Crunchyroll Manga app officially announced for North American launch

Modified Jan 08, 2025 19:00 GMT

Crunchyroll Manga app officially announced for North American launch (Image via Crunchyroll)

Tuesday, January 7, 2025, saw Crunchyroll officially announce the launching of its new manga reader app called Crunchyroll Manga in the United States and Canada, or North America. The app will at first only offer manga in English with plans for the app to roll out in other languages later on. Likewise, it’s also expected (but not confirmed) that this linguistic expansion will be accompanied by a regional one.

Crunchyroll also confirmed that the Crunchyroll Manga app will also expand to allow for web browser integration, similar to Shueisha’s MANGA Plus app and web page. No information has been revealed regarding pricing or what titles will be available through the app as of this article’s writing. This news was announced by Crunchyroll at Sony’s Consumer Electronics Show press conference on Monday, January 6, 2025.

Crunchyroll Manga app to revive Crunchyroll’s currently defunct manga reader services

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The Crunchyroll Manga name may sound familiar to some, and rightfully so, for it’s the name that the company’s first manga reader service had when launching in October 2013. At the time, the service simultaneously published (or simulpubbed) titles from Kodansha USA Publishing in over 170 different countries. However, Crunchyroll later began removing titles from the service, starting with 14 simulpub titles and 10 catalog titles in February and March 2018, respectively.

Kodansha USA Publishing then voluntarily removed a number of its own manga titles from Crunchyroll in January 2023. The publisher issued a statement to Crunchyroll which accredited these removals to “changes” in its simulpub distribution program. Crunchyroll ended its first service in December 2023. In March 2023, Kodansha USA Publishing announced its K Manga platform, which launched in the United States in May 2023.

With all of this in mind, it’s unclear what direction the new Crunchyroll Manga reader will go in at the time of this article’s writing. While the company has announced that it will reveal “a list of titles and publishers in the future,” it’s difficult to predict which publishers and series will collaborate. Kodansha will presumably not be a part of the new platform considering it cut ties with Crunchyroll relatively recently to launch its own manga reader app.

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One likely publisher to be heavily involved with the platform is Shueisha, which likely works closest with Crunchyroll out of all major manga publishers. It’s also one of the only major publishers with which Crunchyroll has a relationship going outside the context of simply licensing anime adaptations for distribution.

Shueisha also stands to gain the most by partnering with Crunchyroll since its MANGA Plus platform is considered the benchmark for contemporary manga reader platforms. More likely than not, Shueisha’s expected presence on the new Crunchyroll Manga app will be very similar to its approach to the MANGA Plus platform.