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Crunchyroll Manga App Launches in U.S., Canada on October 9 for iOS, Android

Crunchyroll announced on Thursday that it is launching Crunchyroll Manga, its planned manga app, on iOS and Android devices in the United States and Canada on October 9, with the browser version launching on October 15. The ad-free app will be separate from the main Crunchyroll streaming service.

The app will launch with "hundreds of titles," including One Piece, Jujutsu Kaisen, Daemons of the Shadow Realm, My Dress-Up Darling, The Summer Hikaru Died, Lycoris Recoil, Delicious in Dungeon, Sasaki and Miyano, Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy, and Maiden of the Dragon: Falling for the Demon's Lies. 

Pre-existing subscribers to Crunchyroll's Ultimate Fan subscription tier (US$15.99) will be able to use the service at no additional cost. The Fan and Mega Fan tiers will be able to add access to the app for an additional cost of US$4.00 USD/CA$5.50 for the Fan tier (totaling to US$11.99/CA$15.49), and an additional US$3.50/CA$5.00 for the Mega Fan tier (totaling to US$15.49/CA$17.49).

Crunchyroll describes the service as being "powered by Link-U Group," the Japanese media company that operates such services as digital manga site Comikey, digital manga store Compass, webtoon company Studio Moon6, and VTuber and streaming production company Romanz.

Partner publishers for the service include AlphaPolis, Compass, Square Enix, Viz Media, Yen Press, Shueisha, J-Novel Club, and ThirdlineNEXT. 

Features for the app include mobile, tablet, and browser compatibility; downloading chapters for offline reading; light and dark mode; full page spreads; and the ability to create a personalized reading list with recommendations.

This is not the first time that Crunchyroll has offered manga, with the company launching the first Crunchyroll Manga service in October 2013. The service was simultaneously publishing (simulpub) titles from Kodansha USA Publishing in over 170 countries. Crunchyroll removed 14 simulpub titles in February 2018 and removed 10 catalog titles in March 2018. Kodansha USA Publishing then removed a number of its manga titles from Crunchyroll in January 2023. Kodansha had issued a statement to Crunchyroll, saying that its suspension of simulpub updates was due to "changes" in its simulpub distribution program.

Crunchyroll ended its first Crunchyroll Manga service in December 2023.

Source: Press release