Crunchyroll is breaking out of just anime and into a one-stop-shop digital bookshelf, with the company announcing it will launch its own dedicated manga app on Tuesday, offering ad-free reading for dozens of titles while also providing robust offline support. It was an easy pitch to longtime fans who have spent years playing catch-up across assorted publisher apps or spotty scan sites: one place to read a wide array of their favorite comics legally, on any device, with no interruptions.
A Unified Manga Library Featuring Top Publishers
The app gathers marquee partners such as VIZ Media, Square Enix, Yen Press, and AlphaPolis, with more catalogs scheduled to go live after the launch.
Which is to say, tentpole hits and critical darlings are rubbing shoulders: One Piece, Jujutsu Kaisen, Daemons of the Shadow Realm, Delicious in Dungeon, The Apothecary Diaries, My Dress-Up Darling, and The Summer Hikaru Died (manga seems to have a lot of great titles about death for some reason) are among the early headliners. Crunchyroll says that some series will also be released as digital-first editions. This potentially broadens access beyond whatever has been available online up to now, even though copies of these books tend not to sell in huge numbers in the U.S.
Importantly, this manga service is independent from the company’s anime streaming platform and is run in collaboration with the Link-U Group in Japan, a group that has an extensive history working on e-reading infrastructure. That tech underpinning is worth noting; scaling up a global manga reader with high-res art, simultaneous usage spikes, and reliable downloads needs more than just a pretty face.
Pricing and Access for Crunchyroll’s Manga Service
Current Ultimate Fan subscribers receive the manga service at no extra cost. Crunchyroll also offers bundles for other tiers: Fan + Manga costs $11.99 a month ($4 more than the Fan tier) and Mega Fan + Manga is $15.49 a month ($3.50 more). All of the options also come with unlimited, ad-free access to millions of stories on mobile, tablet, and the web.
The mobile app is coming to the U.S. and Canada first, followed by a browser-based experience. International expansion is a point on the roadmap, and Crunchyroll states more publishers are likely to join post-launch “and beyond,” including Shueisha and J-Novel Club – one more push towards getting all these shonen, seinen, and light novels under one roof.
Reader Features Designed for Fans and Offline Use
Crunchyroll is pitching readers on more than just the catalog; it’s promoting a reader that was designed for marathon reading and moments of low connectivity. Offline downloads allow you to queue up chapters for a flight or morning commute, and a clean layout accommodates full two-page spreads, so even the splash panels of most modern series remain intact. All that is wrapped up by light and dark modes, a customizable reading list, and algorithmic recommendations.
While many manga apps have a basic offline toggle, the app’s key selling point is breadth plus convenience—reading One Piece from VIZ and Delicious in Dungeon from Square Enix without shifting ecosystems. That’s been a pain point for fans wanting to keep up on both weekly hits and backlist gems without juggling multiple subscriptions and libraries.
How it compares with the competition in digital manga
The world of digital manga has matured fast. VIZ Manga’s app has top shonen franchises on lockdown, while Shueisha’s MANGA Plus gives you a week-of-release simulpublish of free chapters; BOOK WALKER does solid sales and Kindle is the default for casual readers. Crunchyroll’s offering appeals to the gap between these models by offering an all-you-can-read hub that spans multiple publishers with offline reading as standard, and serves as a seamless add-on to an anime membership you might already have.
It’s launching into favorable tailwinds. Manga has led in adult graphic novel sales for years now, as Circana BookScan reported, bolstered by blockbuster anime adaptations and viral discoverability on social platforms with a new wave of readers entering via streaming. One subscription that directly translates anime hype into immediate, legitimate manga reading could narrow the gap between binge-watching and binge-reading.
Why this new manga app and partnerships could matter
The upside for readers is clear: fewer logins, fewer apps, and a credible alternative to pirated scans. For publishers, a wider storefront with robust recommender systems can bring midlist books that don’t attract attention behind siloed apps back to the surface. And it’s a practical step toward getting more anime viewers to become paying manga readers in the industry, which has long since seen how small the overlap between the two sectors of their business is.
If Crunchyroll were to fulfill its promised partnerships and maintain a fast, reliable reading experience, its manga app could be the default door into digital manga for an audience already well-trained by streaming. The true test will be catalog depth over time, chapter availability in real time, and how fast it scales beyond its original markets.