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AlphaPolis Manga App Discussion
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Is this a Japanese or an American company?
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@tahu
AlphaPolis is a Japanese Publishing Company. -
I don't understand them. If offering manga worldwide is a go and it's done inhouse, what the heck is the holdup on novels?!
They do have a few I'm interested in, about half of the manga on the app are adaptations of existing novels, but what I've heard trying to license actual novels from them is something akin to running into a stone wall...
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They're likely testing if this model of renting chapters is worthwhile. Also I'm not sure they're doing this in house, it seems like there's multiple different companies each doing their own manga based on the company names listed in the credits as doing the TL/lettering, it's just they're bring it all together in the one app. As noted earlier in the thread Isekai Tensei Soudouki in the app is just the digital version of what One Peace Books is releasing already.
Frankly if they tried to release light novels under this model, I sure as heck wouldn't be a fan. I want options to actually purchase items, not having to throw money at a one week rental anytime I want to read anything that's not the most recent chapters or the preview of the first volume.
I would say best case scenario would be if they did something like what they're doing with One Peace Books. That would be license out LNs to companies, offer the chapters via an AlphaPolis app as rentals, but allow people to actually purchase the full digital volumes through normal digital storefronts in sort of a similar fashion to how JNC pre-pubs work.
Worst case would probably be like how their manga app works for almost all the rest of the series. They hand off the series to a company to do the translation and make it only available for 1 week rental via their app and if you're more than ~3-4 weeks behind or want to go back and re-read you'll essentially have to shell out money to re-rent those parts.
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I probably shouldn’t say this but this makes me glad there are pirate translations. Are there any other companies that’s doing this rental crap?
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The model itself isn't really that bad (though it would work better if they offered a flat rate subscription that just unlocks everything the way Viz does with Shonen Jump). The main problem is that they currently lack the secondary infrastructure that is needed for this model. When this type of model is used in Japan, if you like something enough to plunk down cash for it, you can go over to Bookwalker or Amazon or something and just buy the volume once it's available.
The problem here is there's no indication that AlphaPolis plans or has any intention of collating the chapters released in the AlphaManga app into volumes for sale digitally or otherwise in English which means outside of Isekai Tensei Soudouki there's currently no way to make a purchase to own (you could buy Re:Monster from SevenSeas, but it's going to be a different TL/Lettering than the version in the AlphaManga app). Given that a number of titles in the app now have enough chapters released that we could easily be on vol 3 or 4 of the mangas, it's honestly not looking good.
If they at least announced their intent to release digital volumes for sale on storefronts, I could at least get behind the model as it stands now.
