| The biggest anime convention in North America, Anime Expo, kicked off on July 4, and among the anime announcements there has also been plenty of digital manga news. First up is the announcement that Digital Manga, Inc., is teaming up with Tezuka Productions to release the entire catalog of Osamu Tezuka’s work in digital format worldwide. This is huge because Tezuka, who is known as the Godfather of Manga, is an influential creator with an enormous body of work. A number of his books have been published in English—you can find a list here—but the only digital release of his work in English has been Astro Boy Magazine, which Digital began running on its eManga site a few weeks ago. (Before that, Tezuka Productions, which holds the rights to all Tezuka’s manga, had an iPad app, but it was buggy and never caught on.) The “worldwide” part of that announcement is important—up till now, many manga licenses were for North America only. Viz, which publishes the American Shonen Jump, has also decided to share the love with the rest of the world: The English-language Shonen Jump will now be available in the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand via Apple’s Newsstand app; an Android version is in the works as well. (And don’t forget: Shonen Jump is running a special right now, cutting the subscription price from $25.99 to $19.99 for a year.) Meanwhile, Kodansha Comics, which has been steadily increasing its digital presence, had some news as well: Its books will be available on Kindle, Nook, Google Play, and iBooks as of July 16. Kodansha also has an iPad app. In terms of content, they are speeding up releases of Attack on Titan (one of their top sellers) to a volume a month, with simultaneous release on digital. Attack on Titan was a runaway bestseller in Japan and it has picked up considerable momentum among North American readers as well; there’s a preview and interview with the creator here if you’re curious. And here’s good news for fans of the time-travel anime Steins;Gate—the visual novel on which the anime is based will be released in English. A visual novel is a cross between a video game and a choose-your-own-adventure novel; the reader/player experiences the story as a series of static images and can make decisions at different points that change the story. Of course there’s a bootleg version already, but a translator on the project posted that the official version will be better than the unofficial one: “it looks nicer, the entire script has been redone, and through the wonder of engine access it also includes certain features that weren't present in the original game.” Digital News from Anime Expo: DMI Gets Tezuka Catalog, Kodansha Expands to E-Book Platforms is a post from: E-Reader News |
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Digital News from Anime Expo: DMI Gets Tezuka Catalog, Kodansha Expands to E-Book Platforms
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