Crunchyroll is going to make reading manga online even easier than ever before with a new manga reading app, Crunchyroll Manga, launching later this year. As anime has become more popular than ever before in the last few years, so has the manga that inspired it. Anime’s growth in popularity has pushed manga to new heights as publishers and licensing companies have made reading manga easier with simultaneous releases of new chapters and series alongside their drop in Japan. Now Crunchyroll is set to expand their offerings with a new service for their Premium Crunchyroll subscribers coming some time later this year.
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As detailed in a new press release, Crunchyroll took the stage during Sony Group Corporation’s presentation at CES 2025 in Las Vegas, NV (where they also announced a new anime based on Ghost of Tsushima) to announce a new endeavor, Crunchyroll Manga. This will be a new manga reader app available as an extra premium option for Crunchyroll subscribers for fans to easily read more digital manga releases. But details about their future offerings such as series, publishers, and companies involved will be revealed at a later date.
What Is Crunchyroll Manga?
Debuting later this year in the United States and Canada, Crunchyroll Manga, will be a standalone app on iOS and Android and will serve as a premium add-on meant to coincide with Crunchyroll service memberships. Touting “brand-new and beloved titles from multiple top publishers,” Crunchyoll Manga will be offering these new releases in English with multiple language releases planned in the future. Rahul Purini, President of Crunchyroll, teased the future of Crunchyroll Manga and its partnership with major publishers and titles.
“Crunchyroll Manga will be a premiere online manga app that carries catalogs from renowned publishers, offering fans unparalleled access to the visionary works that inspire the anime we love,” stated Purini. “As we strengthen partnerships in this exciting new venture, we aim to add even more value to the Crunchyroll membership, complementing our vast anime library, Crunchyroll Game Vault, and extensive selection of products in the Crunchyroll Store.” This is to keep up with the demand from their fans as Purini states, “Research shows that nearly 70% of anime fans read digital manga at least once a month, highlighting the immense demand for this medium. Crunchyroll Manga will not only meet this growing interest but also fuel the continued global popularity of anime and manga alike.”
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What Does This Mean for Manga?
Although Crunchyroll has yet to reveal when this new Crunchyroll Manga service will be available, nor how much it costs, it will be a significant step forward for fans who want to read legal manga easier and faster. Companies in Japan have been cracking down on piracy sites, and publishers like Shueisha and Kodansha have already made great strides with their own services and partnerships to offer their manga outside of Japan in a legal, more affordable and easier way. It’s through these efforts that piracy really will be a thing of the past.
Regardless of what series end up being offered through Crunchyroll Manga, it’s still going to be a great deal of help when it comes to officially supporting your favorite manga and anime creators. With this support of services like these, manga companies will get to see a better metric of which series are actually driving enough interest for more entries, and potentially even anime adaptations down the line. It’s all in the same pipeline of support, so fans will want to keep a closer eye on how this develops.
