Live ranking, refreshed every 2 days

Best AI Models for Japanese

As of October 13, 2026, the top-ranked model on LMArena's text leaderboard for Japanese prompts is claude-fable-5.1-max by Anthropic with a score of 1,547, 24 points ahead of claude-fable-5-high by Anthropic.

Updated October 14, 2026. Leaderboard data from October 13, 2026.

Ranking: top 10 models

Scores come from blind head-to-head votes on LMArena's text leaderboard for Japanese prompts. Rank is LMArena's published rank, which accounts for confidence intervals, so several models can share a rank. The top 10 are shown below, and ranks 11 to 40 follow in the expandable list.

Models ranked by arena score
RankModelLabScoreVotesLicense
1claude-fable-5.1-maxAnthropic1,547 ±41253Proprietary
2claude-fable-5-highAnthropic1,523 ±26608Proprietary
3gemini-3.7-flash-highGoogle1,513 ±31422Proprietary
4gpt-5.5-highOpenAI1,504 ±22907Proprietary
5claude-opus-5-highAnthropic1,504 ±211,088Proprietary
6kimi-k3-maxMoonshot AI1,504 ±26603Open weights
7gemini-3-proGoogle1,504 ±30476Proprietary
8claude-opus-5-maxAnthropic1,503 ±28547Proprietary
9gemini-3.8-flash-highGoogle1,503 ±26646Proprietary
10claude-opus-4-6-highAnthropic1,499 ±21922Proprietary
Show ranks 11 to 40
Rank Model                              Lab             Score         License
11   gemini-3.1-pro-preview             Google          1,497 ±18     Proprietary
12   gpt-5.6-sol-xhigh                  OpenAI          1,496 ±26     Proprietary
13   claude-opus-4-7-high               Anthropic       1,490 ±24     Proprietary
14   gemini-3-flash                     Google          1,488 ±34     Proprietary
15   qwen3.5-max-preview                Alibaba (Qwen)  1,484 ±44     Proprietary
16   claude-opus-4-6                    Anthropic       1,484 ±21     Proprietary
17   muse-spark-1.3-max                 Meta            1,483 ±38     Proprietary
18   gpt-5.4-high                       OpenAI          1,480 ±25     Proprietary
19   gemini-3.5-flash-high              Google          1,479 ±24     Proprietary
20   gpt-5.5                            OpenAI          1,479 ±23     Proprietary
21   gemini-3.6-flash-high              Google          1,478 ±26     Proprietary
22   grok-4.20-beta1                    xAI             1,477 ±40     Proprietary
23   gpt-5.6-terra-xhigh                OpenAI          1,475 ±25     Proprietary
24   qwen3.8-max                        Alibaba (Qwen)  1,475 ±29     Proprietary
25   claude-opus-4-7                    Anthropic       1,473 ±23     Proprietary
26   muse-spark-1.1                     Meta            1,468 ±24     Proprietary
27   gpt-5.5-instant                    OpenAI          1,463 ±37     Proprietary
28   glm-5.3-max                        Z.ai (Zhipu)    1,462 ±31     Open weights
29   gpt-5.1-high                       OpenAI          1,460 ±28     Proprietary
30   gemini-3.5-flash-medium            Google          1,460 ±25     Proprietary
31   claude-opus-4-8                    Anthropic       1,459 ±22     Proprietary
32   claude-opus-4-8-high               Anthropic       1,459 ±22     Proprietary
33   deepseek-v4-pro                    DeepSeek        1,456 ±24     Open weights
34   glm-5.2-max                        Z.ai (Zhipu)    1,455 ±23     Open weights
35   gpt-5.2-chat-latest-20260210       OpenAI          1,448 ±36     Proprietary
36   claude-opus-4-5-20251101-high-32k  Anthropic       1,447 ±31     Proprietary
37   gpt-5.4                            OpenAI          1,447 ±24     Proprietary
38   gemini-3.5-flash-lite              Google          1,446 ±27     Proprietary
39   gpt-6-sol-max                      OpenAI          1,445 ±42     Proprietary
40   deepseek-v4.1-flash-max            DeepSeek        1,445 ±38     Open weights

Showing the top 40 of 280 models on this leaderboard. Data from October 13, 2026.

Best model by lab

Each lab's highest-ranked model on this leaderboard, and how far it sits from the top.

