Learncrest

to the making of books there is no end, so let's get started!

Tag: Viz

Viz Manga Now On Nook Tablet/Color

March 8, 2012 /

One Piece on the Nook TabletI was pleasantly surprised today by an email from Viz proclaiming the arrival of Viz Manga such as One Piece, Naruto, and others on the Nook. Viz manga has been available on their web site and the Apple iPad for a while now. The iPad makes an especially good platform for reading manga with what I think is the perfect sized display. So I really wasn’t expecting to see Viz support the Nook.

I might also add that the email seemed to imply that the eInk Nook might also be supported. However a quick visit to the Barnes & Noble web site put that notion to rest. The site clearly indicates that Viz manga titles require the Nook Tablet or Nook Color with software version 1.4. And don’t get any ideas about reading these titles in the Nook reader software either. I tried reading a sample in the Nook reader on my iPad and Mac only to be informed that the title was not supported there.

Viz Manga on Nook Tablet

Popular Viz manga comes to the Nook Tablet and Nook Color. Sorry, none for eInk Nook!

Honestly, I cannot see any advantage to Viz in locking these Nook titles to the hardware like that. The primary beneficiary would be Barnes & Noble if the availability of Viz titles drives some Nook Tablet sales. The price drop to match the Kindle Fire, a price point that seems to be costing Apple at least a few iPad sales, along with some compelling content may be just the thing readers need to give the Nook color tablets another  look. Especially the younger, manga reading demographic who can’t afford iPads. And I might add that Viz manga is not yet available on the Kindle Fire.

Hopefully we’ll see some joint marketing from Barnes & Noble and Viz to promote this like crazy!

JManga Launches With Digital Titles New To US

August 17, 2011 /

Anime News Network reported that the JManga web site had launched with a lineup of titles that included manga never seen in print in the United States. These new titles include Macross Frontier.

JManga ScreenshotIt was the Macross Frontier part that piqued my interest primarily. JManga is a web portal where manga can be purchased and read online in the most popular web browsers. Reading manga online is not new, but being able to do so legally is, for the most part. And any anime or manga fan can attest to the very loud absence of anything Macross Frontier (legally) on US shores. So as a Macross fan, I put aside my general dislike for web based manga reading and signed up for a JManga account to look around.

Well first, I should note, that at this time Macross Frontier is not yet available on JManga, but still there was quite a lot to see. And I wanted to see if the site would work on my iPad. All of the legal online manga reading sites make use of Adobe Flash based readers which don’t work on Apple iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad. I had hoped to find that JManga was iPad friendly. Unfortunately, the JManga reader is also Flash based and didn’t work on my iPad.

The Flash based manga reader wasn’t really a surprise. But I was surprised and a little disappointed at the price of manga on the site. On JManga, readers buy manga using points. These points are worth a penny a piece. Many titles on the site do not have prices listed as yet, but of those that did, I found the range from 895 to 899 points for a volume. Nine dollars is not a bad price for a printed manga volume, but charging that for digital seems excessive considering that Viz typically charges $5.99 for their iPad friendly digital manga. JManga does have a $10/month subscription plan that currently has a one time bonus of 500 points and then a 50 point/month bonus after that. This brings the cost down a bit, but not enough to escape the fact that they essentially charge print prices for digital.

Pricing aside, I’m happy to see that new titles are being made available to US readers in digital format and hope we’re seeing the beginning of a trend. The general decline of retail bookstores and loss of Borders and publisher Tokyopop in particular has made it more difficult for US manga readers to find new titles. JManga was established by the 39 Japanese publishers who make up the Digital Comic Association with the goal of making manga available worldwide in a fashion that benefits the publishers, artists, and readers alike. If manga is to have a future in the US, JManga is going to be part of it.

With 39 publishers to manage, issues like pricing and availability will take some time to work out. But yes, even at print price I’ll be there for Macross Frontier!

Digital Comics On The iPhone

May 9, 2011 /

Even as comic and manga publishers fret over the future of their media as the digital transition takes hold, it’s a great time to be a reader! The last few days I’ve been rediscovering comics in digital form with the help of iPhone readers from Dark Horse, comiXology, and Viz.

Growing up, keeping up with the comics I liked was not an easy task. If I had the money there was the very real problem of getting to the nearest comic shop which for me was at the top of a very steep hill near Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza. Eventually I moved on to other books only revisiting comics latter for the occasional Batman graphic novel release.

