Viz Media rolls out new app with officially translated ‘manga’ for English readers

In a bid to stop Manga piracy, Viz Media has rolled out a new app and subscription service which contains 10,000 chapters of manga and is accessible to English readers. With the latest development, the Shonen Jump subscription and the new Viz Manga subscription will together contain over 25,000 chapters of manga.

As per a report by Polygon, the Viz Manga service contains chapters from several genres which includes titles from renowned Japanese publishers Shogakukan and Shueisha. The icing on the cake for English-reading fans is that fifteen of those series will be available to them on the same day of release as in Japan.

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“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,” said Andy Nakatani, senior director of online manga and subscription manga, and Carl Hayes, senior director of consumer acquisition and retention, in a joint statement.

“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,” they added.

The move by Viz Media targets the increased readership and fan following for manga and anime in American popular culture since the Covid Pandemic. As per Viz Media’s news releases, global demand for manga is at an “all-time high” and the Shonen Jump app has over “35 Million average monthly reads” currently.

The latest development aims to sort out the problems faced by English readers. Non-Japanese readers and those residing outside Japan, were not able to access some of the manga content. At times, they wouldn’t have it in the English language and had to wait for years to get the officially translated version.

As a way around the barriers faced by English readers in USA, several fans and websites have been unauthorisedly translating and scanning manga series. Websites like MangaDex, serve as a hotbed for the unofficial translations for fans to keep themselves updated with certain manga series.

Viz Manga service is expected to tackle the existing ‘piracy’ network. With the new app and subscription service, fans would get the official English translations in a digital manner and also get access to thousands of chapters of manga.

“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,” said Nakatani and Hayes.

The Viz Manga subscription is now available for $1.99/month, and the app can be downloaded on iOS and Android devices.

Here is the full list of series that will receive simul-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 (based on the video game by Atlus): 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

Other back library titles which will be accessible on the new app include:

• 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