In an effort to compete with the huge ad-supported pirated manga aggregator sites, the Japanese Digital Comics Association has announced that this August they will be unveiling Jmanga.com, a new English-language digital manga site with free content.
Jmanga.com will include manga never before on sale in the English speaking world, a number of social networking features, and special creator content. Some of the digital manga on the site will be free, while others will be available for purchase online.
The beta version of the site contains free preview chapters of popular manga including Claymore, Naruto, Ruroni Kenshin, and Death Note. Manga publishers in the Japanese Digital Comics Association include Kodansha, Shogakukan, Shueisha, and Square Enix among others.
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Sa-weet! Hopefully this will take a bite out of those grody aggregator sites. Good to see that they have major titles like Naruto and Death Note – I’d been a little worried that endeavors like this would be limited to obscure series, but it sounds like there’ll be a healthy amount of variety in content and popularity.
Can’t wait for the full launch!
I hope this works as business model for them. But I’m wondering how much of the content actually will be free. If they offer their big sellers as pay only the idea may be dead before it gets off the ground.
Also the speed of their releases will be a factor. If Mangafox or whatever gets the latest Naruto out first the weeaboos aren’t going to bother with these guys.
the aggregator sites mostly cover the A-B list manga coming out of japan. If they offer some real interesting content along with the popular series, they would also have an significant edge with that.