My first glimpse of what comics could be on a portable device came when the Digital Comics service debuted on the PSP. The guided, panel to panel mode was the perfect way, for me at least, to read comics on that big beautiful screen! That was back in 2009 and digital books hadn’t really taken hold of my conciousness and the PSP was not something that I carried around with me all the time, so the thought of turning it into a reader and building a library on it was not something I was ready to do.

Fast forward two years to the iPhone, a device I usually have on my person which between 3G and Wi-Fi is almost always on the network. And with a display screen nearly as large as the PSP and much more available storage space, using it as a reader only awaited the right apps. Well it looks like the right apps have arrived!

Oz: The Manga

David Hutchison's Re-imagining of Oz in Manga Form

Last Saturday was Free Comic Book Day, so I decided to give reader apps from Dark Horse, comiXology, and Viz, a workout. I started thinking about this originally when Viz released their manga reader for iPhone and iPod touch. Being iPadless, I was curious to see how manga fared on the iPhone’s much smaller screen.

The iPhone version of the Viz reader was a bit of a disappointment. While manga are clear and readable, you have to manually pan and zoom. Not only that, all reading is done in portrait mode. Twilt your iPhone all you want, that picture is not rotating. This would not be all bad except for the fact that I knew of a better way to read graphic novels in that form factor.

Both the Dark Horse and comiXology readers gave a much more enjoyable reading experience. The key to this being their guided panel to panel reading mode. It makes reading a comic somewhere between viewing a slideshow and a movie. Both were easy to use, though I felt that the Dark Horse app performed a little better overall. And both Dark Horse and comiXology allow you to read titles in your library online in a web browser. Right now it doesn’t look like you can read Viz manga from your in app library on a computer. That’s an interesting omission given that Viz does make several of its Shonen Jump manga titles available for online reading.

As a manga reader, it’s a little disappointing that Viz’s reader is not quite up to the standard set by the digital comic readers. But I’m sure we’ll see improvements in later releases. In the meantime, I’m having a lot of fun rediscovering comics such as David Hutchison’s Oz: The Manga, which looks great on my iPhone!

TokyoPop Manga May Be Coming to iPad, Kindle, and Nook Soon

March 12, 2011 /

Recent tweets from TokyoPop indicate that the company is in the process of bringing its manga library to the iPad and other eBook readers soon. When asked on Twitter about creating an iPad manga app like competing publisher Viz already has, TokyoPop responded that one was coming soon. And indicated in response to other questions that Kindle and Nook support was also in the works.

TokyoPop eManga Tweets

TokyoPop eManga Tweets

The global recession coupled with the twin challenges of piracy and the transition to eBooks have put a lot of pressure on the publishing industry. The Borders bankruptcy has been particularly hard on small independent publishers who may not be able to easily write off millions of dollars in book shipments that may never be paid for. TokyoPop cited the Borders bankruptcy in its most recent round of layoffs and restructuring.

TokyoPop already sells manga online via Zinio, but the rising popularity of the iPad and the need to make up for losses may be accelerating its move to support additional digital formats. It is not publicly known just how successful iPad manga has been for Viz, but with fewer and fewer places to buy manga at retail, digital may be the only avenue left for growth. For small publishers, digital may be a matter of life or death.

Viz iPad Manga Madness

March 1, 2011 /

I just received an email announcing Viz Manga Madness Month. To celebrate their 100th volume, Viz has cut the price of all volume 1 iPad manga to $0.99 for the month of March. This is a great deal for titles that are normally $4.99, but always being one to ask a gift horse lots of questions, first I wonder why. Then I wonder why shouldn’t each digital volume be $0.99 every month?

Previously, I’d wondered just how successful iPad exclusive digital manga could be given the probably small overlap between the manga reader and iPad owner demographics. Most iPad owners are older people who probably do not read Viz manga. And lately there have been a number of stories relating the difficulty of maintaining the readership of iPad magazine editions, such as Wired which after a great debut crashed spectacularly.

Viz Manga Madness Month

Viz Manga Madness Month

Not knowing anything else, the $0.99 volume 1 price is clearly intended to attract new readers to Viz’s iPad offerings. Current iPad edition readers would already have the first volume. So Viz is looking to dramatically increase readership and perhaps test the viability of the $0.99 price point.

I think the iPad is a great machine, but unfortunately this manga reader, like many others doesn’t own one. So while I wish Viz all the best in attracting new readers, I still hold out hope that they will release manga for the other popular eBook platforms as well. And of course, Viz does have a number of titles that can be read online, though mostly introductory volumes at this point.

With fewer and fewer bookstores in which to sell printed manga, coupled with a youth skewed demographic that cannot easily buy them online from Amazon, all roads point to digital manga.

© 2024 Learncrest

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