Using Kamui for Translating Japanese Games and Visual Novels

TL;DR: Jump here directly if you just want to see the instructions!

Tired of pointing your phone to the screen with Google Translate or Google Lens? Maybe you tried using software like VNTranslator, Sugoi Toolkit, Game2Text, Translator++ or Universal Game Translator, but they were too complicated to use, required technical knowledge, or weren’t accurate in their OCR or translation capabilities?

You can try Kamui, a game translation app that works directly from the web, with zero setup and configuration needed, featuring the highest quality OCR and translation technology, making the task of scanning Japanese text and translating it much simpler and more convenient.

Overview of Kamui

Although originally designed with Japanese learners in mind, this app is just as useful for those that want to play untranslated Japanese games in their own native language. Kamui lets you select any game window from your computer, and you can scan the text in it with the click of a button. Using “Translation mode”, you can automatically translate any text that is scanned, either with Google Translate or with OpenAI GPT-4.1. Extra settings allow you to be more precise, such as scanning a specific region of the target window, filtering furigana, and more.

Kamui is also available as a desktop app, which will let you scan using a hotkey without needing to have the Kamui window selected, and it also includes the very powerful auto-OCR feature, which will automatically detect new dialogue from your game and scan accordingly, so you don't have to manually trigger a scan every time.

This app places its focus on being easy to use. You can get started in under a minute, without any complicated setup, configuration or tutorials. As long as you have access to a browser it will work. On top of the UI being very simple and convenient, the accuracy and speed of both OCR and translation are as good as it gets, using Google Cloud Vision for OCR and GPT-4.1 for translation. You don't need to bother with technical things like API keys or prompts, all of this works out of the box!

How to use Kamui for Machine Translation

1. Go to https://kamui.gg/ and click the "Try It Out!" button.

   

2. Enable “Translation mode” in the Settings.

3. 

   Click the "Select Window" button.

   

4. Select the window of the game you want to translate.

   

5. Click "Scan".

   

6. After a few seconds, the translated text will show up in the main panel! Press "Scan" every time you want to translate the text in the game.

   

You can customize the translation provider (Google or GPT-4.1) and the language you want to translate to with the dropdowns next to “Translation mode”.

Also, check out the "Settings" tab for some extra options that allow you to customize the experience. Particularly useful is the "Scan Region" feature, which lets you select a particular region to scan text from in the selected window. This can be used, for example, to limit the scanning to a dialogue box, and avoid scanning UI text and other unnecessary bits.

Keep in mind you’ll need to sign up if you want to keep using it. Signing up will give you 500 free scans. After you use up all your free scans, you’ll need to subscribe, which will allow you to use as many manual scans as you want.

Conclusion

Although other tools might provide a high degree of customization for tech-savvy users, Kamui is much more accessible for those that just want to get MTL running without worrying about the details.

You can start using Kamui at its website. You can leave feedback or ask any questions at its Discord server, to help improve the app and make it better for everyone.