JManga - The first legal online manga site

**FenixMarco** · 03-27-2011, 04:35 AM

ANN Source
JManga's official site
This looks to be the first legal scanlation site for manga and from that ANN lineup, it looks promising.

Coming this spring!

Originally Posted by stephen

Keep in mind that this is all being set up in an incredible rush and many aspects of it are still being negotiated. When you consider that these negotiations are happening between the company that is organizing the project and 30+ Japanese publishers, you can imagine there will be plenty of chaos.

All of the major companies (Shueisha, Shogakukan, Kodansha, etc.) will be using their licensed English editions organized through Viz, Tokyopop, Del Rey, Dark Horse, and so on. The smaller companies will likely have a choice of options for translations, including some truly cut-rate sources on the cheap end, so I'm afraid there will be the possibility of some really piss-poor work out there. I realize that bone-chillingly terrible translations never stopped people from reading scanlations before, but when you're talking about charging money for it...let's just say the future of this endeavor is tenuous at best.

At any rate, it's an interesting gamble, and whether it succeeds or not, it's a monumental step toward a future equilibrium when it comes to the comics market.

Originally Posted by BigLuffy559

The original announcement from back in November said that the portal was for North America and the JManga beta main page is in English, so I think it will have translated manga.

**Raymond Agustin** · 03-27-2011, 09:30 AM

Question : Is it free?

I've heard of this awhile back, but I didn't even bother because OneManga was still up and running at that time. If this is the site that I was told or w/e, so is it free, does it need membership or anything?

**Sangaz** · 03-27-2011, 10:51 AM

If the publishers are working with them, then I just hope that it doesn't delay the release of the actual volumes.
Releases for a lot of the manga I buy are already slow as it is, thanks to Kodansha being busy sorting shit out after they took over Del Rey's releases.

Oh, and if this JManga does happen to charge a fee in order to read the scanlations then I don't know why anyone wouldn't just buy the volumes instead and have something tangible for their money. 'Course if it's free then It'll be good for people who are far away from payday and can't afford any new volumes.

**kuroihikari** · 03-27-2011, 11:13 AM

Originally Posted by Sangaz

Oh, and if this JManga does happen to charge a fee in order to read the scanlations then I don't know why anyone wouldn't just buy the volumes instead and have something tangible for their money.

It could be cheaper. Also, there are countries (like mine) where updated volumes of manga are unavailable.

You're right about the "having something tangible". It's gonna be hard for them to show official scanlations without internet douches tainting the name of fan scanlations like what HorribleSubs et. al. did to fansubs, so they'll probably not have anything available for download. They have to offer something extra.

**FenixMarco** · 03-27-2011, 11:52 AM

Originally Posted by Raymond Agustin

Question : Is it free?

I've heard of this awhile back, but I didn't even bother because OneManga was still up and running at that time. If this is the site that I was told or w/e, so is it free, does it need membership or anything?

Supposedly it is free, the first time they mentioned it they said that. The link is in the second quote.

**daz bonez** · 03-27-2011, 12:02 PM

It goes by a point system to purchase manga:
Current Balance: 0 Points
$5.00 (500 Points)
$10.00 (1000 Points)
$25.00 (2500 Points)
Currently the average price for what they call a chapter (50pages or so) is 899 Points or so...

wha..thats to expensive.i wouldn`t want to pay that much for reading manga online.......bummer.

**FenixMarco** · 03-27-2011, 12:04 PM

Where did you get that from? This is what it said on the site.

Update 3: The industry news site animeanime.biz reports that the portal site will distribute free manga periodically and release news and information regarding manga from the participating publishers.

Source: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news...n-manga-portal

**daz bonez** · 03-27-2011, 01:06 PM

HUH.i got it from someone from the Ann forums.

so it`s free.

i hope the scanlation and translation quality is more better than the "underground" sites.