Yen Plus Offers Free Online Manga!

Yen Press, the US publishing company that holds the rights to titles such as Yotsuba&K-ON! and Highschool of the Dead, has launched the online version of their monthly anthology magazine Yen Plus this week, replacing their now-defunct print edition. To celebrate this event, the August issue of the magazine is free, while any ongoing subscriptions will be $2.99 per month. The fact that this move occurs in the same week as the death of One Manga is perhaps only a coincidence, however with other publishing houses like Square Enix also putting content online, we may be seeing the beginning of a major shift in manga content distribution. What’s your opinion: are you along for the ride?

More after the jump.

Continue reading

Manga Aggregators: I Turn My Back

I-It's not that I like you or anything, MangaHelpers! Geez!

In recent weeks there have been numerous articles all over the interweb explaining the coming demise of manga aggregator websites.  All the big hitters in manga publishing have formed a “multi-national manga anti-piracy coalition“, aiming to stem the flow of un-authorised content distribution through popular websites such as MangaHelpers, One Manga, Mangafox etc. These websites became popular with readers because of how easily they could tap into the scanlations available online, display them all together on one webpage, and as a bonus the owners could charge some ad revenue as well. Now, MangaHelpers is the latest of websites to take the cue and jump ship after threats from the anti piracy coalition to threaten offending websites with legal action. More after the jump.

Continue reading