There’s another new manga reading service on the scene! Let’s see what this one brings to the table.
About Comikey
In late June, a new comic reading service called Comikey had its soft launch. While it debuted with several Chinese manhua, Comikey, a US-based publisher, said they were also pursuing Korean and Japanese titles. According to its introduction, “Comikey’s focus is on the simultaneous publication (simulpub) of chapters and series. We aim to carry the largest simulpub catalogue of comics in the world, which allows fans like you to keep up with the latest chapters of your favorite series.”
Then, July 12th, Comikey added its first batch of Japanese comics to coincide with its official launch.
Eight manga are currently on Comikey:
- Battle in 5 Seconds
- Don’t XXX With Teachers!
- Gujira’s Reptile Secrets
- Happy Harem Making with the Mightiest Orc!
- I’m a Demon Lord. I Got Remarried to the Mother of a Hero, So She Became My Daughter-in-Law.
- Killer in Love
- Killer Vamp
- The Strongest Savior’s Second Chance
All of these are shounen or seinen manga published by Shogakukan on its apps Manga ONE or Ura Sunday.
A few days later, Comikey announced another batch of licenses including titles from other Japanese publishers like Shinchosa and Coamix:
- Beneath the Mask
- Cursed Sword
- Girl Crush
- Promise Cinderella
- Record of Ragnarok
These will debut between July and October and includes a couple shoujo manga titles. Record of Ragnarok is also licensed by VIZ Media for a digital and physical release.
According to Anime News Network, while Comikey is currently in English, there are plans to translate series into Spanish and other languages.
There were some other tidbits about Comikey and its future too, but that can wait until I download the app and check it out and —
Wait, there is no app!?
Trying Out Comikey
Yes, Comikey is very unusual in that it’s currently only available to be viewed on its website. Most comic reading services have an app to either make reading more convenient for phone/tablet users or as the only way to read on their platform. No app means that pretty much everyone with a Web browser can use Comikey, but those mobile device users who like to avoid clogging up their Internet history or want a more optimized experience are going to be disappointed. An app is a goal for Comikey, but there’s no public ETA on its release.
So I headed on over to Comikey’s website.
The main page features a large rotating header with a quick collage and intro before showcasing one at a time.
While that’s not uncommon, besides the key image, the header includes the genre(s), the creator(s) (with family names first, at least for the Japanese authors), and number of chapters. You can also hover in that area and click on the other highlighted series. My first thought was that this was a bit overwhelming. You don’t even see the Comikey logo until below this.
My iPad in portrait mode looked much better, but landscape looked just as my laptop did.
Anyway, at the very top are buttons for Comics, Genres, and News and a button to click where you can start typing your search and get results directly. Below the header is a Menu button with Home, Comics, and Genres (I guess News wasn’t good enough to make it here?), and on the far right side of the Comikey logo you can log in.
Below that is yet another carousel of titles, one from each genre, an array of recently updated series, and a section about exclusives. Unlike the top, these carousels do not revolve automatically and require to be clicked on to see the selection. The very bottom of the page are links to Comikey’s social media as well as links to info pages like About Us and FAQ. I am surprised there wasn’t more about how Comikey is an official source, free chapters, or the benefits of signing up. In fact, the name of the site is easily lost with all of the busyness of the main page showing off titles.
The Comics page brings Comikey’s series. This page can be organized in almost any way you want to see it, like last updated or name, with just pictures or more info, and ascending or descending. Either way, the list is currently three pages long, or you can start typing in the search box to bring up relevant series.
One thing to note about the search: it only seems to check against titles. So you can’t search by author, summary, or anything else. Partial results are okay, as “n’t”, for instance, will bring up Don’t XXX With Teachers! and Don’t Mess with My Sister.
Moving on to Genres. There are seven of these shown at the top and elsewhere: School Life, Romance, Comedy, Drama, Action, Suspense, and Fantasy. There’s an eighth at the bottom of the page: Slice of Life. So most of these are general genre terms used in all forms of media.
So yes, titles are not categorized by their country of origin. You can see if it’s a manga or webtoon (manhua/manhwa) once you click on a series and either look at a) the title of the page in your browser or b) the URL.
