More Manga in Your Pocket

There’s a new app for reading manga in town, so it’s time to check it out!

According to Wikipedia, a company called NHN Japan Corporation launched a comic platform called Comico. The original version targeted its homeland of Japan, but over the years, they’ve launched versions for a few other East Asian nations like South Korea. Now, the company has debuted their English-language version for Android and iOS devices. It’s available in the US, Canada, and Singapore, and an option for Spanish is to come.

So I downloaded the app, which is called pocket comics. Unlike Comico, there doesn’t seem to be an option to view titles on desktop/PC, so that means you need to have access to either the App Store or Google Play. I guess that’s not too much of a surprise since Comico and its spin-offs are for webtoons — i.e. vertical scrolling color comics. These are catered toward mobile devices, but it still leaves out a potential audience.

Also, speaking of webtoons, pocket comics’ description refers to its content as webcomics with the word “webtoon” in the title. No mention of manga or manwha. Obviously, nowadays, with all the globalization and online production, categories and genres are often blurred. But in my opinion, at least saying “series from Japan” would draw additional interest. If I didn’t know, I would have assumed it was full of original English-language or translated Chinese/Korean comics. Nothing wrong with those, but search optimization is important and can boost users and take attention away from illegal platforms.

Anyway, although I am using an iPad, I had to use the iPhone version since there isn’t a version optimized for tablets. Hopefully that will come in the future, as even blowing up the app means a lot of wasted space.

pocket comics Main Screen

After agreeing to the terms and conditions, I was led to the main menu. There are several sections on the main page including the day’s updates, various specials, and genre links. You can also search for titles or take a look at the release calendar and current rankings. There’s also an inbox for messages and the library, which you can check for unlocked, recently read, and subscribed series.

Pocket comics divides chapters into three categories: free, rental (free to read for a limited time), and paid. Downloading the app gets you 100 coins, and you get 1 ticket per day. Coins can be purchased starting at 10 for $.99. Tickets can’t be purchased, and free coins expire after a week. Free chapters with an orange “read now” use up a gauge, which slowly refills, and require watching an ad. Using a ticket on a “read now” chapter grants immediate access.

Series include some rather popular titles like ReLIFE, How to raise a Mummy, and Momokuri. These were previously available on Crunchyroll. Some categories are full of series (drama, romance); others are practically empty (sci-fi has only three). BL is a listed genre, but GL is not. It is a tag, as shown in the only GL series Joyful Life, so maybe more will be added. Considering the app has just debuted, the selection of series seems to be good.

pocket comics Series

Clicking on a title takes you to the list of chapters.

pocket comics Free Chapter Gauge

If you want a description of the series, then the rotated “e” icon on the top will bring up a short summary along with its tags and update day.

pocket comics Summary

I decided to start with Koekoi, as it was one of July’s specials that had 10 chapters for completely free. It took about 10 seconds for it to load all at once. Before that, I got a white screen that made me wonder if it froze. Once the chapter loaded, it had a note at the beginning to read from right to left. Orientation is locked. Scrolling to the bottom had an ad and links to three other series in the romance genre. It took a couple of times before it seemed to register that I had hit next, but again, I think it was the loading. Pressing in the middle loads a navigation guide to go to previous or next chapter or back to all chapters. Double-tapping zooms in up to two times before the image resets.

pocket comics Sample

Anyway, I got bored of Koekoi quickly, so I switched to How to raise a Mummy. Judging from the series name and the lettering, it appears to be a new translation from the Crunchyroll version. Names were written in Eastern name order (family name first). No honorifics are used.

So I read until the third chapter, and then I saw this:

pocket comics Spanish next title

Um, what? Episode 4 is titled “An Easy Catch”. I did notice an accent mark on the second a in “Papa” in the first chapter, so is the Spanish version being translated concurrently? Someone copy info from the 51st chapter? A weird error.

So I used my ticket on Episode 4, and it granted me access for one hour. To unlock a free “read now” chapter, I had to watch a 30 second ad for a mobile game. Again, it was available for one hour. It also takes an hour for the gauge to refill.

pocket comics Free Chapter Wait

I went to read Episode 6, but then I got a bit of a surprise. While you can be awarded coins without signing up, you can’t redeem them without creating an account. That seemed bizarre to me. But if you use coins for a chapter, you can reread it anytime. Chapters cost 5 coins.

Besides the occasional loading issue, a couple of times I hit a bump with an error message saying, “Internet communication is unstable” (it was fine). Perhaps some behind-the-scenes optimization could smooth it over. But overall, I had a much better experience than when Mangamo debuted a few months ago, although that one was better catered to my iPad.

pocket comics Internet error

Still, it’s not quite as good as some of the other webcomic platforms in my opinion. There’s no subscription option, and I think the rental system is odd. Either make those chapters coin-based and give a small amount of daily coins for them, or make them free for a limited time (a weekend, a week, whatever). Yes, a user probably isn’t going to have a burning desire to reread a short chapter several times in an hour, but it feels too much like a gacha game to me with the hour refresh and limitation. However, those look like they’re going to be limited to a few chapters as part of a promotion, but I still wish pocket comics would go with a streamlined free vs coin approach.

I also wasn’t a fan of the lettering for a lot of titles. It was Comic Sans or a lookalike. To me, it gave me the image of a low-quality scanlation. Not all used Comic Sans (did see Wild Words), so I hope they move away from this font.

But still, as they say, beggars can’t be choosers, and the fact that pocket comics is not just made up of lackluster series no one has ever heard of before is a good thing.

Have you tried out pocket comics yet? What did you think? Do you prefer the freemium model to read manga chapters or a subscription model?