Crunchyroll is one of the premier anime and drama services and offers hundreds of streaming videos via their fleet of apps. The company is experimenting with a new vertical with Japanese publisher Kodansha to launch Crunchyroll Manga on October 30th 2013.
Crunchyroll Manga will launch on a subscription model, which will be different from other platforms that just sell singular issues. Crunchyroll Manga membership will only cost $4.95/month you will be able to read all the current and archived volumes of all of the manga series posted. If you don’t feel like paying for it you can use the platform for free, but you can only access the latest chapters with ad support in 170 countries.
Here’s the full list of titles that will be available: Coppelion, Attack on Titan, Space Brothers, Fairy Tail, UQ Holder!, Mysterious Girlfriend X, A Town Where You Live, As the Gods Will – Second Series, Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, Fort of Apocalypse, My Wife is Wagatsuma-san, and The Seven Deadly Sins.
Manga publishers are trying to come up with new ways to deliver content in a legal manner and to stem the tide of piracy. Manga sales in America have dropped 43% since 2007 and it is hopped that existing services that have a strong track record can be the savior. It will be interesting to see what type of reading app they introduce and how it will be accessible to a North American audience.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.