In other words, there’s no way to get just manga to show up. While I could see reasons for not wanting to (get people to step out of their comfort zone mainly), I think it’s a significant filter. Like, for me, it’s not necessarily I don’t like webtoons, but I really don’t like vertical scrolling. With a manga filter, I can go straight to series I know has a more book/magazine-like layout.
And, if they’re really aiming to have such a large catalog, Comikey is likely going to need more genres (or tags, filters, or whatever else you want to call them) than the eight they currently have.
Clicking on a series brings up a page with its chapter list, summary, and other info. There is no search here if case you want to jump directly to another title, but the chapter page may include release dates for upcoming chapters. According to Comikey, focus is currently on catching up to the source material, and then after that, manga and webtoons on Comikey will be simulpubs.
Comikey also states the first few chapters of a series will be free. The latest (eventually, simulpubbed) chapter is also free…except for the twelve hours when it isn’t.
So if a chapter debuts as 10 AM ET, it is free to read until 12 PM. Then it gets locked until 12 AM, when then it becomes free until the next chapter comes out.
That’s, uh, a unique approach I guess? I guess Comikey is hoping that 2 hour initial window drives a lot of traffic, and probably social media buzz to get the series trending and cause more people to want to check it out. Maybe they’re also hoping people will become impatient and want to unlock it? For me, there’s nothing I couldn’t hold off for 12 hours to be able to read for free.
Now, about unlocking chapters. Comikey’s form of online currency is the key. (Get it?) There are a few different types of keys.
The first is the Beta key, which are only available during this Beta period. One Beta key unlocks a chapter. Comikey strongly indicates that in the future, chapters will cost more than one key to unlock, but Beta keys are 1:1 .
After this introductory period is over, Beta keys will transition out. The new standard key, currently just called regular keys, will replace them as the default.
There are also Xtra keys. According to Comikey, “Xtra keys are keys that you earn by doing different tasks (campaigns, events, reading specific series, number of chapters, sharing invite links, etc.). These keys are time limited, free (Xtra) keys that you can use instead of beta/regular keys to unlock chapters on the platform!”
Xtra keys aren’t just given out by doing activities, though, as I’ll explain in a minute. I don’t know if regular keys will be priced the same as Beta keys or if they’ll be different, but here are the Beta key prices:
So while prices generally go down per key the more you buy at once, it’s the Xtra keys that really reduce the per-item cost. I imagine these will be equivalent to a regular key in the future, but their value is reduced since you only have a certain amount of time to use them.
Of course, I could register now and learn more about them, but for now, I decided to experience Comikey as a guest. The first manga I tried out was Killer in Love. Loading was pretty fast, and as the pages are coming up, there is a tip screen for reading direction.
Clicking in the middle or moving your mouse (tapping on a tablet) at the top or bottom will bring up the menu.
You can click on the series name to go back to its page or the icon to go back to Comikey’s homepage. In this corner, you can also access the chapter list where you can select another chapter to jump to. There’s no indication here of which chapters are free or paid, but if you click on a paid chapter, it will tell you it requires a key.
Even if you are logged in (which I tested later), Comikey will bring up a slightly altered version of the same screen; you don’t have to worry about accidentally using a key since you have to click the Unlock button (replaces the Log In above).
“HD” is in the bottom left hand corner, but there’s no way to change to SD to reduce loading time or whatever, so I’m not really sure what that’s about.
At the bottom is a progress bar with the number of pages in the chapter shown.
On the bottom right hand side are a couple options to alter your reading experience. The arrows change the reading direction from right-to-left to vertical. The other button changes depending on which mode you’re in. In manga mode, you can choose either to see one page at a time or two (excluding any solo pages like the first page). In vertical mode, that button either becomes fit to width or fit to height. The latter is more zoomed in while the former has more of a full-page-at-once view.
On my iPad in portrait mode, this option is not available. In landscape, it reappears.
The settings button allows you to change the color of Comikey’s reader’s background and to choose whether you want pages to animate (slide into the screen) or not (just appear when you hit next). I got tripped up at first by not reading that the first button is a reset, not save settings.
