| | ---
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| | license: cc-by-4.0
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| | language:
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| | - ja
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| | - en
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| | - de
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| | - es
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| | - ru
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| | - th
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| | task_categories:
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| | - visual-question-answering
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| | - image-text-to-text
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| | - text-generation
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| | tags:
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| | - multilingual
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| | - image-text
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| | - cultural-awareness
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| | - comics
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| | - manga
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| | - benchmark
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| | - multimodal
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| | ---
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| |
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| | **English** | [简体中文](README.zh.md)
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| |
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| | ---
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| |
|
| | # C³B: Comics Cross-Cultural Benchmark
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| |
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| | **Culture In a Frame: C³B as a Comic-Based Benchmark for Multimodal Cultural Awareness**
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| |
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| | [](https://openreview.net/forum?id=jvPdTOSTVl)
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| | *ICLR 2026*
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| |
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| | ---
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| |
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| | ## About C³B
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| |
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| | C³B (**C**omics **C**ross-**C**ultural **B**enchmark) is a **multicultural, multitask, and multilingual** benchmark for evaluating cultural awareness capabilities of Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs).
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| |
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| | - **Progressive task difficulty**: From basic visual recognition, to higher-level cultural conflict understanding, to cultural content generation.
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| | - **Comic-based**: Built on manga/comic images; comics better reflect cross-cultural narratives and conflict scenarios than single-culture real-world images.
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| | - **Scale**: Over **2,000 images** and **18,000+ QA pairs**, covering three tasks of increasing difficulty.
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| |
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| | **Task overview**
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| |
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| | | Type | Description |
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| | |------|-------------|
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| | | Basic visual recognition | Recognize and understand culture-related visual elements in comic panels |
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| | | Cultural conflict understanding | Understand cross-cultural conflicts, cultural symbols, and narrative intent |
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| | | Cultural content generation | Generate culture-related descriptions or stories from given settings or images |
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| |
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| | **Authors**: Yuchen Song, Andong Chen, Wenxin Zhu, Kehai Chen, Xuefeng Bai, Muyun Yang, Tiejun Zhao
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| |
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| | ---
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| |
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| | ## Data Format
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| |
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| | This repository contains C³B annotations and task data in the following structure:
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| |
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| | **task3/** — Multilingual translation/alignment
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| | - Files: `task3.ja-en.json`, `task3.ja-de.json`, `task3.ja-es.json`, `task3.ja-ru.json`, `task3.ja-th.json`, etc.
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| | - Fields: `manga_name`, `page_index`, `src` (source text), `tgt` (target text).
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| | - Each item is a sentence or phrase pair for translation or alignment between languages.
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| |
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| | **task12/** — Cultural content generation (Task 1 and Task 2)
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| | - task12 contains the data for **Task 1** and **Task 2** of the benchmark.
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| | - `task12.json`: structured data for generation-style evaluation.
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| |
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| | **task12.json fields** (each item in the JSON array):
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| | | Field | Type | Description |
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| | |-------|------|-------------|
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| | | `file_name` | string | Image filename (e.g. `0.png`) |
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| | | `Q1` | object | First question: multiple-choice options as keys A–E (e.g. region/culture names) |
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| | | `A1` | string | Answer to Q1 (e.g. one or more option letters such as `"B C E"`) |
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| | | `Q2` | object | Second question: options A–E (e.g. lists of scene elements) |
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| | | `A2` | string | Answer to Q2 (e.g. one option letter such as `"D"`) |
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| | | `A3` | string | Third answer (e.g. `"Yes"` / `"No"`) |
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| | | `A4` | list of strings | Cultural conflict descriptions (text explanations of conflicts in the image) |
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| |
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| | Refer to the actual data files in each task directory for exact schemas and usage.
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| |
|
| | ---
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| |
|
| | ## Obtaining Manga109
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| |
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| | Part of C³B is built on [Manga109](http://www.manga109.org/en/). For how to obtain the dataset (academic Manga109 or commercial subset Manga109-s), see the official site: [Manga109 download](http://www.manga109.org/en/download.html) and [Manga109-s](http://www.manga109.org/en/download_s.html). The dataset is also available on Hugging Face: [hal-utokyo/Manga109](https://huggingface.co/datasets/hal-utokyo/Manga109), [hal-utokyo/Manga109-s](https://huggingface.co/datasets/hal-utokyo/Manga109-s).
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| |
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| | ---
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| |
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| | ## Citation
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| |
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| | If you use C³B, please cite:
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| |
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| | ```bibtex
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| | @inproceedings{song2026c3b,
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| | title={Culture In a Frame: C³B as a Comic-Based Benchmark for Multimodal Cultural Awareness},
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| | author={Song, Yuchen and Chen, Andong and Zhu, Wenxin and Chen, Kehai and Bai, Xuefeng and Yang, Muyun and Zhao, Tiejun},
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| | booktitle={International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR)},
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| | year={2026},
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| | url={https://openreview.net/forum?id=jvPdTOSTVl}
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| | }
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| | ```
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| |
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| | When using Manga109 (or Manga109-s) data, please also cite the recommended papers:
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| |
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| | ```bibtex
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| | @article{mtap_matsui_2017,
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| | author = {Yusuke Matsui and Kota Ito and Yuji Aramaki and Azuma Fujimoto and Toru Ogawa and Toshihiko Yamasaki and Kiyoharu Aizawa},
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| | title = {Sketch-based Manga Retrieval using Manga109 Dataset},
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| | journal = {Multimedia Tools and Applications},
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| | volume = {76}, number = {20}, pages = {21811--21838},
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| | year = {2017}, doi = {10.1007/s11042-016-4020-z}
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| | }
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| |
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| | @article{multimedia_aizawa_2020,
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| | author = {Kiyoharu Aizawa and Azuma Fujimoto and Atsushi Otsubo and Toru Ogawa and Yusuke Matsui and Koki Tsubota and Hikaru Ikuta},
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| | title = {Building a Manga Dataset ``Manga109'' with Annotations for Multimedia Applications},
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| | journal = {IEEE MultiMedia},
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| | volume = {27}, number = {2}, pages = {8--18},
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| | year = {2020}, doi = {10.1109/mmul.2020.2987895}
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| | }
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| | ```
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| |
|
| | ---
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| |
|
| | ## License
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| |
|
| | ### C³B
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| |
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| | C³B (this benchmark, including annotations and task data in this repository) is released under **CC BY 4.0** ([Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)). You may share and adapt the material with appropriate credit and under the same license terms.
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| |
|
| | ### Manga109 / Manga109-s
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| |
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| | - **Manga109**: Permitted only for **academic use by non-profit organizations**. Redistribution to third parties is not permitted. Use is subject to the terms on the [official Manga109 site](http://www.manga109.org/en/download.html); the University of Tokyo and the manga authors are not liable for use of the dataset.
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| | - **Manga109-s**: A subset of 87 titles with permission for use by **commercial organizations** under the conditions on the [Manga109-s page](http://www.manga109.org/en/download_s.html) (e.g., limits on publishing whole pages, no redistribution, proper attribution). All other terms and disclaimers apply as stated there.
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| |
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| | Use of Manga109 or Manga109-s is governed solely by the University of Tokyo laboratory and the official Manga109 website; users must comply with those terms and assume responsibility accordingly.
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| |
|
