Viz launching $1.99/month manga subscription service, includes DB/Z/Super/Yamcha manga series + Full Color chapters.

[Theophrastus]

Two announcement videos:
https://youtu.be/hL7p2fZjbu4 (A personal message from Hisashi Sasaki, former Editor-in-Chief of Japanese Weekly Shonen Jump)
https://youtu.be/wGGef2_1GMU (and a more generic one)

https://www.viz.com/sj-offer
https://www.viz.com/wsj-member

For anyone who can't see the above videos or access Viz's website, they are ending their digital Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. In its place. starting from December 17th, they are expanding/overhauling the free chapter distribution that they had previously set up (and have been using to simultaneously publish Dragon Ball Super, among several other series). New chapters of all ongoing series will be released on Viz's website the same date they release in Japan, with the most recent 3 chapters being free for everyone to read. Alongside this Viz is launching a USD1.99/month subscription that will let subscribers read (in Mr. Sasaki's words) "a back catalog of nearly everything Shonen Jump has ever released [in English]" (the number they're going with is 10,000+ chapters). So while not explicitly confirmed yet, it seems pretty likely it'll include Dragon Ball.

Thoughts? I know a lot of people have...mixed feelings about Viz's translation of the series, but I feel like the implications of this are huge, as far as people becoming more informed about the original manga compared to the anime (and, well, for the manga industry in general, but Dragon Ball forum and all).

[prince212]

Two announcement videos:
https://youtu.be/hL7p2fZjbu4 (A personal message from Hisashi Sasaki, former Editor-in-Chief of Japanese Weekly Shonen Jump)
https://youtu.be/wGGef2_1GMU (and a more generic one)

https://www.viz.com/sj-offer
https://www.viz.com/wsj-member

For anyone who can't see the above videos or access Viz's website, they are ending their digital Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. In its place. starting from December 17th, they are expanding/overhauling the free chapter distribution that they had previously set up (and have been using to simultaneously publish Dragon Ball Super, among several other series). New chapters of all ongoing series will be released on Viz's website the same date they release in Japan, with the most recent 3 chapters being free for everyone to read. Alongside this Viz is launching a USD1.99/month subscription that will let subscribers read (in Mr. Sasaki's words) "a back catalog of nearly everything Shonen Jump has ever released [in English]" (the number they're going with is 10,000+ chapters). So while not explicitly confirmed yet, it seems pretty likely it'll include Dragon Ball.

Thoughts? I know a lot of people have...mixed feelings about Viz's translation of the series, but I feel like the implications of this are huge, as far as people becoming more informed about the original manga compared to the anime (and, well, for the manga industry in general, but Dragon Ball forum and all).

Viz digital talking is awesome and fast , printed versions can’t tell the same .
But this is good news and I hope it will help the industry, next move should be release before the pirates, it doesn’t happen in dragon ball , but it happens in other bigger series
Well done viz

[Robo4900]

Manga is goddamn expensive.

A subscription service like this will be a godsend if done right. And by the looks of things, this will be. $2 for a month in which I could read any and every chapter of Dragon Ball, One Piece, etc.? Sign me the hell up!!

[JohnnyCashKami]

Viz digital talking is awesome and fast , printed versions can’t tell the same .
But this is good news and I hope it will help the industry, next move should be release before the pirates, it doesn’t happen in dragon ball , but it happens in other bigger series
Well done viz

I've honestly read this comment thrice now and it's still hard to tell what this dude's trying to say, although this much is clear:

this is good news and I hope it will help the industry

This below made me guess what he meant to say.

next move should be release before the pirates

Suppose he was trying to go for: Viz can finally release new content before people share it illegally on Torrent/DL communities.

printed versions can’t tell the same

Did you mean: printed versions take longer to arrive and thus, it doesn't quite compare with the digital.

Well done viz

Well said, Prince!

[prince212]

Viz digital talking is awesome and fast , printed versions can’t tell the same .
But this is good news and I hope it will help the industry, next move should be release before the pirates, it doesn’t happen in dragon ball , but it happens in other bigger series
Well done viz

I've honestly read this comment thrice now and it's still hard to tell what this dude's trying to say, although this much is clear:

this is good news and I hope it will help the industry

This below made me guess what he meant to say.

next move should be release before the pirates

Suppose he was trying to go for: Viz can finally release new content before people share it illegally on Torrent/DL communities.

printed versions can’t tell the same

Did you mean: printed versions take longer to arrive and thus, it doesn't quite compare with the digital.

Well done viz

Well said, Prince!

Hahahahah well decrypted, you got it .
Yes,viz printed versions take forever , over a year later than Japanese release , while the digital works fast almost simultaneously, and my full joy will be to read them without being spoiled 2-3 days before , it’s up to me but the tentation is big , I’ll try this month though.

[JohnnyCashKami]

my full joy will be to read them without being spoiled 2-3 days before , it’s up to me but the tentation is big , I’ll try this month though.

I get that but personally, I hate buying stuff digitally because I'd never get to really own unless I'd get to acquire the actual files of it which happens on iTunes, Xbox 360, Play Store, Amazon, Bandcamp and other services.

[Theophrastus]

Well, the subscription hasn't quite gone live yet, but you can see placeholders for all the stuff that's in "The Vault" (actually clicking anything goes to a 500 Error page).
https://www.viz.com/shonenjump

We can see that the subscription includes Viz's release of the black-and-white DB (and "Z") manga, Dragon Ball Super, the Yamcha Reincarnation manga, and the Full Color Saiyan and Freeza Arc chapters that Viz has released so far.

Edit: Seems to be up now, though the servers are kind of getting hammered it seems like:

[prince212]

I can’t open them

[Mewzard]

I can’t open them

Pretty sure the servers are just getting hit hard.

Worth a note, I checked to see if there was any censorship, and I got through to check the infamous Invisible Man fight...it's definitely not uncensored.

[Jaetinh]

Is there any way us European people can subscribe?

[Theophrastus]

Is there any way us European people can subscribe?

Viz's supported regions are the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, the Philippines, Singapore, and India.

So if you live in the UK or Ireland, you should be able to just do so from Viz's website. For continental Europe, I assume they can't offer anything since it would make local distributors extremely unhappy if they tried.

[Robo4900]

Looking at the first chapter of DB, Bulma calls the radar a "Ball detector". I think this points to this digital version using the masters of the earliest print run, just like the Amazon ebooks use. IIRC this early print run is the least-censored printings of the manga aside from a couple of the "3-in-1" books, which IIRC had one or two instances of being slightly less censored.

Oh, also, the Yamcha manga is free.

[prince212]

Shonnen jump app works way better on iOS than viz app, but still not that smoothly like before this whole unlock.
Getting there , good stuff for a db fan