Coolmic is one of those platforms I’ve heard about (even mentioned!) but never really checked out. Well, with their recent announcement, I decided to take a deeper look at Coolmic. Is it a good option for manga readers?
About Coolmic
At Coolmic, readers can browse a selection of translated manga and other comics. Coolmic started in 2018, and it added French translations in 2019. Most series are published from WWWave Corporation and its subsidiaries, which runs Coolmic, but Coolmic also features titles from Kodansha Comics and Harlequin.
Genres include girls, shonen, young adults, ladies, mature, TL (teens’ love), and BL (boys’ love). Because of this, there is a significant amount of ecchi and NSFW material, and users will need an account to browse the mature stuff.
Speaking of browsing, readers can only access Coolmic on a phone or tablet and through a web browser; there is no desktop-friendly version or a separate app to download. If your browser isn’t set for mobile versions, all you’ll see is a QR code for your mobile device to scan. According to Coolmic, a PC website is coming “in the future”, but there’s no indication when. In fact, technically, tablets are not supported, but most mobile device browsers have the “request mobile site” option if it’s not set as the default.
New content is added every day, and readers can browse what has been updated over the past week. Or, if audiences are looking for completed works, there is a section for finished series.
Coolmic’s titles are divided into chapters. Reading is in vertical scrolling mode, not manga/comic-style page flipping. Each series’ first chapter is free or has a free preview, and depending on their sales, a few more chapters will be available for free. Otherwise, chapters cost tickets. Most cost 5-8 tickets, which is equivalent to $.45-.72 each, unless there’s a sale. Chapters of Kodansha Comics manga, whether simulpubs or broken up from the graphic novel releases, usually work out to be in the $2-3 range, putting it in line with other eBook platforms. Coolmic accepts VISA, Mastercard, and PayPal to purchase tickets, and chapters are permanently unlocked once tickets are spent.
As of January 18th, Coolmic has added another option: Coolmic Unlimited. For $9.99 a month (which cannot be paid with PayPal), subscribers can read select material without worrying about tickets.
Exploring Coolmic
As I mentioned earlier, Coolmic has never been really on my radar. I am not a fan of the pay-per-chapter model, but I am even less a fan of vertical scrolling. I like seeing full pages and not having to worry about moving the picture too far or not far enough to see panels. It just feels like more work than occasionally tapping or swiping to flip. In addition, I find it annoying I can’t use it on my computer or have a separate app on my iPad. But hey, maybe its new subscription service could overcome my general dislike of Coolmic’s service.
So, the first thing I noticed is there doesn’t seem to be a free trial. Most other reading/watching platforms offer three days to a month to sample the service, so that was a disappointment. At least potential subscribers can see the catalog before spending $10 for a month.
Coolmic advertises Unlimited as including “over 600 titles!”, which is pretty amazing since just a year ago, Coolmic had over 300. Unlimited only appears to include manga from WWWave, not from its other partners, so Coolmic itself has truly grown if it had 300 titles in February 2020 and yet twice that just in its Unlimited service.
Coolmic has a lot of options for those who want spicier stuff but maybe don’t want the more explicit (and expensive) content at FAKKU. There are some fantasy or action titles, which tend to dominate other manga platforms, but here, it’s more provocative material. A lot of manga targets the ladies too, which is nice.
That being said, most WWWave series do appear to be included in Unlimited. However, not every chapter is included. From what I’ve seen, series four chapters or less are included in full, like The God of Poverty & The High-School Girl.
However, that’s the exception, not the norm. Everything longer seems to be broken down into the first two-thirds Unlimited, the last one-third still paid with tickets. So that greatly affects the value of Unlimited. Yes, with Unlimited, it’s easier to find good manga versus the one free chapter or waiting for a sale to get a few more. But with only a small handful of titles four chapters or less, readers are going to have to pony up the about $.50 per chapter to finish most of them.
So, yes, it’s an incredible value based on MSRP, but actual savings may be muddled. Another dollar to finish a 6-chapter series, $3.50 there, $5 there. Yanagihara Is a Sex Addict is still ongoing, but just to catch up would cost another $25 on top of Unlimited’s $9.99 subscription fee.
Personally, I think it might be more attractive to readers if less series were included, but they could be read in full. Rotate it every so often to keep audiences subscribed. Or maybe include some free tickets to help with all those one-third remaining chapters of series. Coolmic Unlimited is new, so I’m not exactly sure if it’s automatic that a chapter goes into Unlimited when the comic is updated, but I’m guessing so. There were way too many titles where 66% were available for free as part of the service, give or take a couple of percent.
Plus, according to the terms, “Coolmic Unlimited can only be used on one device per account at a time.” That seems like it could lead to issues, as it’s not like Coolmic has an app for easy syncing.
Since Coolmic is just a site for mobile devices, the service is fast. Even the actual chapters pop up quick so you can start reading right away.
Of course, since I’m using an iPad, I had to force Safari to show me the mobile site. Out of curiosity, I checked on my PC. Coolmic will load if you use the built-in Web Developer tools on Chrome, but I couldn’t couldn’t get it to work on Firefox. Maybe some of my extensions are interfering. Regardless, scrolling is very clunky. Desktop-to-mobile mode on a computer is not really an option if your phone is out of battery or whatever.
Again, catering to the mobile market makes loading fast, but I found it inconvenient to be forced to use my iPad’s browser. And iPads are the most popular tablet in the world, so why wouldn’t Coolmic make sure it is iPad-friendly? I could understand maybe if an app was limited to Android devices or something like FAKKU, but no. While Coolmic is snappy, I would sacrifice a little speed for convenience.
Otherwise, the picture quality seems good. In keeping with the minimalist theme, the menu while reading is jump up/down and go forward/back a chapter.
If you have an account, you can see what you read and such and the usual Library section benefits. Nothing special from what I’ve seen.
Final Opinion
So ultimately, even with Coolmic Unlimited, I haven’t really changed my mind about the service. Again, I’m not a fan of vertical comic reading, but I’m even less inclined when I’d have to use private browsing or a VPN to prevent illustrious-sounding titles like My Sister Bears My Secret or Confessions of a [censored by me] Trap clogging up my browser history.
But the fact I would only be able to finish a very small handful of titles with the service is a disadvantage, even moreso when you compare it to the price of other services. INKR Comics and Mangamo both cost half the price of Coolmic Unlimited, futekiya is $6.99 (and dedicated to one genre), izneo Premium is $7.99, and the multi-genre Kindle Unlimited also is $9.99 a month (less if you sign up for a longer term) and also includes some NSFW short series in full. FAKKU is higher-priced (and also lacks an iOS app), but you also get current and back issues for manga from select magazines. Plus most hentai manga isn’t going to have that many chapters, so you can get complete stories and not almost always have to pony up more cash to see the ending.
But maybe with enough subscribers, Coolmic can use the money to make some improvements to the service. Most of the competition has figured out how to reach out to both mobile and desktop users, and at for the price Coolmic wants for its all-you-can-read program, the $9.99 pricetag feels on the high side. Still, with its more sexually charged material and not a strong emphasis on just shounen/seinen manga, Coolmic caters to multiple niches while most other services tend to one. That may make its price more palatable and make users feel better about investing