Just over a week after MANGA MILLION, the free manga reading project celebrating Shueisha's 100th anniversary, officially launched globally, the publisher continues to surprise with the second expansion phase: features near-simulcast, allows readers outside Japan to access new manga chapters of around 30 ongoing series just 2-3 weeks after their original release in Japanese magazines. This is a significant improvement over the waiting times, which often lasted months or even years, that international readers had to endure with many popular shonen and seinen series.
What is near-simulcast and how is it different from the original MANGA MILLION?
At its launch on August 6th, MANGA MILLION focused on a collection of completed or ongoing manga series, approximately 400 titles, totaling nearly 1 million pages, translated by a team of professional translators (not machine translation) into over 100 languages, with about 300 titles having their first official English translation. However, the chapters latest of ongoing series are not yet within this scope. The near-simulcast feature, launched in mid-August, addresses that gap: approximately 30 manga series currently being serialized will have new chapters released almost simultaneously with Japan, with a delay of only 2-3 weeks instead of an indefinite wait.
One Piece leads with 96 languages
One Piece was chosen as the pioneer manga for the near-simulcast expansion, with new chapters arriving in 96 languages, including languages rarely supported by international manga reading platforms such as Italian, Mongolian, and Swahili. This is an impressive number even compared to other major translation platforms, showing the scale of Shueisha's investment in bringing manga closer to global readers, not just limited to traditional English, Chinese, or Spanish-speaking markets.
List of manga series participating in near-simulcast
About 30 manga series will participate in this near-simulcast, including many original names There has never been a uniform English translation via MANGA Plus by SHUEISHA app before. Some outstanding series contributed:
- One Piece, leading with 96 languages
- NARUTO and BLEACH, two classic shonen representatives
- Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
- Jujutsu Kaisen
- Kingdom
- OSHI NO KO
- SPY×FAMILY
- Chainsaw Man
Special priority for domestic readers
Because MANGA MILLION is designed mainly for readers outside Japan, the majority of the manga library on this platform is inaccessible from within Japan. However, Shueisha still reserves some content for domestic readers: the entire East Blue Saga arc of One Piece (volumes 1-12) is available for users in Japan to read in 107 languages, along with exclusive interviews and edited content in English.
- Near-simulcast launch date: mid-August 2026
- Number of manga series participating: about 30 series are running
- Time delay compared to Japan: 2-3 weeks
- Languages for One Piece: 96 languages
- MANGA MILLION project term: until the end of December 2027
- Cost: Free, no need to register an account
Meaningful to the international fan community
Shortening the release interval from months to 2-3 weeks is a major change for the international manga reading community, a group of readers accustomed to long waits or resorting to unofficial translations to keep up with the latest developments. Combined with the enormous scale of MANGA MILLION (nearly 1 million pages, over 100 languages), this move shows Shueisha is seriously investing long-term in the global legitimate manga reading market, rather than just a short-term celebratory campaign.