Welcome to the digital manga Third World

Written by A. H. on 10 Apr 2013

When news broke of digital manga storefront JManga closing its doors almost a month ago, it made for a rather depressing start to that day - not just because it's a service that we'd both championed to some degree here at UK Anime and enjoyed (for all of its flaws, but that's another story), but because it brought a rather horrible realisation to bear upon me about the current state of digital manga in the UK.

As much as I found myself lamenting the loss of very specific titles on JManga that I had either never gotten around to reading (a few stray bookmarks are still lurking in my web browser even as I write this) or had been enjoying and can now longer access legally, the most pressing question that popped into my head was, and remains, "where do I go instead to get my digital manga fix?"

The answer to that question? Well, welcome to the UK, part of the digital manga Third World.

While we aren't completely bereft of digital services that provide manga in this particular territory - Facebook-based service Amimaru covers up with their small subset of offerings for example - look towards the major manga publishers and you get the feeling that there's little interest in ensuring that British customers are served.

At the top of this tree decorated with digital frustration is Viz Media, who are offering up an ever-more impressive digital catalogue from their efforts with Shonen Jump through to the availability of more and more of their back catalogue digitally. How much of that can we legally access from the UK? None. Are there plans to bring this service to the UK? Well, we've been hearing lots of lip service about them doing so for a couple of years now, but not a single iota of hard evidence that this is actually happening.

Perhaps even more galling recently are Yen Press - aside from their globally available Yen Plus magazine which offers up chapters of given manga series as part of its subscription, recent weeks have seen the company (quite sensibly, in the grand scheme of things) release a couple of items in digital-only form - the first new chapter of Highschool of the Dead, and the translation of horror novel series Another. Even in the former case, where the chapter is available via Amazon's Kindle service, the UK is geographically blocked from buying and accessing that content.

Thankfully, it isn't all bad news in terms of acquiring digital manga - Vertical are starting to build up their digital catalogue which appears to include UK availability on the Kindle Store, and other publishers such as Dark Horse Comics, Gen Manga and DMP have offerings which are available here. Then there's Comixology of course - not a great source of manga, but still a great service which has something to offer fans, most notably some of Shotaro Ishinomori's work.

However, the lack of UK presence exhibited by some of the major players in the western market when it comes to digital rights is a potentially disturbing one when you look at the long-term view. With paper and print still ruling the roost for most manga readers, all seems well at present - you can't region lock a piece of paper or prevent books being shipped overseas after all - but what happens when digital becomes the standard reading format, as it inevitably will someday? There's a real risk that manga fandom in countries like the UK will dwindle to the point of near-death if we remain in a situation where swathes of material are blocked from access - casual fans or the curious would-be fan won't be interested in jumping through hoops to get their hands on items of interest, meaning that they'll either turn to illegal means to read what they want or simply give up.

Of course, solving this particular problem isn't a simple one by any means - the UK is still a tiny market in the grand scheme of things, licensing rights aren't getting any simpler in terms of territorial restrictions and stipulations, and there are still question marks over how to make digital content profitable in a sustainable fashion. They are problems that have to be solved though, and sooner rather than later if digital manga is to thrive in the UK, lest our Third World become a barren wasteland for readers.

To Viz Media and Yen Press in particular - the ball is in your court. We have money to spend on your digital offerings, if only you'd accept it.

- Andy Hanley