New online manga service features 200 titles:
Mobile Suit Gundam and Evangelion with color pages.
FULL UPDATE INFO
Kadokawa, one of Japan’s largest publishers, is almost ready to roll out its new online manga service, dubbed Comic Walker.
As we get closer to Comic Walker’s March 22 launch, more and more details are coming to light about the service for smartphone and tablet users. It certainly isn’t hurting for content, as Kadokawa representative executive director Shinichiro Inoue announced 200 titles will be initially available.
The majority of these will be selected from the 23 comic anthologies Kadokawa currently publishes, such as Shonen Ace and Young Ace. 50 series, though, will be original Comic Walker productions that will make their debut through the service.
While the official list of manga that will be available on March 22 has yet to be announced, a peek at Comic Walker’s teaser site shows characters from perennial hits Evangelion and Mobile Suit Gundam, plus cult classics Suzumiya Haruhi and Sergeant Frog. More recent titles include Haganai/I Have Few Friends and Accel World, and even manga with currently airing TV anime adaptations such as Nobunaga the Fool, D-Frag!, and Tonari no Seki-kun.
The publisher promises that with a single tap the dialogue for supported comics can be cycled through Japanese, English, and Chinese, with sound effects ostensibly left in the original Japanese text, just the way overseas manga purists like them.
Hideaki Furubayashi, the Kadokawa executive in charge of the Comic Walker project, says that in the future he hopes to add French language options to the service’s manga as well, and not just for readers in the pre-established manga stronghold of the French market. “There are a large number of French speakers in Africa, but there isn’t an established network of manga selling bookstores there,” he explained. “With this service, we can supply Japanese comics to readers there as well.”
As we mentioned above, Comic Walker is a free service, but of course this means a bit of a compromise on the part of the reader in terms of availability. For continuing series, the first three chapters can be read at any time, a decision Kadokawa made in order to lower entry barriers for new readers to established franchises. The big draw for fans who are already following a series is that two weeks after a print collection goes on sale, its contents become viewable on Comic Walker, and remain so until the next collected volume is released.
Kadokawa is apparently aware of the fact that some older titles don’t feature the trendiest designs, and that for the biggest hits, many people have already read the material being offered through the new digital service. In response, the publisher is planning spruced-up Comic Walker versions of Mobile Suit Gundam and Evangelion with color pages, something extremely rare in the world of Japanese comics.
[via rocketnews24]