Sony Makes Questionable Decision To Revive ‘Crunchyroll Manga’ App
Hot off the heels after former employees and distributors exposed Crunchyroll’s corrupt management, the streaming platform is relaunching the Crunchyroll Manga app.
Announced during Sony’s Consumer and Electronics show press conference, the revived app will give premium members access to the Crunchyroll Manga digital library of series from “multiple publishers.”
Originally launched in October 2013 in over 170 countries, Crunchyroll Manga gave subscribers access to a vast library, which consisted of several titles, such as Hiro Mashima’s Fairy Tail and Atsushi Ohkubo’s Fire Force manga. As part of Kodansha’s simulpub program, the app hosted popular ongoing series, including Ken Akamatsu’s UQ Holder! and Nakaba Suzuki’s Seven Deadly Sins and sequel Four Knights of the Apocalypse.
Crunchyroll Manga offered a manga-only subscription, which gave subscribers access to its entire library. At the time of this writing, it is unknown if the resurrected Crunchyroll Manga app will provide manga-only subscription or host simulpubs.
Starting in 2018, Kodansha began pulling series that completed its serialization off the app. Ultimately, Crunchyroll Manga met its demise in January 2023 when Kodansha terminated the beloved long-running simulpub program in favor of creating their own digital manga app, K-Manga.
On December 11th, 2023, ten years after the app launched, Crunchyroll terminated their manga app. In a statement to Anime News Network, the streaming platform claimed they were discontinuing the manga app, saying “As a part of Crunchyroll’s ongoing commitment to providing fans with the best experiences around their favorite series, we will be sunsetting the Crunchyroll manga application on December 11th across web and mobile. However, fans looking to discover new manga adventures can head over to the Crunchyroll Store, which now offers more than 17,000 manga across genres.”
Despite popular digital manga apps like Shueisha’s Manga Plus, Viz Media’s Shonen Jump and Viz Manga, Kodansha’s K-Manga, Comikey, etc., current Crunchyroll President Rahul Purini is confident the revived Crunchyroll Manga will be a “premiere online manga app that carries catalogs from renowned publishers, offering fans unparalleled access to the visionary works that inspire the anime we love.”
“Research shows that nearly 70% of anime fans read digital manga at least once a month, highlighting the immense demand for this medium,” he added. “Crunchyroll Manga will not only meet this growing interest but also fuel the continued global popularity of anime and manga alike.”
The revived Crunchyroll Manga launches later this year as a standalone app on iOS and Android in the U.S. and Canada.
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