New Manga Service Mangamo Launch App

Exciting news today for the Manga market as new service enter’s the industry – Mangamo. The company have just released their iOS app worldwide allowing users to read over 100 titles, many available for the first time in English.

For a limited time, a free 2-month trial is currently available, after which users will be able to subscribe to the service for £4.49 ($4.99). With partnerships with Kodansha, North Star Pictures and 9 other publishers (who go unnamed in the press release) and over 300 titles planned for release over the next three months, the service has a lot to offer those looking to read manga legally. 

Right now there are 132 manga titles on Mangamo, which are a combination of on-going and completed series as well as one-shots. Most of the titles have between 6-10 chapters available with more being added daily, although there is currently no schedule to find out when your favourite will be updated.

Notable among the titles on offer are Somali and the Forest SpiritArteFire Force, Attack on Titan and Battle Angel Alita. There are also several titles that were previously only available on Manga Club, which is certainly nice to see. One major title readers may be interested in is Dropkick on My Devil!, a popular series that has gone unlicensed until today! A complete list of the titles can be found below as well as the number of chapters Mangamo has for them:

Title Chapters
29-Year-Old In the Service Industry 1
52hz Hertz Travely Agency 4
A Classroom Bereft of Angels 10
A Sea Breeze From Antares 1
A Transparent Fever 1
A Wish 1
A.D.A 10
AI in the AI 3
Akatsuki Babies! 8
An impossible Romance with You 4
Angel of Medicine! 7
Another Side of You 1
Apples of the Queen 6
Arte 7
Astrological Story 10
Attack on Titan 4
Bangyaloop 6
Battle Angel Alita 6
Belial Lady 3
Black999 2
Bloody Steam 8
Broken Planet 9
Canvas Under the Overpass 4
Changing Fates 9
Chika’s Forest 22
Conditions of the Wicked 6
Control Love 10
Daily Meteor Strike 6
Dead or Strike 5
Deadly Paradise 7
Death Support Center 6
devil-chi 5
Different Nation 9
Do It or Die 5
Dragon Eye 12
Dreams Take Flight 1
Dropkick on My Devil! 10
Ekikoi: The Young Miss Falls for the Station Attendant 5
Equites 22
Eternity of Creation 5
Fairytale Farce 7
Fallens 14
Fire Fire Fire Black Sword 6
Fire Force 5
Float City 5
Full Moonlight 8
Garuda 6
Go to Helln 5
Haita The Invisible 4
Haruko Unbreakable! 5
Helltopia 5
Hinako’s My Wife?! 3
Horror At Doll’s Village 6
House of High Stakes 5
How I Lost My Large Intestine 4
Hunt or Hunted 5
I Fell in Love, So I”m Streaming It 2
I Wanna Be Your Girl 6
Imortal Undertaker 7
in Another World …. with Champagne!!! 4
Into the Labyrinth 8
Invasion: RPG 7
It All Ends in Summer 1
Kanata & Konata 7
Karemane! My Boyfriend is My Manger 4
Keshin 24
Kitty’s Diaries 9
Kurozakuro 3
Kybernetes 5
Leave It To Sero! 1
Leaving Our Truths to the Shooting Stars 4
Life-Saver Jailbreak: Doctor Enma 7
Living with the Insects 3
Loving Yamada At LV999 4
Madmen 7
Maison Q 1
Maria x Maria 38
Masuda’s Got a Hold on Shibata 3
Matching Our Answers 11
Me. Myself & Incomplete 7
Memento Memori 4
Miasma Theory 10
Mourning Demon 7
My Childhood Friend is a Vengeful Ghost 3
My Girlfriend Sneers Beautifully 7
My Little, Stray Cat 9
Nice to Meat You: The Origin of Food 8
Number 10 3
Oblation 8
On Shattered Ground 10
One Shot Killer 4
Pacified Storm 13
Parallel Lanes 1
Patricia 15
Pen Love 5
Primo Secundo 7
Purple Flower Under the Moonlight 4
Red Beast 8
Repeating Your End Together 5
Reset Game 5
RIng a Bell 14
S – You and Me and Destiny 4
Seize the Flowers of Love 7
Seven Edge 3
Shokudama 9
Sinner 16
Snake Eyes 4
Somali and the Forest Spirit 10
Summer Hero 5
Summerless 12
Swallowed by the Kotatsu 1
Sweet Pain 3
Sweet Seduction: Under the Same Roof With The Guy I Hate 15
The Beginning of the End 6
The Happiness Street in District Zero 12
The Kindness of Death 9
The Last Sane Person in Crazytown 8
The Little Succulents 4
The Original Doll 15
The Shinsengumi 7
The Vampires Next Door 6
The Voice of Tsukumo 4
Tokyo Dragon Knight 7
Tsukumogami Karuta: Cards of the 99 Gods 13
Unpopular 3
Vestige 14
Welcome to Dietroit 19
White Rose of Frankenstein 5
White Tiger 3
You Guys Are All Annonying! 6
Yumequi 18
Zombiemen 1


First impressions of the service for me are on the whole quite positive. The team behind it have previously worked for Hulu (in Japan), Crunchyroll, Viz Media and Penguin Random House which gives them the experience and contacts they’ll need to pull off a ‘Netflix’ of manga as this is aiming to be. 

The major downside right now is that the service is only available on iOS and even just trying to find out what titles they have involved downloading the app first (they have a website, but it simply advertises the app). The app has a perfectly fine reader when it comes to reading the manga, but it did take a couple of goes before it would recognise I was subscribed and stopped giving me the advertisement to subscribe before reading.

The app does keep track of what you’re reading or completed (or simply bookmarked), but beyond drilling through the genre tags there is currently no way of searching the service for a particular title which is bound to get frustrating quickly with so much on offer! These are certainly teething issues though, and I imagine can be fixed fairly quickly should Mangamo listen to feedback on the subject.

While it’s nice to see Kodansha titles on here I also fear having such a limited amount of chapters for them will mean potential readers won’t be interested. I’m sure by now most of us have read at least the first volume of Attack on Titan for example! That said if Mangamo can continue to pick up series with on-going anime like Arte, or at least recently had anime then they’re going in the right direction and they certainly have some notable publishers on their side already. 

Their sudden appearance is not all that dissimilar to when J-Novel Club launched a few years ago, who quickly went from newbie to one of the more popular light novel publishers in the West. Hopefully, Mangamo can follow in their footsteps and carve themselves out a place in this crowded market. There is huge potential here at least and they’re off to a fine start!

Source: MAL

Demelza

When she's not watching anime, reading manga or reviewing, Demelza can generally be found exploring some kind of fantasy world and chasing her dreams of being a hero.

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