After finishing a chapter, you can choose to go to the next chapter, go back to reading, or leave a comment.
I tried a couple more chapters going as fast as possible, but loading seemed rather minimal, usually about 3 seconds for the first page and the rest ready within a couple more seconds. Of course, this is at me going fast; at normal reading speed, pages should be all set by the time you get to them. I also didn’t notice any better or slower speeds on my iPad.
Browsing a few of the manga, Comikey does seem to have some differences in their localizations depending on the series and/or translators with honorifics and Japanese name order. It just depends. I know some people may object to terms like “Demon Lord-sama”, but you can’t please everyone. The fontfaces are fairly common in manga, and I didn’t notice any significant errors outside of a couple of typos (“ffive”). The manga are all web serializations originally, so page quality is good.
On the chapter page in guest mode, Comikey will indicate chapters you’ve started or finished. But it won’t remember your progress; you’ll always start back at page 1.
So it was time to sign up for Comikey. Comikey requires an email, username, and password, but readers can also sign in using Facebook.
The email took about a minute to arrive, but I had no problems with the registration process. Right now, signing up gives users five free Xtra keys.
Clicking on that link brought me to a page where it lists how and when Xtra keys are awarded and expire. I signed up on the 17th, so I had five days to use these keys. Not a lot of time. Assuming Xtra keys with paid keys also expire in five days, make sure to use any Xtra keys up first and right away!
And, uh, you might not want to sign up unless you know you’re going to use those freebies up ASAP, because the account page? Kind of worthless right now.
Yes, My Comics, My Favorites, and Reading Log are all “coming soon”. Even though the chapter list can keep track of your progress and can mark a title as your favorite on the series page, it doesn’t show up here. So if you don’t want to buy some Beta keys or think the sign up promo is going to end, you’re probably better off waiting to register since you can read free chapters without logging in. You can see what devices you are logged into right now though, but there’s no real syncing right now outside of chapters being marked read.
Final Thoughts
Comikey is still in beta, so there are still a lot of changes and improvements to be made. I was shocked the app isn’t ready, but I’m glad that they went with an online approach over just phone/tablet only. There are quality-of-life improvements I’d like to see like a search option on all non-reader pages, manga as a genre, and saving which page you left off on. But with the search only on certain pages and the large headers, Comikey certainly wasn’t the most user-friendly service to browse.
It’s good Comikey is debuting with exclusives and is not just another place to read current English-translated manga that you can find at many other locations. I checked out Comikey just a couple of days after its debut, and I was a little disappointed in the fact they only had shounen and seinen titles. However, Comikey with their second round of announcements, it seems they’re filling in that hole. With Record of Ragnarok‘s announcement, we know it’s possible for manga already published by other English licensors to appear on Comikey, which greatly opens up the market. The fact they plan to expand outside of English is also impressive.
For me, though, while I was entertained by a couple of its manga (I found I’m a Demon Lord. I Got Remarried to the Mother of a Hero, So She Became My Daughter-in-Law. enjoyable), I didn’t find myself that hyped about Comikey at first. Part of the reason why is because it’s coming off the heels of Alpha Manga, which had several titles I was excited for and would gladly buy physical volumes of right out of the gate. Manga about young adults trying to hide the fact they are involved in a murder or an orc boy wanting to grow up to sleep with a bunch of animal girls in his harem aren’t the sort of titles I personally naturally gravitate toward. But I’m much more intrigued now that I know Comikey is including more variety and is working with more publishers outside of Shogakukan’s male web manga divisions.
However, while browsing Comikey, I couldn’t help feeling like it either needed to add a subscription-based model or it would have been better off being a subscription-based service. Especially for webtoon fans, as I know it’s quite common for online manhua and manhwa to go into triple digits. And depending on how many regular keys are needed per chapter (which I’m guessing is going to equate to $.75-$1), that might be better for a lot of fans. I also don’t get why Comikey makes its simulpub free period complicated, but hey, you can’t beat reading chapters within a half day of its Asian release for free legally.
Have you tried out Comikey yet? What did you think of it? What series did you like or are looking forward to?
EDIT: This article has been updated to better reflect that Beta keys will convert and not exist after the Beta period.