Official Digital Manga Platforms
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It looks like a new platform "MangaPlaza" is coming for spring 2022 (pre-reg opens next month which gives access to 72 titles free during the pre-launch period) that will have access to some Kodansha series. This appears to be the Japanese based company's second attempt at a digital manga service as they previously launched a facebook based system called ComicFriends which shut down in 2012. The platform will be run by NTT Solmare and will be including notable titles such as Attack on Titan, Tokyo Revengers, Chihayafuru, and That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime.
Has anyone tried out any of these official digital manga platforms for English releases? What are you opinions on how they operate?
I've seen Azuki manga crop up recently with access to a lot of manga I have in print so I haven't yet taken a deep look into what they actually offer with their system.
Viz media offers the first 3 chapters of their Shonen Jump series for free as well as the latest 3 chapters of ongoing publications for free as well as full access to all chapters in those series for a monthly/annual fee. They have an app which will allow you to purchase the full volumes of what looks to be all of Viz's licenses.
There's Bilibili Comics which is offering English versions of quite a few Chinese based manuwas, though I hear their web reader is terrible. Their app is the only way to access the most recently released chapters of any series.
AlphaManga by AlphaPolis offers a time limited rental as well as access to the first 3 chapters and some of the more recently released chapters, but there's no options to buy or any sort of subscription service to just unlock everything. (See the discussion on the JNC forms here)
Webtoons offers a range of Korean based strips and their number of series has grown immensely over the last few years.
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Just want to note that MangaPlaza is up in pre-registration (service starts March 1), they're currently offering 72 titles and it appears it will be a monthly subscription service to the full catalogue of whatever they'll be offering once the service goes live
