Azuki The New Digital Manga Service

Date: 2021 June 18 20:26

Posted by Joe

It's just been announced that from Monday 28th June 2021, a new legal digital manga service will be launched. Azuki, named after the red bean often used in sweet treats promises to be a new digital manga cafe. It'll be launched on Web, iOS, and Android.

The service will deliver hundreds of manga after they hit stores in Japan It will offer content for both free and subscription users. With free users able to access select chapters with ads, while pay monthly subscribers can pay $4.99 (USD) to read the catalogue without any ads.

The service will be available worldwide in English (excluding Japan). They've currently got a publishing partnership with Kodansha USA Publishing. Titles currently include Attack on Titan, Tokyo Revengers, Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, Chi's Sweet Home, Fairy Tail, Flying Witch, Gleipnir and many more.

At 5 dollars a month, the service pays for itself after reading the first volume. It promises high quality content and it's great to be able to officially support manga publishers this way. We're looking forward to trying out the service in a few weeks.

It's interesting how official manga subscription services are getting more competition. Viz Media has it's own Shonen Jump Manga & Comics app for $1.99 (USD) a month, which is a must if you want some Chainsaw Man or My Hero Academia. While similar competitor Mangamo has a similar partnership with Kodansha and also charges $4.99 (USD) a month.

While anime streaming service Crunchyroll also has it's own official manga service.

Full Story

Press release as follows:



PRESS RELEASE: Digital Manga Service Azuki Coming to Web, iOS, and Android on June 28

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Azuki is a new digital manga service offering hundreds of manga chapters soon after they hit stores in Japan, officially licensed and in high quality. The service will launch on June 28, 2021 on Web, iOS, and Android and will offer content for both free and subscription users. Free users will be able to access select chapters with advertisements, while those who pay a monthly subscription fee of $4.99 can read Azuki's expansive catalog with no ads. Comment threads are available on each chapter for registered users to discuss the stories with fellow fans.

At launch, Azuki will be available in English worldwide excluding Japan, so fans everywhere can read manga in their web browser or on their mobile devices.

Azuki has announced their first publisher partnership, with Kodansha USA Publishing. Titles available at launch include worldwide hits like Attack on Titan, Tokyo Revengers, and Fairy Tail, as well as critical darlings like Land of the Lustrous and Chihayafuru. Simulpub titles, including To Your Eternity, EDENS ZERO, Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, and A Sign of Affection, will go live on the website and apps shortly after their Japanese release. Fans can also catch up on classic Kodansha titles like Battle Angel Alita, Chi's Sweet Home, and Love Hina. The full list of titles is included below.

"We started Azuki to create a place where fans like us can come together in our shared passion for manga," said Abbas Jaffery, co-founder and CEO. "Our goal is to not only reach the manga fans of today but to expand readership of manga as a whole by making it easier for everyone to experience all the wonderfully inventive stories manga has to offer. Kodansha shares in our vision for the future and has been an important ally in bringing Azuki to fruition."

"We're excited to be on the ground floor of this new digital manga service to help expand the worldwide reach of our amazing manga titles," said Alvin Lu, President and CEO of Kodansha USA Publishing. "We are very much aligned with Azuki's mission of expanding manga readership, and are happy to help this launch with such fan-favorite series like Attack on Titan, Battle Angel Alita, EDENS ZERO, Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, and more! We're sure you'll find a new favorite series by diving into the Kodansha catalog on Azuki."

Readers can sign up to be reminded when the service launches by visiting https://azuki.co/ or following Azuki's social media accounts at twitter.com/ReadAzuki, facebook.com/ReadAzuki, and instagram.com/readazuki.

About Azuki and KiraKira Media Inc.

Azuki is created by KiraKira Media Inc., a proudly worker-owned business dedicated to improving access to legally licensed manga, led by a small team of passionate manga fans and tech experts in San Francisco, CA. KiraKira Media Inc.'s founders are Adela Chang, Abbas Jaffery, Evan Minto, and Krystyn Neisess.

About Kodansha USA Publishing, LLC

A subsidiary of Kodansha, Japan's largest publisher, Kodansha USA Publishing is the English-language publisher of some of the world's most recognizable manga properties, including Katsuhiro Otomo's AKIRA and Naoko Takeuchi's Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, along with a robust catalog of English-language Japanese novels, cookbooks, craft guides, historical and cultural literature, and more. Today, thanks to recent fan-favorite and critically acclaimed hits like Attack on Titan, Battle Angel Alita, Witch Hat Atelier, and the popular MONOGATARI novels, Kodansha USA Publishing is one of the best-selling manga publishers in the United States. Kodansha USA Publishing's print offerings are distributed by Penguin Random House Publisher Services, and their digital manga and select digital books are available across a number of digital comics, manga, and book vendors. For more information visit kodansha.us.

