Kodansha’s monthly Morning 2 manga magazine is going digital. Originally conceived as a spin-off of their Weekly Morning magazine (aimed at adult men) in 2006, Morning 2 is following in the footsteps of its predecessor, which went digital earlier.
Morning 2 will be made available in Japanese on iOS and Android devices at 190 yen ($2.30), as opposed to its 390 yen ($4.75) printed counterpart. Kodansha now have their own internal publishing division in the U.S. as well, and Kodansha USA are reportedly in the process of looking into making their magazines available to American readers in the future.
In the past, Yoshinobu Noma, senior executive vice president of Kodansha and also the head of the Electronic Book Publishers Association of Japan, has, along with other major Japanese publishers, expressed concerns around the digital publishing model with regard to the Japanese manga industry.
The EBPAJ seek to avoid complete digitization and reportedly hope to find a happy middle ground between print and digital distribution. Regardless, it would appear Kodansha, who are one of Japan’s largest publishers, are embracing digital formats nonetheless. You can download the Morning manga app in Japanese here.
