Today, the official “Shonen Jump Plus” website, marketplace, and app opened at http://plus.shonenjump.com/ . The service is aimed to provide the following (for Japanese readers):
- Free chapter samples from new series
- Read Weekly Shonen Jump chapters online (at a cost 300yen per issue)
- Purchase various manga volumes (at various costs)
- Read oneshot mangas (coming soon)
So let’s take a quick look at the Shaman King, Jumbor, and Ultimo offerings this site has to offer. Here’s the list of all the volumes currently available via the website:
- Shaman King – volumes 1-32 (Original edition)
- Ultimo – volumes 1-10
- Shaman King 0 -Zero- – volume 1
- Shaman King Flowers – volumes 1-5
- Butsu Zone – volumes 1-2 (Bunko edition)
- Jumbor – volumes 1-7
- Jumbor – Angzengbang (Safety Edition) – volumes 1-2 (Reprint of original Jyuki Ningen Jumbor with added oneshots)
So the first thing that you’ll probably notice is saying “Where is Shaman King Kang Zeng Bang!?” Actually, it appears that the online distribution rights are a bit tied up right now. After the Shaman King series ended in Weekly Shonen Jump, the digital rights basically stayed with Takei. So when he created the KZB reprints, there were certain digital rights that he gave away. So those rights are currently limited to the official Shaman King App! Previously, the digital rights for the KZB were also held by the Yahoo.co.jp Bookstore, but those have since been removed.
Both editions of the Remix volumes of Shaman King Kang Zeng Bang fall under the same rights as the KZB. So those will never get a standalone release, only the original KZB releases will.
But all of the other volumes… aren’t anything new. These are the same digital releases that have been out for a while. For example, you can see all of these same volumes on the Yahoo.co.jp Digital Bookstore right now!
So, nothing really new or exciting to see here at this Shonen Jump Plus website… but it is kinda funny to see that even in Japan, sometimes getting those new KZB-only chapters is a bit more tricky!
