For the last 12 years, manga has been the fastest-growing category in the US comics market, outpacing everything except graphic novels for young readers. However, despite the increasing availability of manga to English-language readers, only a fraction of the total produced by Japanese publishers makes it to these shores. As a result, readers seeking more content often turn to illegal pirate sites, as legitimate apps from publishers like Viz and Kodansha fall short.
However, with there being exponential demand for manga, fans aren’t satisfied with the limited selection provided by legitimate apps from major publishers. While some turn to pirate sites, there is a growing opportunity for new companies to enter the market and offer ethical and legal access to original material through licensing arrangements with smaller Japanese publishers. Success in this market depends on providing a broad selection of content at affordable prices.
Azuki, as Forbes reported, is one of several recent entrants into this market. The virtual company was co-founded in 2019 by five young industry veterans – Adela Chang, Abbas Jaffery, Evan Minto, Krystyn Neisess, and Ken Urata – and launched its app during the pandemic. Despite operating virtually instead of from an office, Azuki has experienced steady growth, an infusion of capital from Y-Combinator, and a burgeoning assortment of new titles. The company has since grown to an extended team of several dozen members.
When it was first launched, Azuki’s subscription service only had manga series from Kodansha International and Kaiten Books. However, the service quickly grew and added more publishers, as well as exclusive titles that were licensed and localized by Azuki. As of today, Azuki has expanded its collection to include over 200 series, such as The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting, BLITZ, Gacha Girls Corps, Attack on Titan, Fire Force, and works from additional publishers such as Futabasha, Micro Magazine, ABLAZE, and Star Fruit Books. The company has reported that since its launch, the website has had over a million unique active users and has delivered more than 30 million pages of content.
Azuki operates on a subscription basis, but they have recently introduced a new initiative to distribute download-to-own e-books of their licensed and original content on platforms like BookWalker, Amazon, Apple Books, and Google Play Books. The program will begin with the release of My Dear Detective: Mitsuko’s Case Files and Turning the Tables on the Seatmate Killer!, with the first volume of each series available for pre-order on BookWalker. These titles will be available for purchase on March 23, with pre-orders for other platforms becoming available in the near future, as stated by the company.
Azuki however is faced with the challenging task of standing out in the digital comics industry that is dominated by Amazon’s comiXology, or other manga-specific platforms like Shonen Jump and Viz, and Webtoon. According to Minto, Azuki’s unique features, such as its subscription model that allows for unlimited access at $4.99 per month, its commitment to professional localization through teams of translators, letterers, and editors, its diverse selection of content, and its passionate approach to the material, can all contribute to setting it apart from its competitors.
“We want to provide people with a wide range of manga to read, and a wide range of how they can read it,” said Marketing and Licensing Director Evan Minto. “We do our own scouting of titles that subscribers will like. That curatorial approach gives us the mindset of a publisher, not just an app.”
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