Digital Manga Inc. announced 23 launch titles for its Digital Manga Guild program at its Anime Expo panel on Saturday. It appears that all of these manga are of the popular Boys Love (BL) or Yaoi genre. While this may not appeal to most manga readers, all have reason to rejoice that the Digital Manga Guild is moving forward with a substantial list of titles that will be available in digital format.
The recent losses of TokyoPop and the Borders bookstore chain have made buying manga outside of Japan a more challenging prospect. While Amazon carries many titles, the loss of large U.S. publishers has made it less likely that even some popular manga will find legal publication outside of Japan. Niche titles even less so. And online purchasing is generally not an easy option for younger manga enthusiasts.
This has undoubtedly made scanlations, fan translated scans of manga, more popular. The avid manga reader may simply have no other choice than illegal scanlations for a growing number of titles. While the internet is rife with people who think everything should be free, many manga readers would gladly pay something to support the artists they love.
Efforts like the Digital Manga Guild promise to not only make more  yaoi manga available, but cultivate the next generation of manga translators. So over time, if successful, we should see a wider variety of manga being translated and sold outside of Japan. The many scanlation groups clearly show that there are talented people out there who want to share their love of manga with others. And the thousands reading scanned manga online indicates that the time for digital manga has arrived.