Andy Nakatani, Editor-in-chief of VIZ Media’s Weekly Shonen Jump digital magazine, has revealed on Monday more details on the upcoming launch of the new English-language Shonen Jump digital manga service.
The upcoming service will be adding the sports manga Haikyuu!!, dark fantasy manga Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba and supernatural manga Jujutsu Kaisen, which will be released simultaneous with Japan.
The service will also be adding “Jump Start” manga titles as a part of their line-up, including Tatsuya Matsuki and Shiro Usazaki’s Act-Age, Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Chainsaw Man, Tomohide Hirao and Mizuki Yoda’s ne0;lation, and Natsuki Hokami’s Gokutei Higuma.
Nakatani also announced that they will continue their simultaneous release of manga titles coming from Shueisha’s VJUMP, JUMP SQ. and Jump Plus magazines, bumping their simultaneous releases to 25 titles.
In addition, Nakatani also announced that Weekly Shonen Jump titles will now be released Every Sundays at 12:00pm US Pacific Time (Monday mornings at 04:00am Philippine time), while non-Weekly Shonen Jump titles will now be released on the same day the latest chapters will be released in Japan.
North American anime and manga distributor VIZ Media has announced last week that their English-language Shonen Jump magazine will be relaunched into a digital manga service.
The latest chapters of all ongoing manga titles, including One Piece, My Hero Academia, Boruto and The Promised Neverland, will be released on the same day as Japan and available to everyone for free starting December 17.
The manga distributor has offered several manga titles, which are released simultaneously with Japan for free, such as Dragon Ball Super and Boys Over Flowers Season 2.
The publication of the English-language Weekly Shonen Jump digital magazine has now been discontinued, and their issue for December 10, 2018 will be its final issue.
VIZ Media also announced a new membership plan where paid members will have access to their digital vault, featuring over 10,000 chapters of back catalogue, for only USD1.99 (under PHP110) per month with a 7-day free trial offer, also starting December 17.
Existing Shonen Jump monthly members will be transferred to the new price scheme, while annual subscribers will be given three (3) additional months at the end of their current subscription period.
There will be no annual subscription rate in the new service. Members can only read up to 100 chapters per day, which will reset at 12:00am US Pacific Time (04:00pm Philippine time) of the next day.
The new digital manga service will be available to the following territories: United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Singapore, India and the Philippines.
You may visit their website at shonenjump.com, or download their mobile apps on iOS and Google Play Store.
The English-language version of Shonen Jump started in November 2002 as a monthly print anthology, which is in contrast to the weekly print publication of the original Japanese magazine.
The print publication had published its final edition in April 2012, where VIZ Media transitioned its focus to their weekly digital manga anthology, initially known as Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha, that launched three months earlier.
The digital magazine has started its global expansion in 2013, where it became available for purchase in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
In 2016, the magazine had expanded its reach much further, with the addition of India, Singapore and the Philippines.
Some of the titles that are currently being published in the digital magazine include Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, Blue Exorcist, One Piece, My Hero Academia, Boruto, and most recently, We Never Learn (Bokutachi wa Benkyo ga Dekinai).
USD1.00 = PHP52.61, as of December 14, 2018.
