October 28, 2013
Assembled Extra: Crunchyroll Manga Set To Debut October 30
I've kind of been scrambling to catch up with
this story about the Crunchyroll site partnering with Kodansha for a targeted digital manga service featuring a significant number of same-day releases. That launches tomorrow. Here's
PW. Here's
CBR. Here's
Anime News Network.
The details of what's available bear noting, because until tomorrow when the thing goes live it's how we picture it. Crunchyroll Manga will launch with 12 series available, including
Attack On Titan. The works will be made available in 170 countries, including the US and UK (Japan, China a trio of key European markets are excluded). Any device that functions with some sort of web browser should provide you access. There will be an ad-driven free option and a ad-free + access to the back catalog subscriber's option. The subscription fee will by $4.99 per month but the service will be available for free to premium subscribers for Crunchyroll's anime offerings. A significant expansion of the titles available is planned during the first year of availability.
One of the things that North American comics have started to do that feels right is that they've moved away -- if only a bit -- from thinking about different services cutting into the same pie and thinking of various options as their own unique revenue streams. This new service strikes me as playing a way different role vis-a-vis individual offerings and the various ways in which Kodansha's titles are currently available in print and as e-books. It suggests another consumption trigger, targeting a consumer that might respond more directly to having a lot of work available at once in addition to select titles, or is comfortable enough using sites like Crunchyroll that getting some of the newer titles in the course of getting a bunch to them seems like a smart way to go. Given the tremendous backlog of these companies
and their ability to put out a lot of work every week
and the consumption pattern dictated by less legal (or if you prefer, simply less directly profitable to the publishers and creators) ways of getting to these comics like scanlation sites, the project makes a lot of advance sense.
posted 11:50 pm PST |
Permalink
Daily Blog Archives
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
Full Archives