Crunchyroll Announces Digital Distribution of Kodansha Manga

by Wind_Sr
Oct 26, 2013 4:47 PM | 52 Comments

An announcement has been made on Crunchyroll's official site that states they will begin to digitally distribute twelve different Kodansha manga titles through a new service called "Crunchyroll Manga."

This service will publish the latest chapters of these twelve manga titles the same day they are released in Japan. Both free and paid users of the site will be able to use this new service. Free users will have access to the latest chapters, while paid users will have access to the latest chapters along with all previous chapters for each title. All this content is available in 170 countries, including the U.S. and UK. "Crunchyroll Manga" launches on October 30, 2013 with additional details being revealed then as well.

The twelve manga titles include:
1. Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan)
2. Fairy Tail
3. Uchuu Kyoudai (Space Brothers)
4. UQ Holder!
5. Nazo no Kanojo X (Mysterious Girlfriend X)
6. Kimi no Iru Machi (A Town Where You Live)
7. Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo (Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches)
8. Kamisama no Iutoori Ni (As the God of Death Dictates 2)
9. Wagatsuma-san wa Ore no Yome (My Wife is Wagatsuma-san)
10. Apocalypse no Toride (Fortress of the Apocalypse)
11. Coppelion
12. Nanatsu no Taizai (The Seven Deadly Sins)

Source: Crunchyroll

20 of 52 Comments Recent Comments

Every other attempt to host manga series has ended in spectacular, almost laughable, failure.
Let's see if Crunchyroll pulls this off... but honestly, I'm not holding my breath.

Nov 2, 2013 7:36 AM by Orix

Welp, so much for free users. The subscription model does look promising, but it looks like you gotta pay separately from the anime membership. In my opinion, this is more worth it than the anime membership because Crunchyroll has a shitload of free anime paid for by ads, at least here in the US.

Nov 2, 2013 4:05 AM by gamer2710

Tengai said:
I added UQ Holder!, Kamisama no Iutoori Ni, Apocalypse no Toride and Nanatsu no Taizai on my plan to read because it looks good :3 though I'll probably use Manga Fox to read it not Crunchyroll :D

But wouldn't it be better to support the industry? you don't have to pay, the only thing you would have to do is wait until a 15sec ad and that's it.

Nov 1, 2013 9:35 PM by keragamming

dvp89 said:
"Paying for something I read for free... no thanks, lol. If I'm gonna pay for reading manga, I'll better buy the volumes of the series I like."

And that's how this is not going to work. JManga didn't worked out, this won't either.

It's simply a subscription program like Netflix or Hulu Plus. You don't own any of the content, instead you pay a monthly fee to access all of it. If the program ends up being shuttered, you're not losing anything because you owned none of it in the first place.

It's $4.99 a month for a library that will expand to over 50 titles in the next ten months. There ain't much to hate.

Oct 28, 2013 4:26 PM by Ahoo

I've never used CrunchyRoll for anime but this sounds like a good service. I'm guessing (or hoping) that you pay a monthly subscription that allows you to read all the chapters you want? If so that sounds pretty neat, better than Jmanga where you had to pay for each chap/vol.

I looked through CR's website but I didn't find an answer... How much will the service cost per month? I looked for prices but only found the 5 dollars per month for the premium membership ( and I think that's for the anime service only?). I'm probably missing something so this might be a stupid question.

Oct 28, 2013 2:14 PM by kurosaki_kabuto

"Paying for something I read for free... no thanks, lol. If I'm gonna pay for reading manga, I'll better buy the volumes of the series I like."

And that's how this is not going to work. JManga didn't worked out, this won't either.

Oct 28, 2013 10:56 AM by Aveja

well extra magna for me. I was buying the fairy tail books as they were released...and I'm tapped out at volume 22. If this just adds on to my anime membership I can just catch up on the last few arcs from Japan...

Oct 28, 2013 8:40 AM by darkcat1

Oh well that's not a bad news

Oct 28, 2013 7:01 AM by Mr_Gutts

I don't get it. Does that mean Crunchyroll has this arbitrary "window" of time in which free users can view the latest chapter before it gets locked to premium-only users? That sucks, because if I forget or if I somehow can't access the latest chapter in time, I gotta pay?

Oct 28, 2013 1:55 AM by gamer2710

Well, the selections are pretty good.

Oct 27, 2013 8:51 PM by live2win

>simulpubbed

God, neologisms make the linguistics nerd in me happy.

But yeah, this could be interesting. Unlike a lot of anime/manga fans, I actually know the meaning of the word "delayed gratification", so I can actually wait for legit releases instead of impatiently reading scans.

If this gets rolling...it could be big.

Oct 27, 2013 8:24 PM by Frostav

I would not recommend getting a sub to CR for the manga along, CR's already tried the digital manga thing once with Jmanga, which imploded earlier this year leaving all those who bought manga losing access to all manga they purchased. (I was among those, I was not happy.)

And yes, CR was part of Jmanga, it was an alliance between Crunchyroll and Bitway Co., Ltd.

So while I may take advantage of this because I already have a CR sub, I expect it to go down in flames within a few years and do not count on it being around later on. At least they seem to have some decent titles this time, Jmanga's were nearly all niche ones.

Oct 27, 2013 8:13 PM by cutemanabi

Chibi-Alice said:
I'll wait until they release more titles.

Why not read the ones they already have..? As long as you're are not adblocking while reading it for free you will be supporting the industry.

Oct 27, 2013 6:05 PM by Waltzpy

Minagatachi said:
It's a really good move for the industry imo. Now hopefully they'll start adding more manga.

They said they plan on adding 50 more titles over the next while. Sounds good!

Oct 27, 2013 2:09 PM by hpulley

I could make use of this service :) 神様の言うとおりに <3

Oct 27, 2013 1:57 PM by Rutarete

It's a really good move for the industry imo. Now hopefully they'll start adding more manga.

Oct 27, 2013 1:34 PM by Minagatachi

It's far off but at least Coppelion will be translated past chapter 21 now.

Oct 27, 2013 11:27 AM by VioLink

I added UQ Holder!, Kamisama no Iutoori Ni, Apocalypse no Toride and Nanatsu no Taizai on my plan to read because it looks good :3 though I'll probably use Manga Fox to read it not Crunchyroll :D

Oct 27, 2013 7:56 AM by Tengai

mitamaking said:

It is 4.99 a month, 4.99 a month times 12 months is 30 dollars roughly.

Check your math. That's approximately $5/month, and there are twelve months so 5 x 12 which is $60 per year.

Anyways, wow look at CR go. Kind of cool, I guess, although I can't tell if they meant that free members can only read the latest chapters and not older chapters.

Oct 27, 2013 7:49 AM by Laciie

Romedbaumann said:

Undim said:

mitamaking said:
4.99 a month times 12 months is 30 dollars roughly.

I don't think it is.

It really isn't...

lol everyone's maths is terrible.

Oct 27, 2013 7:42 AM by xtremexx

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