Shueisha starts free online distribution of popular manga in English, except in East Asia

Comic book publisher Shueisha Inc. has started free online distribution in English of some of its popular series in the hope of tapping new markets.

Through the Manga Plus website and app, which will also be available in Spanish in coming months, readers will be able to access 38 current serial titles published in Shueisha magazines, including the pirate adventure “One Piece,” simultaneously with their release in Japan.

The online service also offers 13 completed series, including famous adventure manga “Dragon Ball.” It is available around the world except in Japan, China and South Korea, where similar services already exist.

In addition to attracting new manga fans in regions such as Latin America and Africa, the service is aimed at countering piracy through swift distribution, Shueisha said Monday.

Part of the advertising revenue will be used to support manga creators, it said.

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

LATEST NATIONAL STORIES

Revealed: What happened, physically, to the city of Hiroshima after the A-bomb

Everyone in Japan knows what happened on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945. At 8:15 a.m. a nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The city had been spared conventional bombing by the United States so tha...

UNESCO lists Kobushi mountains spanning Tokyo and three other prefectures as biosphere reserve

UNESCO on Wednesday added the Kobushi mountain region, which straddles part of Tokyo and three other prefectures, to its list of biosphere reserves, Japanese officials said. As of July last year...

Japan sees record number of foreign visitors for May

The estimated number of foreign visitors to Japan in May rose 3.7 percent from a year earlier to 2,773,100, an all-time high for the month, as there were more tourists from the United States, Eu...