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Get your own AI-powered comics and manga image recognition and search tool, accessible through REST API.
Comic books and manga are key players in global entertainment. While manga originates in Japan and comic books have deep roots in the United States, both have influenced global culture significantly and are integral to the collectible market.
At Ximilar, we’ve expanded our portfolio of visual AI solutions to deliver AI-driven comics and manga recognition & search tool tailored specifically for the community of collectors. It is powered by computer vision and visual search technology, enabling you to upload a photo of a comic book and identify it in detail in a matter of seconds.
The collectible world is fueled by passion and the hunt for hidden gems, and the comic and manga industries are no exception. With an ever-growing global audience, their fanbases and markets continue to expand. Graphic novels evolve alongside cultural and sociopolitical shifts, leaving a lasting impact on our mainstream culture.
Let’s briefly discuss what comics and manga are, highlight their key categories, and explore how their markets have developed in recent years. And if you’re already familiar with these topics, feel free to skip ahead to the section where I break down the functions of our newest API, that enables you to recognize and search comics and manga with AI.
Comics don’t need much introduction. Comic books, as we know them today, originated in the United States and have since evolved beyond their superhero origins. They cover a wide range of genres, including crime, fantasy, or horror.
The global comic book market was valued at $15.5 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach $26.9 billion by 2032, growing at a rate of 5.9% annually.
Allied Market Research
Comic books appeal to an incredibly broad audience. While superhero comics remain popular, there’s an influx of independent creators, offering new approaches and stories. However, they also face increasing competition from other forms of entertainment, and in recent decades, they have been sharing the spotlight with manga.
Manga refers to a wide range of Japanese comic books and graphic novels, typically printed in black-and-white, with special color editions. Unlike Western comics, manga is read from right-to-left. Manga covers a variety of genres, ensuring there is something for everyone, from action-packed adventures to stories focusing on the character’s personal growth.
The New York Public Library categorizes manga into 5 basic types:
The popularity of anime, often adapted from manga, has also fueled its global rise, with series like Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon gaining incredible fanbases worldwide.
Both the comic book and manga industries are experiencing consistent growth. The rise of digital comics, coupled with the global influence of Japanese manga, has significantly expanded their fanbases. In particular, the Asia-Pacific region has seen a significant rise in manga’s popularity, which has influenced global comic book trends.
| Manga Series | Demographic | No. of Volumes | Serialized | Approx. Sales |
| One Piece | Shōnen | 110 | 1997–present | 516 M |
| Doraemon | Children | 45 | 1969–1996 | 300 M |
| Golgo 13 | Seinen | 214 | 1968–present | 300 M |
| Case Closed / Detective Conan | Shōnen | 106 | 1994–present | 270 M |
| Dragon Ball | Shōnen | 42 | 1984–1995 | 260 M |
| Naruto | Shōnen | 72 | 1999–2014 | 250 M |
Additionally, the continued success of comic-based films and series, such as those from the Marvel and DC universes, highlights the lasting power of the medium. Collectibility also plays a major role, with certain comic books reaching quite high prices due to their rarity and historical significance.
With the global comic book market projected to grow to $26.9 billion by 2032, and manga continuing to drive interest worldwide, the timing is perfect for innovation.
As these industries continue to expand, AI technologies are increasingly crucial in recognizing, categorizing, and tracking both comic books and manga. This is why we developed a comprehensive AI system for their detection, recognition, cataloging, search, and price retrieval.
We already offer AI-powered recognition and search for collectibles such as trading cards (TCGs or sports cards), coins, banknotes, and stamps. For some of them, we provide advanced AI grading services, enhanced by specialized endpoints for centering analysis and condition evaluation.
Additionally, our OCR slab reading functionality extracts detailed information from graded slab labels, while our price search tool retrieves price comparisons from major collectible marketplaces. And I am happy to say that these tools have become essential for major collectibles companies, card grading services, and collector-focused apps worldwide.
Our AI helps streamline discovering new titles, tracking market trends, and listing collectible pieces on major marketplaces, making these media more accessible to a global audience and stakeholders.
Building on our expertise in AI-driven collectible identification and search, we have expanded our portfolio of solutions to include comic book covers.
The new comics and manga recognition & search service is designed to transform how comic book enthusiasts, marketplaces, and app developers manage their collections while saving them valuable time.
This service, accessible via REST API, offers a range of practical applications for:
Our API helps you streamline the identification, cataloging, and pricing of comics – saving you time and effort while ensuring accuracy and reliability.
With our all-in-one solution, you can identify comics and manga from images in seconds via seamless API integration.
The service is powered by visual search models that are able to match your image queries with items in any collection of images, independent of source and quality. That is why it can extract key details, provide slab data like grades and certifications, and deliver pricing information frommarketplaces for raw issues, graded slabs, professional photos, as well as user-generated content. And that is also why it can be easily enhanced by your private collection of collectibles’ images.
Let’s dive into its capabilities and results one by one.
Try AI Recognition of Collectibles Now
Test our public demo to detect, classify, search, and evaluate collectibles – all via one API.