LabBest modelRankScoreBehind #1
Anthropicclaude-fable-5.1-max11,547Leader
Googlegemini-3.7-flash-high31,51334 pts
OpenAIgpt-5.5-high41,50443 pts
Moonshot AIkimi-k3-max61,50443 pts
Alibaba (Qwen)qwen3.5-max-preview151,48463 pts
Metamuse-spark-1.3-max171,48364 pts
xAIgrok-4.20-beta1221,47771 pts
Z.ai (Zhipu)glm-5.3-max281,46285 pts

Which AI lab leads?

The lab with the most models at the top of the board is the one with the deepest bench, not only the single best model.

Anthropic holds 5 of the top 10 models (50%).

Models in the top 10 by lab

Models in the top 10 by labBar chart of how many of the top 10 models each lab has: Anthropic 5, Google 3, Moonshot AI 1, OpenAI 1.Anthropic5Google3Moonshot AI1OpenAI1
Show data table
LabTop 10
Anthropic5
Google3
Moonshot AI1
OpenAI1

Open vs proprietary: how big is the gap?

The best open-weight model is kimi-k3-max by Moonshot AI at 1,504, 43 points behind the best proprietary model, claude-fable-5.1-max by Anthropic at 1,547. Their 95% confidence intervals overlap, so the data cannot separate them.

5 proprietary models rank above the best open-weight model, and 1 of the top 20 is open-weight.

Open-weight here means any license other than Proprietary, including licenses with usage limits. It is a broader definition than the OSI one.

Other leaderboards

LMArena runs separate arenas for different jobs. The best model for one is often not the best for another.

Other arenas

Text arena by category

Text arena by language

How to read this leaderboard

This category filters the text arena to prompts written in Japanese. It measures which model people prefer when they ask in that language, which can differ from the English ranking.

Scores come from blind votes
LMArena shows a person two anonymous answers to the same prompt and asks which is better. Those head-to-head votes are fitted with a Bradley-Terry model, the statistical successor to Elo, to give each model one arena score. On the Elo scale LMArena uses, a 100-point lead means the higher model is expected to win about 64% of matchups.
Confidence intervals decide ties
Every score carries a 95% confidence interval. When two intervals overlap, the order of those two models is not settled. LMArena's rank column already accounts for this, which is why more than one model can hold the same rank.
Why it differs from usage share
A high rank does not mean many people use a model. Usage depends on price, distribution and habit. For adoption rather than quality, see AI market share.

Methodology and source

All rankings are read from the LMArena leaderboard dataset on Hugging Face, published by LMArena (formerly Chatbot Arena) under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Credit for the underlying votes, scores and confidence intervals belongs to LMArena. Essentras is not affiliated with LMArena.

This page reads the text_style_control subset, category japanese, from the dataset's latest split. Scores, intervals, ranks, vote counts and license labels are shown as published. Essentras adds the grouping by lab and the derived figures on this page: gaps, lab shares, open vs proprietary and, on the main page, the history of who held #1.

Data refreshes automatically every 2 days. If the source cannot be reached, the page falls back to the last saved copy and says so at the top. Models are never merged or renamed; model and lab names appear exactly as LMArena publishes them.

Open-weight means any license other than Proprietary. History is limited to what the dataset records: the style-controlled text leaderboard from August 28, 2024. We do not scrape any other ranking site.

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Frequently asked questions

What is the best AI model for Japanese?

As of October 13, 2026, claude-fable-5.1-max by Anthropic ranks first on LMArena's text leaderboard for Japanese prompts with a score of 1,547. Rankings move as models and votes are added, so check the table above for the current order.

Which AI lab leads for Japanese?

Anthropic holds 5 of the top 10 models (50%), ahead of Google (3), Moonshot AI (1), and OpenAI (1).

Is the best open-source model close to the best proprietary model?

The best open-weight model is kimi-k3-max by Moonshot AI at 1,504, 43 points behind the best proprietary model, claude-fable-5.1-max by Anthropic at 1,547. 5 proprietary models rank above the best open-weight model, and 1 of the top 20 is open-weight. Their 95% confidence intervals overlap, so the data cannot separate them. "Open" here means any license other than Proprietary, which is broader than the OSI definition.

What does this leaderboard measure?

This category filters the text arena to prompts written in Japanese. It measures which model people prefer when they ask in that language, which can differ from the English ranking.

How often does this leaderboard update?

This page re-reads LMArena's dataset every 2 days. LMArena publishes a new snapshot when it has gathered enough votes or added models, so the date at the top shows the latest published data.

Models rank themselves. What do they say about you?

A leaderboard shows which AI models are strongest. It does not show what those models tell your customers about your company. Run the free check and see the answers.