Why Viz Bans Mature Manga On Its Own App

Posted on the 04 May 2015 by Kaminomi @OrganizationASG

Reading manga on my tablet and phone has been a fun experience. I never thought I would be using it more than the PC, and I pretty much download my manga, and get ready to read it.

Well, except anything rated mature.

The only possible way I can read an M rated manga is on my PC. I can’t even attempt to read it on the go. Wondering why this is the case, I got in touch with a Viz rep to answer why this was the case, since that could be a deal breaker. Viz’s PR person Elizabeth Ellis responded to my query:

Due to Apple’s rating and content rules, our VIZ Manga iOS application cannot support M rated content since it is rated 12+. In order to have our M rated manga available on the application, we would have to rate the whole app ‘M’ due to Apple’s restrictions.

And well, Viz would lose money by rating their whole app M since they sell other manga that’s not that.

So the only way you can read any mature manga would be on Amazon’s Kindle app, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, and Comixology. Oh, and you can read it on the Viz Manga site of course. That sucks. Can’t Apple just make things a bit easier for manga fans? Guess we’ll just have to put up with it.