I've been reading manga for over a year now. I've covered loads of titles including some really top mangas like
Death Note,
Rurouni Kenshin ,
Naruto ,
Bleach ,
Fairy Tail ,
Dragonball ,
Slam Dunk and some 2nd tier mangas like -
Katekyo Hitman Reborn ,
MxO ,
Blue Dragon to some really obscure ones like
Dragonaut and
Neko Majin Z . Now , the first manga I ever read online was Dragonball. I read it on some DBZ fansite probably SaiyainIsland or something.(Can't remember which).
Then I read Naruto and this time I downloaded the chapters through bittorrent. With a convinient Image Viewer like Irfanview , reading the chapters became as easy as pressing the right arrow key. It was very convinient but I had downloaded only 150 chapters of Naruto. And I really didn't want to wait to finish downloading another 150 chapters to continue reading. This led me to search for Online Manga Readers and I came across such sites offering free manga chapters online. In this article , I'm going to pit online manga readers vs the age old method of downloading manga chapters...
THE FACEOFF -
There are many sites out there which allow readers to access various manga titles and chapters for free through a javascript based interface. There are sites that focus on some specific mangas and other sites which allow access to tons of manga.
At the same time you could easily download a whole lot of popular and obscure manga through
IRC and
bittorrent.
Now we are going to examine Online Readers and Downloads on certain criteria and see which is better.
1.
Bandwidth used -
Downloads require
one time bandwidth use , i.e. when the chapters are being downloaded. After the download is complete , you can read the chapters over and over again without worrying about blowing holes in your bandwidth.
Online Manga Readers can
burn up your bandwidth if you keep on reading your favourite chapters and/or mangas over and over again , because whenever you read it online you actually download the page/chapter. Now , imagine dowing that 5 - 10 times and it's OVERKILL man ! I still have nightmares about how many times I've had to pay extra....
2.
Storage Space Used -
Downloads obviously require you to use some kind of storage space , in fact the amount of hard-drive space required can reach
gargantuan levels! I had to fill out
an entire partition of 30 GB on my 80 GB Hard Drive because I foolishly downloaded all Bleach chapters along with One Piece , Naruto , DragonBall , Rurouni Kenshin and some other series I can't recollect!! Jst be careful and watch your HD space when downloading manga.
Online Manga Readers require
zilch space . That's right ! I bet the number ZERO , never looked so good , eh ?! All chapters and mangas are uploaded on servers so you can use all your HD space for storing whatever you like ... ;)
3.
Ease of access -
Downloads are a solid pain in the ass , especially from an organizational point of view. It can take entire hours to organize and sort large manga collections. And to make the most out of your manga collection you probably need a better image reader than the default windows viewer. I would recommend Irfanview . It is excellent for reading manga.
Online Manga Readers are very easy to access. Just a couple of clicks and you are on your way to read your favorite manga and it's latest chapter. The server staff take care of all organization pains for the reader to offer a smooth reading experience.
4.
Quality -
Downloads generally tend to have higher quality , mainly because the storage space is used by the reader. Images are of high quality and double page spreads are not shrunk but they are displayed in full double page glory. Downloads have a significant edge in terms of quality.
Online Manga Readers usually use decent quality scans but most of them reduce the size of double page spreads to save bandwidth. More often than not , this leads to the text and the drawing very small and near impossible to read. Makes you wanna rip their balls off sometimes...
5.
Overall Experience -
If you have the storage space then downloads provide the best manga reading experience. Full size double pages , no ads and you even get to read if you are having internet problems...
Some Online Manga Readers manage to wonderfully botch up the experience by shoving ads in our face( eg -
Bleachexile ). Otherwise the experience is quite pleasant.
Hmm , that's about it with my article. Now , why don't you guys tell me if I left something. You could also gimme your thoughts and what you feel and if you use online readers or prefer to download your stuff...
BTW - Here's a list of places to read manga online -
One Manga - Simply The Best. Tons of Manga , regularly updated!
Mangashare Reader - Online Manga Reader of Mangashare.com. The titles are a bit limited and somtimes the updates are slow but it offers one hell of an experience.
MangaFox - Regularly Updated + Home to some rare manga
Peace !!
