16th Aug Update: More titles have been added. View the four-page master list or refer to the fourth paragraph of the post to see a full list. Some are new volumes of existing series on the old list (e.g. Gyakushu! 3), others are new titles. Notably, Hetalia 1!
I was pleasantly-surprised to find that Tokyopop has recently teamed up with Zinio to offer some of their manga digitally, at the price point of $5.99 for single volumes and $7.99 for multiple-volumes-compiled-in-one-book omnibuses. Only single volumes are currently available. This converts to $7.12AUD for me (the site helpfully does this automatically) — Considering I can pay $4 more to get the paper version, I’m not so sure about this price. It does, however, seem about right for ebooks. (And if you think about it, $4 is almost 50% more. :P)
Payment: As far as I know, payment is only available via credit card – Amex, Mastercard, Visa, and JCB. I wish their FAQ were more forthcoming about this, lol.
Also, the rest of this article is based off of about full three pages in a volume of Tarot Cafe (screenshot images and elements by Park Sang-Sun and Zinio). You -can- sample pretty much all the pages in the volume, but they’ll be in 25% zoom and you’ll only be able to view 3 pages at 100%. So don’t go wild with the zoom button. ;)
Titles currently offered: Afterlife 1, Earthlight 1-3, Gyakushu! 1-3, Riding Shotgun 1-2, Tarot Cafe 1-7, The Dreaming 1-3, Undertown 1-2, Van Von Hunter 1-3, (new titles) Pantheon High 1-3, Dark Moon Diary 1-2, Dramacon 1-3, Poison Candy 1-2, Bizenghast 1-6, Princess Ai 1-3, Grand Theft Galaxy 1-2, Fool’s Gold 1-2, Project D.O.A. 1, Gravitation Collection 1, Hetalia Axis Powers 1, Return to the Labyrinth 1-3. While there’re now a few Japanese manga gems, the majority is still OEM (Original English Manga), I think? It’s nice to see, however, that they’ve delivered on all the series promised in the prior press release (Bizenghast, Princess Ai, Gravitation, Return to the Labyrinth) and more. The volume size ranges from 25 to 35MB or so, and it is probably in the proprietary Zinio format, like everything else on the site. This can only be read by the (offline) Zinio reader. (Which I can’t be bothered to download, but if you have it and would like to comment on it, feel free to do so below!)
Features: (nice ones are bolded)
∑ Move through pages with buttons, left/right keyboard arrows, clicking on the long edge of pages, using explore bar at bottom.
∑ Zoom with buttons. ‘Enter’ to switch from 25% to ‘fit to screen’. Double click for 100% or Fit-to-screen (alternately). (100% renders keyboard shortcut to navigate to next or previous page useless.)
∑ Browser reader. Offline reader also offered; reads proprietary Zinio format (.zno).
∑ Page-turning animation (can be switched off)
∑ Elegant toolbar that disappears when you aren’t using it.
∑ Toolbar allows ‘Share’ option linked to a variety of social media sites, including Twitter and Facebook. (Results in posts like this being autoentered into your Twitter field, ready to be modified so you can remove or add comments as you wish: “Page 8 of Tarot Cafe, The Volume 3: http://bit.ly/b3uSC6 via @addthis”)
∑ Double-sided, left-to-right page view only.
∑ Searchable text.
∑ Full-volume preview (try before you buy) at 25% zoom. 3-page preview at 100% zoom.
| Criteria |
Pros |
Cons |
| Speed |
Uses Flash. Some preloading seemed to be in place. |
Offline: Files take up space until deleted.
Online: It was fine the first time I used it, but each double-page took 3 or 4 seconds to load the next time, even though they were just 25% previews. My connection is probably just lousy. I’d like to hear how fast it is for others, though! |
| Usage |
Does not require installation; within browser. |
Left-to-right-only page flipping. Keyboard control was bloody annoying since ‘fit to screen’ and even ‘fullscreen’ wasn’t true full screen (borders left even if I manually changed my browser to fullscreen Either they changed this or I now have a better monitor..), and far too small for my poor laptop’s 15.5-inch screen. It was perfect on my 22-inch monitor, though. Do note that if you’ve zoomed in and the page isn’t ‘fit to screen’ any more, you will NOT be able to use the arrow directional keys to move on to the next or previous page. |
| Features |
Looks nice, smooth page turning/zooming animation. Table of contents is nice. |
You can now turn off the page animation. No option to customise hotkeys. Limited and hassly zooming. Content page is poor substitute for bookmarks. |
| Convenience |
Every user has account with own record of purchased titles. Can be synchronised with offline reader. |
Proprietary download format. |
| Image quality |
Very clear with relatively-small size. |
Reader doesn’t fully-display quality on smaller monitors. |
Overall: 3.5/5. It works, but unless there’s a right-to-left option, it’ll be awkward for Japanese manga preserved (as they should be) in their original form.
Would I use it? Probably not. Can’t quite get over the proprietary format..
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Tags: Manga, mangareaders
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