is backed by investors including Sony Innovation Fund, Maiora Capital, Funimation founder Gen Fukunaga, Crunchyroll co-founder Kun Gao, Lightspeed partner Jeremy Liew, Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, Rotten Tomatoes co-founder Patrick Lee, Kabam co-founder Holly Lui, CreatorPlus co-founder Benjamin Grubbs, CJENM America’s former CEO Steve Chung and others.
