First Japanese Manga On Amazon Kindle Released

Posted on January 25th, 2010 by Akky Akimoto

Although Amazon Kindle is possible to order from Japan, Kindle and its backend do not support Japanese font well yet. Support for Japanese publishers in Japanese are not prepared, too.

So, most Japanese people who currently own Kindle are gadget fans, English-savvy or for research purpose.

And some people see potential on the device and the platform. There are some self publishers put their Japanese novels as image files. If it has to be image for Japanese, maybe image contents are more familiar. Monochrome image contents popular for Japanese is... yes, manga cartoon.

Ume, a cartoonist unit of OZAWA Takahiro and SEO Asako [J], known by "Giga-Tokyo Toybox series", experimentally published their short manga "Aozora Finder Rock", which probably is the first Japanese manga in Japanese for Japanese readers on Kindle Store for $2.99.

It is pity that it costs $4.99 from Japan because of additional $2.00 for international users. If Amazon will start same level support in Japanese market, Kindle could be a good challenger against paid digital manga on Japanese cellphones.

See Also:

A Japanese blogger Hide's report how he published Japanese novel as image [J]

Ume's twitter [J]

Dai Tokyo Toybox 1
Ume's Dai Tokyo Toybox in Japanese on Amazon Japan

Author Information  @akky(Akky AKIMOTO) is one of the first pro-bloggers in Japan [J]. He also leads Asiajin, writes for Japan Times, does consultation for foreign companies interested in entering Japanese web market.

Tags: Japan, USA // 7 Comments »

  • http://www.ebouquin.fr/2010/01/25/un-premier-manga-fait-son-entree-sur-le-kindle/ eBouquin – Un premier manga en japonais sur le Kindle

    [...] s’effectue au Japon principalement sur téléphone mobile. Cependant, l’éditeur Ume semble voir un débouché prometteur dans les readers avec un écran en papier électronique. Si le Kindle [...]

  • http://www.bealoud.com DanielPeiser

    What about a Manga Reader App for the Kindle?

    I’d like to read your ideas on Kindle Apps you’d like to see in a few months (I wrote a blog post asking this question on http://www.bealoud.com/technology/kindle-development-kit/ ), when the first apps will see the light on the Kindle Store :)

  • http://akimoto.jp/blog/ Akky Akimoto

    Thank you for comment Daniel,

    In this manga country it occupies 1/6-1/3 of published books (the number I could find is bit old, 10 years ago), so if Amazon is serious they should make good default manga browser. But they may not do that. So making third party manga viewer app is a good idea I reckon.

  • http://www.mangablog.net/?p=6893 Fred Schodt, e-manga, and a movable feast « MangaBlog

    [...] Ueyama, the creator of Zoids, has posted a Doraemon/Loveplus crossover comic. According to Asiajin, the first manga has arrived for Kindle. At MangaCast, Ed Chavez posts Taiyosha’s manga rankings for last week and this [...]

  • http://www.sugee.org/2010/01/27/aozora-finder-rock-primer-manga-para-el-kindle/ Sugee » AOZORA Finder Rock, primer manga para el Kindle

    [...] Fuente (Asiajin) [...]

  • http://www.paperlesscomics.com/paperlesscomics/wordpress/?p=487 Left to our own devices: The first day of the rest of our lives… | Paperless Comics

    [...] has word of the first manga on Kindle. At Publishers Weekly, Michael Fitzpatrick looks at the growing popularity of manga on e-books in [...]

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_PTTBSVWJXBZQLR32YYX5AJ6HPM CyberAlejo17

    to convert manga, you can use Mangle

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