Viz Media, the leading entertainment company in distributing manga and licensed Japanese anime, films, and television series, recently announced a new subscription service (via an app) that will provide translated copies of manga to English-speaking fans. Originally, Viz Manga contained digital releases of over 10,000 chapters of manga, ranging from shōnen to shojo manga; many of these series were published simultaneously with Japan. Now, Viz Manga has partnered with the Shōnen Jump subscription service to provide over 25,000 chapters, with “further expansion in the works.”
Spokespersons from Viz Media are hopeful that Viz Manga will bridge the gap between Japanese content and English-speaking territories to provide accessible reading content for all.
As per Polygon, Andy Nakatani, senior director of online manga and subscription manga, and Carl Hayes, senior director of consumer acquisition and retention, released a joint statement on the matter.
“We hope that people will gravitate towards a platform where the latest content is free and an affordable subscription allows access to a vast library of chapters. All the more so, because users can trust an official platform where they know that the mangaka will get proper recognition for their work. This is really just a first step and we plan to expand in the future on to make even more manga available to more people.”
Viz Media’s new app seeks to publish translated material on the same day it releases in Japan, which will presumably deter English speakers from the temptations of accessing pirated content online.
Nakatani and Hayes continued their statement:
“The VIZ Manga service was only made possible because we had an incredible amount of cooperation and support from the mangaka and their publishers in Japan. And of course the driving force of this project comes from the passion and dedication that so many people at VIZ as well as those who work with VIZ have for manga.”
Although Viz Media and Shōnen Jump’s partnership will boost promotion of the shōnen genre, the new app will also feature countless other genres, such as shojo, yuri, horror, slice-of-life, fantasy, LGBTQ+ and more. In fact, here’s a comprehensive list of all the series that will be receiving translations and same-day publication.
- Rumiko Takahashi: Mao
- Haro Aso: ZOM 100: Bucket List of the Dead
- Takashi Shiina: Yashahime: Princess Half Demon
- Tomohito Oda: Komi Can’t Communicate
- Kotoyama: Call of the Night
- Story by Kanehito Yamada, Art by Tsukasa Abe: Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End
- Makoto Ojiro: Insomniacs AXer School
- Kenjiro Hata: Fly Me To The Moon
- Rei Toma: The King’s Beast
- Hisato Murasaki: Persona 5
- Kagiji Kumanomata: Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle
- Gosho Aoyama: Case Closed
- Tamifull: How Do We Relationship?
- Kyousuke Motomi: Queen’s Quality
- Rei Hiroe: Black Lagoon
- Rumiko Takahashi: Inuyasha, Ranma 1/2, Mermaid Saga, and others
- Junji Ito: GYO, Uzumaki, and others
- Yuu Watase: Fushigi Yugi, Absolute Boyfriend, and others
- Inio Asano: Goodnight Punpun, What a Wonderful World, and others
- Taiyō Matsumoto: Sunny, Tekkonkinkreet, Ping Pong, and others
- Gosho Aoyama: Case Closed
- Ai Yazawa: Nana
- Arina Tanemura: Full Moon, The Gentlemen’s Alliance, and others
Right now, The Viz Manga subscription is available now for $1.99/month, with the app available to download on iOS and Android devices.