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Digital manga suffers from a discovery issue. It is fairly hard to keep track of all of all of the new releases that come out on a weekly or monthly basis. There are plenty of apps that offer purchases for both Android and iOS. Online bookstores also have a extensive collection, and purchases can be made on your Kindle, Kobo, Nook, or Tolino e-readers. Where are the best places online to read free or licensed manga? Being able to do this will give you a chance to get invested in characters or stories, before you start buying multiple volumes.
VIZ Media is the largest distributor in North America and has apps for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch and Android. You can read plenty of free titles and also purchase manga o offering full volumes for $4.99 to $5.99. This catalogue includes manga of their popular series, and new volumes are added as they are released in book stores for some of the more popular series. Viz operates a number of websites. Shonen Sunday’s online English anthology, which has free online serializations, and some sample chapters. Shonen Sunday takes chapters down once in the print edition is out, but it’s great for those reading the books or who want to sample a large chunk of a series. SIGIKKI features titles from the Ikki line of books. Chapters are posted online then taken down when print edition is out. Free, ad-based website. Shojo Beat has free chapter 1 previews of most, if not all their series. Just click on the series name in the list, then click “Online Manga” at the top of the page. Meanwhile, on VizManga, their entire iPad catalogue can now be read/purchased on the web at this site! Finally, Viz has one of the best subscription services.
Go Manga Seven Seas serializes several titles online as webmanga, which you can check out on their homepage, generally new volumes of their original titles. As they own digital rights to thee titles, they also sell completed series on several e-reader device. If you click through their original properties, you’ll see links for downloads in Nook, Kindle and ITunes formats.>
E-Manga offers a multitude of genres, from Action to Seinen, Mainstream, Slice of life, Drama, Romance and many more. Their library includes titles from Digital Manga’s most popular imprints, as well as our partnered publishers like Tezuka Productions, Media Factory and SoftBank Creative (Harlequin Romance manga). They also carry DMG imprint, which are series’ localized by fans for fans. This service has plenty of free titles and free downloads and primarily cater to the English market.
Netcomics offers serialized manga online. Many titles skew towards fangirls , but there’s also some Shojo, Shonen and Seinen Korean works along with some Japanese manga. It’s an online manga rental service, the first chapter is free, then you can rent a volume for a 25 cents a chapter, and access it for 48 hours. The company also has a small print line, and puts out books infrequently, depending on the demand for a given title.
Yen Press Yen Press is a joint venture between Kadokawa Corporation and Hachette Book Group, dedicated to publishing manga and graphic novels for adults and young readers. Founded in 2006, Yen Press has quickly risen to become one of the largest and most prolific publishers of manga and original graphic novels in the North American marketplace and has become a driving force in the introduction of light novels to new readers through its Yen On imprint. You can mainly download free content on their apps or via Comixology.
NTT Solmare They’ve been at the cellphone manga market game for years, and lately have been putting out a lot of content. A lot of it has never been released in english before, and includes genres not translated often, as well as some manga created specifically for cell phones like new full color Cobra manga.
Comic Walker primarily offers free titles of Neon Genesis Evangelion, High School DxD, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin. the company is notable for its no-nonsense, no-strings-attached approach. This is the place to go if all you want to do is read manga without hassle. You can read almost all of their titles right in your internet browser.
Book Walker offers plenty of free manga, but you can also pay per issue. It is run by Kadokawa and is a one-stop shop for legal and official digital comics from Japan. The service now includes all the popular publishers, including Viz, Kodansha, and Yen. It offers some bestselling titles such as Attack on Titan, No Game No Life, Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World.
Crunchyroll Manga offers hundreds of free titles, which are often the first few volumes in some well known franchises. They also develop their own digital content too. You can subscribe to just the manga service alone, which gives you full and unlimited access to everything. Alternatively, if you already subscribe to their anime streaming service, you get full access to the manga free. You primarily read the manga in your internet browser.
Wrap Up
There are hundreds of free manga websites out there. Just Googling this pulls up thousands of search results. The comprehensive list that Good e-Reader has provided, represent the largest sites, that are very well known. Most of them all have stuff you have heard about before, but also has some great stuff, just waiting for you. If you have an excellent site, that is not on our list, comment below.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Filed Under: Digital Manga and Anime News