Viz

VIZ Media for newbies, what is VIZ Media?

In the last few decades, manga, Japanese comics, have gradually taken the center stage in Western entertainment. This has paved the way for many other Japanese forms of entertainment such as anime. The rise of anime and manga is largely accredited to the establishment of VIZ Media, a manga publisher, anime distributor and entertainment company in the United States since 1986. At that time the company was known as VIZ LLC until it merged with ShoPro Entertainment changing its name to VIZ Media LLC like current days in 2005. 2017 witnessed the rise of VIZ Media as it was considered one of the largest graphic novels in the United States accounting for 23% of the total market share. Last year, 2020, VIZ Media achieved 43% growth in the total manga sales in the United States.

Nowadays, VIZ Media is one of the most popular places where international manga and anime lovers subscribe to. Its manga library is huge and it has all the all-time famous manga as well as all the newly released ones. Beside manga, VIZ Media is also famous for its anime streaming service, magazines and other buy-to-let deliverables. VIZ Media offers its users an integrated content library, that’s why everything they bought in VIZ Media will all be synced to their account. This is super convenient as all the content is accessible anywhere and anytime you log in. Due to VIZ Media’s widespread across the United States, it has garnered both online and offline acclamation in the manga and anime world. This sense of community has set it way apart from other giants in the industry. 

VIZ has received numerous prestigious industry awards, like YALSA, Eisner and Hugo, for its critically acclaimed manga, books, graphic novels and originals. Plus, its Shonen Jump weekly magazine is said to be the most well-known magazine in the world. If you are an English speaker who wants to delve into the manga and the Japanese entertainment world, VIZ Media is one of the best choices out there. Why did I say so? Keep reading and see if VIZ Media is worth a subscription!

Pricing

You need to become a Shonen Jump member to read over 15,000 Shonen Jump manga chapters on VIZ Media. After your first free week, you will be charged only $1.99 per month and this will be auto renewed monthly unless you cancel it before the renewal. The free trial doesn’t apply to all people as it is area restricted, only users in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, the Phillippines, Singapore and India are offered. Although you can only read up to 100 chapters daily with this membership, this is not something to concern at all as 100 chapters are a lot to read a day already (unless you are a super-fast reader or have so much free time in your hand!). 

Website design 

When I first visited the VIZ Media website, I was drooling over it because it was so well-designed, streamlined and intuitive from the colour theme to the font. Never have I seen such a manga website that gives me both a professional look and an energetic feel simultaneously. 

Homepage

Every time you get access to VIZ Media’s website, a poster of a manga will be randomly chosen to be the first thing you see on your homepage. I really love this feature as the poster is always creative and it certainly gives off the anime look and feel, making me even more excited to find out what’s on the website. VIZ Media always tries to sandwich different art pieces into their website so you will come across many animations and colourful artwork when browsing the website. As you scroll down, you will leave the poster and reach the main homepage. 

There are 3 different headers that serve different purposes on VIZ Media's site. The top header is a list of favourite anime and manga. At the time of this review, this list includes Naruto, Bleach, Demon Slayer, Boruto, Pokémon, My Hero Academia and Free Manga!. Under the top header, is the search bar. And finally, the last header has 5 options which are Read, Watch, Shonen Jump, Community and Calendar. To get to the manga space, you need to click on “Shonen Jump”.

On the “Shonen Jump” page, you will see a black clickable banner as an invitation to join the membership if you haven’t logged in yet. Under that are clickable “Latest Chapters”, “Hot Series”, “Blog” and “New Volumes”. The Blog has many interesting sections that are regularly updated which are Anime, Manga, Contest, Fan Art, Cosplay, Events, Shonen Jump, Shojo Beat.

Content library 

As the biggest manga publisher in the US, the manga library of VIZ Media can never disappoint readers as it stores more than 15,000 chapters of Shonen Jump manga! You can find thousands of titles on VIZ Media, including all-time famous like Naruto and One Piece, with a membership that costs only $1.99 a month! All of these manga are organised into different genres including LGBT, Action-Adventure, Dystopian, Horror, Mystery, Science Fiction, Thriller, Comedy, Family, Romance, Sports, Drama, Fantasy, Martial Arts, School Life, Supernatural. Moreover, you can keep track of the release calendar to never miss when your favourite manga publishes the next chapters. 

In-app experience

VIZ Media has developed an Android and iOS app for their manga fan called VIZ Manga app. The app carries the same intricate design as seen on the website. When you open the app, it will show you all the different volumes of the manga that they have as well as what is on sale now and free Shonen Jump chapters. You can also go under the tab Browse to view all the manga that are available on VIZ Media. The reading interface is distraction-free and very easy to navigate. You can zoom in and out as well as change the page spread and the page turn direction. The page resolution is also full HD and even if you zoom out, the images are still clear and easy to read. 

Conclusion 

Overall I find reading manga on VIZ Media a great and worthwhile experience considering you only pay $1.99 per month for more than 15,000 chapters to read. The website and app designs are streamlined and intuitive, very easy to navigate even for new users. Throughout the website, many artistic manga posters make the browsing experience even more pleasant. Beside manga, VIZ offers other types of entertainment like anime, which has brought VIZ Media many prestigious industry awards so I believe VIZ Media is worth a try if you want to know more about manga and anime from the best entertainment service in the world.

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