Kodansha Launches K MANGA Platform for American Readers
Japanese publisher Kodansha Ltd., which is behind hits like Attack on Titan, Tokyo Revengers, Ghost in the Shell, and many more, has announced K MANGA, a digital service for American fans.
The app will become available in just under two months, on May 10. There is also going to be a full website launch, though that date has yet to be revealed. For now, a teaser site is live.
About 400 titles will be available at the launch, and these include titles in the action, thriller, isekai, romance, and fantasy genres. At least seventy of the titles are new, currently ongoing ones.
This news comes after Kodansha saw its manga sales triple in America during 2022. A number of digital manga options have popped up in part to fight piracy, because while many manga are selling, there are plenty more being pirated.
A press release explains:
“Chapters of popular manga in the U.S. currently ongoing in Japan, such as “EDENS ZERO,” “Blue Lock,” “Rent-A-Girlfriend,” “The Seven Deadly Sins: Four Knights of the Apocalypse”, and “Don’t Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro” will be available on K MANGA before any other competing platform.”
Other titles it promises to have include The Seven Deadly Sins, Fire Force and Chihayafuru.
It also promises to “deliver official translations by industry professionals familiar with each manga.”
The press release did not say how much this service will cost. It did say that there will be some limited, free manga to read for fans each day.
“The K MANGA team is committed to continually creating content within the K MANGA platform, bringing many brand new stories to U.S. readers as they are simultaneously distributed in Japan,” said Yuta Hiraoka, who is the project leader. “We hope that our audience will enjoy K MANGA through encountering many never-before-seen stories, becoming a fan of those stories, and then watching the journey of how those stories become popular.”
Source: Press Release
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Danica Davidson is the author of the bestselling Manga Art for Beginners with artist Melanie Westin, plus its sequel, Manga Art for Everyone, and the first-of-its-kind manga chalk book Chalk Art Manga, both illustrated by professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.