The comic book and manga recognition feature falls under our AI Recognition of Collectibles service. When you upload an image, each comic book or manga is first detected (its position can be marked with a bounding box). It is then classified under the top-level category ‘Comic,’ followed by information on whether the comic book is graded, along with detailed identification data such as:
The system can recognize thousands of comic books and manga from major publishers worldwide, including Marvel, DC Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Image Comics, Archie Comics, IDW Publishing, Boom! Studios, Fantagraphics, or AC Comics. And for manga, for example Shueisha, Hakusensha, Kodansha, Yen Press, Dark Horse Manga, TOKYOPOP, Viz Media, Crunchyroll, Kadokawa Shoten, and more.
The difference between newsstand and direct editions of comic books lies in how they were distributed and the identifying features on their covers. Newsstand editions were sold at general retailers with barcodes on the front covers for scanning, while direct editions were sent to comic shops and featured logos, symbols or promotional texts instead of barcodes.
Also, newsstand editions are rarer. Unlike direct editions, which were better preserved by collectors, they are not easy to find in high grades.
Newsstand editions dominated the 1970s-1990s but declined as direct editions rose. This makes newsstand copies a nostalgic rarity.
Our comic book value checker helps identify the current market value of comic books and manga by retrieving pricing information from various online platforms like eBay. It can effectively work as both comic & manga price guide. Users can upload a photo of their comic or manga, and the price checker provides available prices along with links to marketplaces.
At this moment, our comic value checker already supports key platforms, such as Mercari or Rakuten, and is continuously expanding.
As not everyone requires price retrieval alongside recognition, this feature is optional (turned off by default). And if enabled, it only consumes API credits when a price is successfully found.
Our AI provides detailed slab label identification covering attributes such as brand, name, set, card number, year, grade, verbal grade, certificate number, rarity, and language.
You also get a link for verification of the comic book at a grading company. This is perfect for cataloging or evaluating graded comic books.
The extracted text is converted into a structured format, typically JSON, for seamless integration into your tools or databases. This feature is helpful for collectors or catalogers looking to automate the process of documenting and analyzing slabbed comics and manga quickly and reliably.
This tool is currently in active development, but you can already see its results for some comic books on our demo.
Reading slab labels of comic books is an art in itself. For example, CGC uses a color-coded label system for comic collectibles, such as the Universal Label (Blue) for standard grades, CGC Signature Series® (Yellow) for witnessed autographs, CGC x JSA Autograph (Black/Yellow) for authenticated signatures, Pedigree Label (Gold) for pedigree comics, Qualified (Green) for comics with defects, Restored (Purple) for restored comics, No Grade (NG) for incomplete comics, Individual Page (PG) for single pages, Cover (CVR) for comic covers, and Conserved (Blue/Grey) for comics with repairs, as well as specific Signature Series labels for signed comics with qualifications, restoration, or conservation.
The service is accessible via both the Ximilar App and REST API. To begin, register to the Ximilar App to acquire your unique API authorization token. The token can be seen in your user Settings. Through the app, you also can:
Within the app, you’ll find this service listed under Collectibles Recognition in the sidebar, alongside other tools for collectors’ websites. Once you have your API token, you can use the REST API independently to integrate the service into your own apps, websites, or infrastructure.
After obtaining your API token and setting up your subscription plan, you’re ready to make API requests using various programming languages, including Python. If you are not familiar with the basic steps, see Quickstart in our API documentation. We also recommend using Postman for testing purposes.
For example, here’s how to send an image of a comic book or manga to the API for recognition and cataloging:
Product Description 
Card Price Search $ curl https://api.ximilar.com/collectibles/v2/comics_id -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Authorization: Token __API_TOKEN__" -d '{
"records": [{ "_url": "__IMAGE_URL__"}], "slab_id": true
}'records: This is where you provide the image(s) to be analyzed. You can use either a URL or a base64-encoded image. The system supports various formats, such as jpg, jpeg, png, webp, heic, bmp, tiff, or jfif.slab_id: Optional field to request slab identification. If set to true, the AI will analyze the slab label and grade.Authorization: Token: Replace __API_TOKEN__ with your unique API token from Ximilar App.After processing an image, the API returns a JSON response with key data points. The response might look like this:
{
"records": [
{
"_url": "__IMAGE_URL__",
"_objects": [
{
"name": "Comics",
"bound_box": [45, 106, 373, 600],
"_identification": {
"best_match": {
"name": "Fantastic Four",
"title": "Counter-Earth Must Die--At The Hand Of Galactus!",
"date": "August 1976",
"number": "173",
"publisher": "Marvel",
"origin_date": "1961",
"links": {
"ebay.com": "https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=Comics+Fantastic+Four+%23173+Marvel",
"midtowncomics.com": "https://www.midtowncomics.com/search?q=Comics+Fantastic+Four+%23173+Marvel"
},
"full_name": "Fantastic Four #173 Marvel August 1976"
},
"alternatives": []
}
}
]
}
]
}
The provided metadata can be used:
Our solutions are available as an all-in-one API package and also individually, helping you create your own comic book search engine, price guide, manga analysis platform, or cataloging service.
The modular structure of our platform allows for full customization to meet your website or app’s needs, while also optimizing credit usage to reduce costs with large data volumes. For assistance or custom solutions, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re here to help!
Our AI price guide can be used for value tracking of cards and comic books, offering accurate pricing data and their history.
Optimize your product listing workflow with automated writing of product titles and descriptions.
Explore new features in our Ximilar App: streamlined Plan overview & Setup, Credit calculator, and API Credit pack pages.