Full List of Titles Available on Azuki

A Sign of Affection
Ace of the Diamond
Again!!
Aho-Girl
Air Gear
Ajin Demi-Human
Alicia's Diet Quest
ALIVE
All Out!!
All-Rounder Meguru
Ao-chan Can't Study
Aoba-kun's Confessions
APOSIMZ
Are You Lost?
Arisa
As Gods Will The Second Series
ASHIDAKA -The Iron Hero-
Atsumori-kun's Bride-to-Be
Attack on Titan
Attack on Titan Anthology
Attack on Titan Before the Fall
Attack on Titan Junior High
Ayanashi
Basilisk
Battle Angel Alita
Battle Angel Alita Last Order
Battle Angel Alita Mars Chronicle
Beauty Bunny
Beware the Kamiki Brothers!
Black Panther and Sweet 16
BLAME!
BLAME! Academy and So On
Bloody Monday
Boarding School Juliet
Cage of Eden
Can I Kiss You Every Day?
Can You Just Die My Darling?
Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card
Cells at Work
Chi's Sweet Home
Chihayafuru
Clockwork Planet
Complex Age
COPPELION
DAYS
DEATHTOPIA
Defying Kurosaki-kun
Descending Stories
Devils' Line
Domestic Girlfriend
Drifting Dragons
Drowning Love
EDENS ZERO
Elegant Yokai Apartment Life
Fairy Girls
Fairy Tail
Fairy Tail 100 Years Quest
Fairy Tail Blue Mistral
Fairy Tail City Hero
Fairy Tail Ice Trail
Fairy Tail S
Fire Force
Flowers of Evil
Flying Witch
Fort of Apocalypse
FukuFuku Kitten Tales
Full-Time Wife Escapist
Fuuka
Gakuen Prince
Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex
Giant Killing
Gleipnir
Golosseum
Goodbye! I'm Being Reincarnated!
Grand Blue Dreaming
Happiness
Heroic Legend of Arslan
Hotaru's Way
House of the Sun
Hozuki's Coolheadedness
I Am Here
I Want to Hold Aono-kun so Badly I Could Die
I'm in Love and It's the End of the World
I'm Standing on a Million Lives
In/Spectre
Interviews With Monster Girls
Inuyashiki
Kakafukaka
Kakushigoto: My Dad's Secret Ambition
Kamikamikaeshi
Karate Heat
Kasane
Kira-kun Today
Kiss for Real
Kiss Him Not Me
Kiss Me at the Stroke of Midnight
Kitchen Princess
Knights of Sidonia
Kokkoku Moment by Moment
Land of the Lustrous
LDK
Let's Dance a Waltz
Love and Lies
Love Hina
Love In Focus
Love Massage: Melting Beauty Treatment
Magatsuki
Magical Sempai
Manga Dogs
Mardock Scramble
Missions of Love
My Boss's Kitten
My Boy in Blue
My Boyfriend in Orange
My Little Monster
My Sweet Girl
My Wife Is Wagatsuma-san
Mysterious Girlfriend X
Negima!
Nekogahara
Nodame Cantabile
Noragami
O Maidens in Your Savage Season
Our Fake Marriage
Our Precious Conversations
Parasyte
Peach Girl
Peach Heaven
Pitch-Black Ten
Prince in His Dark Days
Princess Jellyfish
Princess Resurrection
Pumpkin Scissors
Rave Master
Real Account
Real Girl
Sankarea
Say I Love You.
Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei
School Rumble
Seven Deadly Sins: Four Knights of the Apocalypse
Shangri-La Frontier
Sherlock Bones
Shojo Fight
Shugo Chara
Shugo Chara Chan
Silent Voice
Smile Down the Runway
Space Brothers
Spoof on Titan
Springtime with Ninjas
Starving Anonymous
Suzuka
Sweetness and Lightning
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
That Wolf-Boy Is Mine
The Ghost in the Shell: The Human Algorithm
The Knight Cartoonist and Her Orc Editor
The Quintessential Quintuplets
To The Abandoned Sacred Beasts
To Your Eternity
Tokyo Revengers
Tokyo Tarareba Girls
Toppu GP
Tsuredure Children
Until Your Bones Rot
UQ Holder
Wake Up Sleeping Beauty
Walls Between Us
Watari-kun's ****** Is about to Collapse
Wave, Listen to Me!
Welcome to the Ballroom
Yagyu Ninja Scrolls
Yamada-kun and Seven Witches
Your Lie in April
Yozakura Quartet