Even though I grumbled a little at JManga’s prices, I was mostly okay with paying the equivalent of $8.99 for a manga that would likely never get licensed for a North American print release. Still, because I wanted them to do well enough to stick around for a long time, I hoped they would reduce their prices, perhaps emulating VIZ’s $4.99-per-volume pricing strategy.
Well, happy news! JManga is having a “sale” where they’re doing exactly that. Not only that, they’re making the surprising goodwill gesture of refunding users 50% of the credits they spent under the old pricing structure. “Holy crap!” I said aloud, when I read that part.
The one drawback to this is that they haven’t been adding many new series lately. I’ve pretty much bought all the ones I wanted and am waiting for either new stuff or some second volumes to become available. I now have a hefty points balance without much to spend it on.
Anyway, if you’ve been holding back on JManga before, now’s a great time to check it out. And hopefully increased interest will show JManga that $4.99 is the way to go and this will become a permanent thing.
MWAAHHAAA!!! My patience has now paid off. It’s now time to purchase things like there’s no tomorrow!!!
…Probably^^
Now I imagining you crying out, “Buy! Buy like the wind!”
I did just snag a couple of things that looked much more interesting at $4.99 each than they did for $8.99.
So I can now buy manga for cheaper…… that I’m still going to lose if JManga doesn’t survive? There’s the catch. I refuse to buy anything that I’m not going to have ownership of should something happen. I’m still waiting for a better deal to come along.
I can see where you’re coming from. JManga has been pretty receptive to feedback so far, so maybe you could suggest that purchased books be downloadable in .pdf format or something.
PDFs = piracy on bittorrent sites. They’d have to maybe encode a digital signature, so they can see who uploads their PDF and ban them. There’s a reason cloud viewers are so popular.
Bah, I didn’t think about that.
We’re glad you’re enjoing the sale so far – and the refund of 50% of the credits previously spent, effectively halving prices retroactively, in response to user demand. And yes, with enough interest and support, there is indeed a chance that this might become a permanent thing.
We’ll next be working on getting more content onto the site in the coming weeks – among other issues, as are aware that users would like to have more to purchase, especially among the assortment that is currently “greyed out.”
In terms of downloads – we have announced an iOS app hopefully to be released by year’s end, with plans for Android and Kindle apps to follow, and we are discussing the possibility of allowing downloads for PC as well – but probably not in PDF format due to – yes – piracy issues.
Thanks for the clarifications! I know a lot of folks are also hoping for some content from Hakusensha. Can we hope to see more from them in the future?
Ah, Hakusensha content, eh? We’ll do our best, however, whether titles licensed by Viz will be available on JManga is still being discussed at this point in time. We’ll keep you updated on how that goes!
Thanks! Personally, I’m most keen for unlicensed series or, to be more precise, no-longer-licensed titles, like Stolen Hearts (licensed by CMX, but only two volumes ever released) or V. B. Rose (licensed by TOKYOPOP, 12 of 14 volumes released).
Those we will certainly be trying to get, as we certainly would like to fill in the gaps left behind by TOKYOPOP and others. ^^
If JManga manages it, I swear to love them forever and ever.