[LINE Local Topic] LINE Manga to Start Offering Light Novels

2014.04.12 Corporate

Over 2,000 Novels Will be Offered, Including the Popular Haruhi Suzumiya Series
With Over 5 Million Downloads, Japan’s Largest Electronic Manga Platform Grows Further

Tokyo, Japan – April 10, 2014 – LINE Corporation, owner and operator of the free call and messaging app LINE, announced the addition of light novels to its electronic manga service, LINE Manga.

マンガイメージ
LINE Manga is an electronic manga platform for smartphones that combines a store that sells manga, a viewer, and a bookshelf to view purchased manga all in one app. The app does not require any specialized devices to use, and users can find a wide variety of entertaining manga. The app’s ease of use and appealing collection have led to it being downloaded 5 million times, and with 60,000 products on offer it has grown into Japan’s largest digital manga platform.

In order to provide richer content over even more genres, and to expose more users to the experience of reading on their smartphones, the service will start offering light novels. With the support of large publishers such as Kadokawa, Kodansha, and Overlap, the service will open with over 2,000 novels, including the popular Haruhi Suzumiya series and “Nanana’s Buried Treasure”, which will be made into an anime starting from April. By mid-April the service plans to offer over 4,000 novels.

To commemorate the start of the light novel service, LINE Manga began an event on April 9 that lets users read the first volumes of several light novels that have been made into anime for free, with more events planned for the future to introduce users into the world of light novels. 

With the first anniversary of the LINE Manga service approaching, a special collaborative event started on April 1, featuring Kodansha’s popular manga series “Attack on Titan” by Hajime Isayama. All LINE users who friend LINE Manga’s official account will receive a special sticker set called “Attack on Brown” which features LINE characters in the Attack on Titan universe. In addition, from today until April 15 all users can read volume one of Attack on Titan for free.