That and a general lack of availability of manga in the west. English releases are often years behind the Japanese ones, if they get brought over at all. It's why there are so many translation groups.

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 day ago

Not only that, Kodansha is ridiculously money-grubbing in the space. They're continually trying to push for pay-per-chapter monetization instead of a basic subscription model like Shonen Jump does.

Not only that, Kodansha's newest app, KManga, has 21 trackers in it to sell off user data. For context, Facebook only has 9 trackers.

[–] Megaman_EXE@beehaw.org 3 points 22 hours ago

Additionally, manga is way cheaper in Japan compared to when it's brought overseas. It's hard to justify purchasing when I could buy some merchandise or something instead

[–] RedSnt@feddit.dk 6 points 1 day ago

You're right, same goes for anime as they mention in the article. I'm thinking one leads to the other, people might pick up the manga to catch up on the anime or maybe a manga reader will watch the anime version of their show.
And they target a starving audience if you ask me.