Ken Urata

Ken Urata is a Co-founder and front-end engineer at KiraKira Media, Inc., where he develops the digital manga subscription service Azuki, and is based in San Francisco, California. Prior to officially launching the Azuki platform in June 2021, he gained consumer software experience working as a Software Engineer at the prominent anime streaming company Crunchyroll and the online local services marketplace Thumbtack. In addition to his primary engineering roles, he has worked as a professional English to Japanese translator, utilizing his native-level proficiency in both languages to bridge cultural gaps in digital media. He also independently created and currently operates a specialized bilingual manga analytics website that tracks specific publishing industry data. Urata's current focus remains on leveraging his technical background and linguistic expertise to build accessible, legal digital publishing platforms for the global manga industry.