I wanted to share a method I’ve been using for reading mangas on my Android phone. I hope it will be useful to Japanese learners who are reading mangas.
It allows easily looking up words or pronunciation, and translate text.
[Example image showing selectable text from a manga page](https://freeimage.host/i/HM6yQqu)
It functions by “sharing” the manga page with Google/Google Lens.
[Image showing the share options for an image, the Google app has been highlighted](https://freeimage.host/i/HMP2jP1)
Most images can be shared this way, but in case it cannot be (because the reading app doesn’t allow it), an intermediate step is to take a screenshot, and share this image.
Lens then performs optical character recognition (OCR) to make selectable text. This text can be translated within the app, searched online, or copied to clipboard for pasting in an external app.
I’ve found Lens to be very accurate, able to handle vertical or horizontal text, and handle most text that lacks a speech bubble background.