Shopping Guide
VIZ Media, a company that translates Japanese manga for the North American audience, has announced that starting in January 2013, it will begin a new phase of its digital English version of the Japanese manga magazine Weekly Shonen Jump, called Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha. Unprecedentedly, the magazine will be available online on the same day the Japanese version releases. VIZ Media has also began digitally distributing a free version of Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha. Up until now, English readers had to wait until two weeks after the release of the Japanese version to get the English version. However, on Jan. 21, 2013, the waiting will be over as both versions will begin to be released simultaneously.
The six titles that will be included in VIZ Media’s simultaneous distribution of Shonen Jump are Bleach, Cross Manage, Naruto, Nisekoi, One Piece, and Toriko. Other titles from Jump Square and V Jump, including The Blue Exorcist, Rurouni Kenshin - Kinema-ban, and Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal, will also be included. Moving forward, VIZ Media plans to expand their lineup even further.
With this experiment, VIZ Media hopes to quell fans’ long held desire to be able to read their favorite Japanese manga in English on the day they are released in Japan. VIZ Media also aims to acquire many online readers and cut down on the amount of bootlegged editions of manga on the internet. Releasing works in North America on the same day is in Japan is already underway for anime, with many internet anime sites adopting this popular style. As with anime, less bootlegged versions means more paying viewers, and VIZ Media is trying to imitate this with their new manga distribution service. On the other hand though, keeping up with the speed at which printed manga magazines are produced has been a difficult undertaking. VIZ Media plans to capitalize on the strengths of digital distribution to stave off such pitfalls.
Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha is available for an appealing yearly price (50 magazines) of US$25.99. We can’t wait to see how this monumental undertaking fares among manga fans. Keep an eye out for it this January!
VIZ Media: http://www.viz.com/
Official site for Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha: http://SJAlpha.com
This article contains translated excerpts from: http://animeanime.jp/article/2012/11/27/12194.html (Japanese)