VIZ Manga

TBH I don’t have much free time of my own (in my adult life) these days, not enough to even watch much TV either. Well, one day I was spending time with wifey and as she dozed off mid-day, the TV was on Adult Swim running a My Hero Academia marathon. As fate would have it, episode 1 started and I found my inner childhood dreams resurface. Reminiscent of when I too used to read and collect comics and early manga of Astroboy, wishing so hard to be able to fly and have an ability that would set me apart from everyone else. I would get lost in those paper pages. But to be able to obtain my literary fuel came at great costs as a child. Not just monetarily but also limitations to physically getting to the one comic store in town. Having then to overcome those two obstacles just to walk in and find, your issue is SOLD OUT!!! NOW ushering into the present day of 2018 and discovering the VIZ APP using my iPod... manga comics are larger than life! Every type of genre available and all at my fingertips. Resolution is crisp, no lag and best of all I’ve not been bombarded by any intrusive, annoying ads. Thank you VIZ! Thank you for making me dream again!

Last year I decided to subscribe to Shonen Jump to keep up with a series that wasn’t getting new episodes for a while. I was pleased with how much content I got for $20, and the app worked just fine. I was very excited for the new changes coming to Shonen Jump, since I’d be able to start some new series and save a lot of money instead of buying physical copies. After the update however, the app has turned into a buggy mess, especially on an iPad Air 2. It takes forever to load the home page, and often lags for a couple minutes when you first open it. Available chapters for subscribers load pretty slow, and sometimes require reloading the app. On top of all the bugs, there are still several VERY basic features missing. You should be able to see all of the chapters you’ve already read, even if you haven’t downloaded them. It’s annoying having to guess where you left off, especially in series upwards of 100 chapters. Having a list of manga you’re currently reading would be a great addition as well. The new Shonen Jump subscription is a great idea and an extremely good deal. This service has allowed me to start many new series that I now read regularly. These bugs and issues have put me off from spending more money in the app on manga volumes since it’s more annoying to use the app than buy a physical copy. I hope that the problems mentioned can be fixed soon, as I do love the content offered.

I’ve been using this app for a few years now, and I’m really impressed with the way it’s been improved over time—it used to take a long time to load after the revamp with the simulpubs for Shonen Jump becoming free, but now it’s much faster. It’s my preferred way to read manga, thanks to the seamless way I can turn my phone or iPad to landscape mode and stitch two pages together. My only suggestion would be to have some mature content available online also on mobile, through the native parental controls filter on the device, like how some shows on streaming apps get filtered off or on through that way. Totally understand if it can’t work that way though, it’s not a dealbreaker by any means because I’m still getting access to FREE, LEGAL manga that officially supports the creators!

I’ve been using this app for a couple months now and overall it is good. I read the latest chapters of One Piece and MHA and, for anyone currently reading fan scans, the official Viz release is so much better and worth a couple days wait. The quality and translations are great; occasionally, a picture won’t load, but reloading the chapter takes care of the problem. My only real compliant is not really that but a wish for more! There’s so many great titles like Honey and Clover, Lucky Star, Pokemon Adventures...and none of them are available except for preview or individual purchase! I certainly can’t justify spending $7 or so on a digital manga copy (at that point, I’d just buy the physical if I really wanted it). It would be wonderful to have an all-inclusive manga ‘streaming’ service for all these titles beyond the Shounen Jump service (that would obviously cost more)...I would certainly pay for it! Until that hopefully happens though, I’ll keep enjoying my free weekly chapters.

Ever since their last major update that made that app glitchy and unusable, I’ve been waiting for Viz to fix these issues. Finally, this latest release has done just that. I’m no longer experiencing any lag when reading manga. That being said, the app is still missing the most basic and absolutely necessary function for a manga reader: Some sort of queue that tracks what I’m reading as well as saves my place in each series. I’m reading multiple series with hundreds of chapters. I have to keep track of my place on an external website and it’s a real hassle. Also, for Shonen Jump subscribers, there should be a page that lists all series available for us to read. Or even some sort of icon on the list of all titles available that lets subscribers know that that title is available through their subscription.