I had a different post planned for today, but when I went to read my weekly shonen jump manga this weekend I was given this pop-up on my screen:
This surprised me, and I had already not heard anyone else talk about it. I’m well aware that most people read manga on websites and apps that aren’t official. I used to do that, but out of a combination of laziness and the app that I was primarily using shutting down, it kind of stopped. The only things I keep up with nowadays are webtoons, the shonen jump manga that I was already up to date with and some manga that I read on a volume by volume basis like Wave, Listen to me, Yuru Camp and Eden’s Zero.
Reading manga legally in the west, especially Europe, has been difficult throughout the years and for this reason I simply never bothered to do so. But now Manga Plus, the official app by Shueisha is finally giving us the beginnings of a legal manga reader in the west.
My personal hope is that this ends up being a successful move by them and they keep expanding their offer here to other titles as well.
For now you can only read currently ongoing titles on the app, and every chapter only once. I hope they have a good system in place for closing down mid-chapter or the app crashing, but even putting that aside, this is huge! One Piece, Black Clover, Jujutsu Kaisen and many more great series freely available to read. I just wanted everyone who reads this blog to be aware of it, and please use the app where possible so hopefully they see how profitable it can be and give us more easy access to legal manga. I don’t want to have to go back to advertisement ridden websites with poor upload quality.
And let me know if you recommend anything that’s available. I’m definitely going to read Jujutsu Kaisen and maybe Dr. Stone as well. Thanks for reading!
Opal Kaharis 