Viz Media announces a new subscription to read manga, and it’s live now

Viz Media released an app and subscription that allows English-speaking fans to access manga in a much more convenient way. You can download it now.

Viz Manga’s digital release service will launch with over 10,000 manga chapters from various genres. This includes titles by renowned Japanese publishers Shogakukan Shueisha. Fifteen of those series will be simul-published — accessible to English readers on the same day of release in Japan. Together, the Shonen Jump subscription and the new Viz Manga subscription contain over 25,000 chapters of manga, with “further expansion in the works.”

Viz Media hopes that this expanded access can put an end to the manga piracy problem in English-speaking countries.

“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 to Polygon. “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.”

Manga and anime has played an important role in the development of American pop culture for many years. Interest in manga has increased during the pandemic. Series like My Hero AcademiaThe following are some examples of how to get started: Chainsaw Man Charted the best-seller list and dominated social media platforms such as TikTok. In 2021, a representative from Viz Media told Polygon that the company saw “explosive growth” in interest in manga in 2020, and reported that manga grew by 43% the same year. Viz Media’s latest news release asserts that global demand for manga remains at an “all-time high” and touted that the Shonen Jump app currently has over “35 Million average monthly reads.” Content around manga and its anime tie-ins continues to play a central role in major social media trends on TikTok.

Despite that interest, there have historically been barriers that make it more difficult for fans to access certain series outside of Japan — or in a language other than Japanese. To begin with, it could take years for fans to receive official translations. U.S. fans may have to wait for years before they can get official translations. On top of this, series that have only gotten official releases in physical volumes might now be collectibles — too pricey for the average reader to purchase.

For these reasons, “scanlation” — a portmanteau of “translation” and “scanning” — has played a central role in American manga fandoms as readers take it upon themselves to bring beloved series to English readers. MangaDex hosts fan-translated mangas that are of high quality.

With Viz’s new app, fans will be able to access thousands of chapters of manga immediately after subscribing, and the hope is that simultaneously publishing digital manga in English with the magazines in Japan will reduce the number of readers seeking out pirated material. But an effort like this doesn’t happen overnight.

“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,” Nakatani and Hayes said.

Shonen Jump is an app for fans of Shonen manga, a type of manga that’s marketed towards young boys and tends to feature stories with action. The Shonen Jump App has served popular simulpublished manga since 2018. Now, Viz Media aims to meet the needs of a broader community of readers — the new app’s library will contain titles from genres like shojo, fantasy, action, horror, slice-of-life, LGBTQ stories, and more. The list of new titles is too long to mention, but here are some that come as part of the Viz Manga Subscription.

Viz Manga is now available for just $1.99/month. The app is compatible with iOS and Android.

The full list of serials that will be simul-published is below:

Rumiko Takahashi Mao
Haro Aso: ZOM100: Bucket List Of The Dead
Takashi Shiina: Yashahime : Half Demon Princess
Tomohito Oda: Komi Can’t Communicate
Kotoyama: Call of the Night
Tsukasa Abe, Kanehito Yamada and Kanehito Yamada. 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 upon the Atlus video game) Persona 5
Kagiji Kumanomata: Sleepy Princess and the Demon Castle
Gosho Aoyama Closed Case
Tamifull: How do we relate?
Kyousuke Motsu: Queen’s Quality
Rei Hiroe:Black Lagoon