Mobile Manga Review: Digital Manga on Kindle for the iPhone

Gardena, California-based Digital Manga Publishing is lately doing their level best to live up to their name. First they launched eManga, their online manga rent-to-own program. Next, they made Vampire Hunter D available on the iPhone through uClick. Now they've made their next step toward digital distribution with the announcement of their new titles available for the Kindle, and Kindle for the iPhone from Amazon.

While I haven't taken the plunge to purchase a Kindle, I am a confirmed iPhone addict, so I figured it'd be fun to download the Kindle for iPhone application (it's free) from the iTunes App Store and download a sample chapter of one of DMP's titles to see how it works.

The early verdict? It's got a simple and straightforward interface, excellent resolution of full-page images and it addresses one of my pet peeves of other manga for the iPhone apps: it only requires download of one app and takes up only one icon on my iPhone homescreen to access a library of titles; over 40 from DMP alone. Added bonus? You can read these titles both on a Kindle or an iPhone.

Let's go into a little more depth on the experience:

• One app, one desktop icon to access a library full of manga
  The Kindle for iPhone application does what others have not: It gives readers one application to download, and only one icon to click on their iPhone homescreen where they can store, organize and read various books/manga.

  This has been a pet peeve of mine since I first started looking at iPhone manga offerings: Requiring that title have its own icon, sometimes multiple icons if the title is split up into several segments, on the iPhone homescreen. This would be fine if you only download one or two titles -- if you opt to read more, manga-addicted iPhone users would be stuck with screen after screen of icons, in addition to all the other apps they've downloaded for their phone. The potential for clutter is immense, and it also makes it hard for readers to browse through their collection for a title. I'm glad Kindle for iPhone has taken this into account.

• Showcases whole pages, as the artist originally intended
  Let's face it -- a lot of manga just isn't created to be showcased on a small cell phone screen. As result, many prior cell phone comics efforts meant dissecting each page, chopping up the panels into cell phone screen-sized chunks and perhaps repeating a few panels to try to mimic how the artist usually leads the reader from panel to panel, word balloon to word balloon on a page. This is often an awkward process, because manga doesn't rely on uniformly sized panels -- sometimes there are impressionistic, free-floating scenes without borders.

  DMP's manga for Kindle via the iPhone takes a different approach. It allows readers to view an entire page as the artist originally drew it, with the option to zoom in to various panels. The whole pages can be a bit on the small side for reading, but they are reasonably legible on the iPhone screen. The image resolution is quite good, and the art still looks fairly crisp, even after zooming in at 2x or 3x magnification.

• Simple, uncluttered interface that requires no "user's manual"
  If you know how to read manga and to use an iPhone, you should have a pretty good idea of how to flip through pages on Kindle for iPhone: just touch and push to the left. If you want to zoom in, just pinch your fingers together on an area of the screen you want to blow up, then open your fingers. A red X will appear at the top left corner to show you that you're in zoom mode. Click out of that to resume browsing pages.

  If you aren't familiar with these basic iPhone user interface conventions, then you might be a bit lost, especially if you aren't familiar with the right-to-left manga page formatting. An arrow to lead the user to the next page might be nice. There's also the occasional half-second to 1 second lag-time for page loading that makes the reading experience a little annoying.

  There is still room for improvement here. It would be nice to be able to go to different chapters through the "Go to" menu, or "fast-forward" to the next chapter from the reading page. At this point, one can only go to the cover, the last page read or the table of contents (these links didn't work in the two DMP titles I viewed).

  It would also be nice if the "make text bigger" option worked on the manga pages -- but I also understand that's a bit challenging given the limited word balloon / text box sizes. The Kindle was primarily designed for prose books, not graphic novels, but it would be nice to see them address this issue somehow as more comics publishers begin exploring this distribution method.

• Price: Less than print, more than your usual iPhone app
  Granted, this is not the usual 99-cent iPhone app, so it requires a bit more financial commitment on readers' part. However, at $7.95 for a single volume of a graphic novel, and $5.95 for a mostly-prose light novel, the Kindle versions of DMP's titles are roughly 40% off the usual retail prices for the print editions of the same books. When you factor in shipping, you're saving even more because the titles are delivered instantly through your wireless phone at no charge.
• Versatile and portable: Gives readers two ways to read the same book
  

  DMP's manga for the Kindle also offers good value for its versatility and portability. You buy it once to get the option to read it on your Kindle or iPhone, anytime, anywhere. (as long as you have wireless Internet access). Other digitally-delivered manga products require a computer with an Internet connection, or they can only be viewed on a single cell phone.

• Is it a graphic novel or a light novel? You tell me.
  One other problem with DMP's offerings? Their Amazon listings don't make it very clear which of their titles are yaoi light novels and which are graphic novels. I guess DMP or Amazon presumes that their readers know the diff, but being more clear about it at the pre-purchase stage might make things easier for browsers/buyers.

The Kindle is clearly designed for prose products, so the presentation works well for DMP's light novel offerings. The full-screen illustrations look good on an iPhone-sized screen, and the text is easy to read. The manga meanwhile, still needs some work. While it's not perfect, DMP's manga for the Kindle does offer one of the best cell phone manga experiences I've seen to date.

Not sure if it's worth a shot? Amazon and DMP have made it easy to get a taste of each title by giving browsers the option to download a free sample excerpt. Compared to other online manga samples, this one is surprisingly generous. For example, my sample of Sugar Milk by Dokuro Jaryu gave me over 85 pages of content, including three complete short stories. As I flipped through page after page, after a certain point, I started to wonder if I had accidentally purchased the full version, until I got to the last page.

The sample of Sugar Milk included these three short stories:

• What's Your Name?
  Yamada is a convenience store worker who was recently dumped by his girlfriend. He falls in love at first sight, but it's with a male customer at his store.
• Fifteen
  Nishihara is smitten once he sees his classmate Satoshi playing basketball. Eventually the pair begin dating, but why hasn't Satoshi kissed Nishihara yet?
• The Lingering Scent of a Rainbow
  Furuya is a teacher at a junior high school. Happy-go-lucky Ryu is one of his students. They're clearly attracted to each other, but will this romance end before it even begins?

I haven't read the entire volume of Sugar Milk, but the sample chapters revealed that there's a pleasant playfulness and light sensuality in Jayru's artwork. Her airy and spacious page compositions are an integral part of her storytelling, as they emphasize a sweet sense of longing between the characters for each other, particularly in The Lingering Scent of a Rainbow. Chopping up these pages into single panels would have definitely diminished this charming characteristic of Jaryu's artwork, so it's quite nice to be able to see the full pages in this format.

Digital distribution for manga is still in the early stages of development, but things are evolving quickly. The American technology and publishing industries seem very motivated to explore their options in a post-print reality, so we're likely to see more developments on this front in the months to come.

Have you tried reading comics on the Kindle? What do you think? How would you change the next version of this product? What would make it a must-buy for you? Share your experiences below.

© Digital Manga Publishing / Dokuro Jaryu