Tokyo, January 5, 2015 - Rakuten Kobo Inc., a subsidiary of Rakuten, Inc., announced that from today it would expand the lineup of titles available on the Rakuten Kobo e-Book Store with the popular manga magazines published by Kodansha Ltd., a major publisher in Japan.
Today, Kodansha announced that it would release e-Book editions of its popular weekly and monthly manga magazines for men, such as “Young Magazine”, “Weekly Shonen Magazine” and “Monthly Shonen Magazine,” which had previously been unreleased in this format. The company is also planning to release more magazines including publications for women in e-Book format in the future. Until now, the Rakuten Kobo e-Book Store had handled some of Kodansha’s manga magazines, but with Kodansha’s decision to expand the number of publications it releases in e-Book format, the number of titles available on the Rakuten Kobo e-Book Store will increase.
The e-Book versions of the publications will be released on the same day as the paper versions of the publications*1, allowing readers to enjoy a wider lineup of easily downloadable manga magazines. The first publication released in the e-Book format is the 2015 Volume 6 of “Young Magazine,” which is available for download from today.
In order to celebrate the expansion of the number of Kodansha’s manga magazines available on the Rakuten Kobo e-Book Store, Kobo will hold a special campaign for residents of Japan from today until January 30, 2015, in which users who purchase certain Kodansha manga magazines on the Kobo store can receive 10 times the number of Rakuten Super Points for their purchase. In addition, a gift of 10,000 Rakuten Super Points will be awarded to three users selected from the eligible participants by lottery. Users will also be able to enjoy free content, including samples of popular serialized works in each of the magazines, for a limited period.
Rakuten Kobo is planning to further expand the content, including manga, available on its platform.
*1 The release date of the e-Books version of some publications may be different to that of the paper versions.