Manga UP! Reviews

Nothing loads, just blank white screens when opening MangaUP … Super excited for when they get it working though!

i only lasted 35 minutes on MangaUP before deleting for two reasons. first and most noteworthy thing to mention is that the chapters cost 40-90 coins per chapter and those coins can be obtained with money thru MangaUP . normally thats fine, most manga apps have a monthly subscription or the volumes can be purchased as a whole and read that way.. but MangaUP doesn’t allow you to keep the chapters you’ve purchased. they’re merely available to you for up to 3 days. second thing to mention (biggest reason i deleted) is that these chapters that you pay for and are only available to you for 3 days are broken up. i got so confused when i went to read and one single chapter was broken up into 8 segments. EIGHT. 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4 etc. each segment costing 80 coins. that’s 640 coins for a SINGLE chapter. i went to the shop to see what the coin prices were and they’re about on par with other apps. 650 coins for $4. which sounds okay but remember, because they split it up, you’re paying $4 for a single chapter. if the manga you’re reading has 100+ chapters and each chapter is broken into 5-10 segments priced at 80 coins a segment.. you’re spending way more money than it’s worth. imo this isn’t MangaUP for me. truly surprised others even use it, there are far better, cheaper options that allow you to retain what you’ve purchased than this - i suggest one of those.

As much as I want to show support towards MangaUP since it has a few titles that I really like finally getting an official translation, I threw money towards the 0.99 newbie pack. I read a few chapters, understanding that the XP and the UP that you use made the chapters temporary to read (you only get to keep the chapter for 3 days!). HOWEVER, the moment I spent PAID coins on a chapter, I went to double check whether the chapter purchased was temporary and IT WAS, telling me that the chapter is only available for 3 days. I find that disappointing that spending a chapter (or a part of the actual chapter) with paid currency didn’t mean that it would be permanent for you to read. Rather, MangaUP seems to make it that if you want to re-read a chapter that you’ve previously purchased with PAID currency, you’ll have to purchase it again which is disappointing. I would like to support the author, but with this kind of system I think I’d rather have a subscription instead like another reviewer had mentioned, or change how when you spend your paid currency on (part of) a chapter, you get to keep it permanently as opposed to it only being able to temporarily read it for 3 days.

I’m positively baffled at how this horrid software made it out the door. To begin, the way the service itself is structured is still a mystery to me. There are a total of 3 currencies which you use to unlock chapters, and even if you paid for the currency to unlock chapters they’re only unlocked for three days? On top of that, manga chapters are artificially broken into several parts meaning you have to spend MORE money to read everything. If my math is correct, it’s cheaper to buy print for some of these series. At least then you get to keep the manga forever and not just THREE DAYS. Oh, and screenshooting is a ban-able offense.

Furthermore, the catalogue of series on offer is incredibly lackluster, too. Lots of vapid, erotic schlock and only a handful of standout series. Even if you find something you’d want to read, MangaUP has issues of blank pages requiring a restart.

I don’t understand why they couldn’t have a monthly subscription like other services do. Every single aspect of MangaUP is so blatantly anti consumer that I’m shocked that it launches in the state it did. If they do a complete overhaul of the entire structure of MangaUP , maybe there’s something here- but for now- don’t even think about downloading this.

tldr; a great app to read official translations and support the staff. Think of it as renting manga to read for about half the price of outright buying the manga. Supporting minor titles and older publications.

Manga Up is a great way to read some titles that may have never made it to the big book stores in America. Honestly the pricing scheme is very fair considering the work authors and translators put in. You get ~7 “chapters” free a day with each new series have 1-2 free ones to see if you like it. Now a chapter in MangaUP is broken into sections so a real chapter in a physical book would be split up into ~4 sections. Sometimes it feels short but if you compare the price of buying coins to read it all it would come out to about half the price it takes to buy a physical copy.

Look, I get it. They need to make money but this is insanity. They break up chapters into multiple parts then tout you can read up to 8 free chapters per day if you read twice a day. Then you have to pay per chapter which isn’t a chapter really since they’re segmented. I want to support the industry but this is just predatory. On top of that there are 3 currencies. It makes it super confusing. Oh and when you unlock a ‘chapter’ it’s only for a set period. You can’t go back after a couple days and re-read it. You’d have to pay again to unlock it.

On top of that the censorship is purely insane. They put massive black boxes of everything and anything. I’ve seen a black sensor box over a knee. Like what?

Viz figured out a solid model. Webtoons has a different but still great model. Just mimic one of those and this could be a decent app

While I love the idea of supporting official translations, MangaUP is the culmination of every bad feature in a manga app. Normally every app has its strengths and weaknesses. Pros usually out-weight the cons, but this one just does everything wrong.

Chapters are broken up, too many different types of currencies, nothing “purchased” is permanent only rented, many of the series aren’t even regularly updated and there are no statuses on whether its on hiatus or they’re just behind on translation. There’s also no way to easily check if any of the series you follow gets updated recently other than checking the page itself.

I’m sure there are some other things I’m missing but these are the issues that come to mind. Individually, all these issues aren’t so bad because usually you have things like original series, exclusive series, regular weekly updates with some warning why there might not be a new chapter, easy to use or convenient interface, etc. MangaUP is honestly not my favorite and I only check in maybe once a month or two for series I can only find here.

Otherwise I’ll just go somewhere else.

Title says it all. They aggressively censor everything, almost all of which is something that never needs censoring. The excuse for this being compliance to release products in certain regions, but it both affects people outside those regions and goes overly beyond what would be necessary. On the monetization side, they break chapters into pieces. That in itself is nothing new, plenty of sites do it and it helps the mangaka regularly release content without being pressured. The problem comes in with them monetizing everything at exorbitant prices, splitting their reading tickets/item for a chapter to only include one part, and having next to no free reads per day. To put it in perspective, you essentially pay a volume’s price for an individual chapter. It’s absurd.

App needs to be changed entirely or taken down.

The censorship is ridiculous in MangaUP, you have black bars over pretty much anything a woman wears that shows more skin than a turleneck sweater. No, even then, it could happen. They’ve put black bars over a woman just standing there in jeans. A woman simply EXISTING is too offensive to be seen without a censor bar.

And you can’t read more than like 5 pages in a row without MangaUP bugging you about running out of free views and requiring money. It will do this several times within a single chapter. It’s incredibly annoying and ruins the flow of the manga. It’s monetized like those predatory games that try to get children to tap away money from their unknowing parents’ cards.

Do not use this. If you want to support these manga, there are plenty of better options.

MangaUP is structured terribly with the whole coin/xp/up system. If such a system works for the Japanese reader (I feel bad for them), it doesn’t work for a global audience. The FAQ page does mention a subscription style membership, but it is nowhere to be seen in MangaUP .

To make matters worse, every risqué series is censored. Why have an app age rating of 17+ if you’re going to censor things anyways? The company’s response to their censorship is laughable and they basically told us to purchase their manga on other platforms

That could be a better option seeing as the Manga Up’s reading structure (coins/xp/up) would probably end up being more expensive in the long run than purchasing the volumes and a person owning them. This structure only allows you to unlock a chapter for a few days!

Furthermore, the chapters are divided into multiple parts, so you essentially have to spend more of your coins/xp/up to read a full chapter since each part is counted as a chapter on MangaUP.

In summary, terrible structure, probably would end up being more expensive than buying the actual volumes, and censored. Is there even a reason to use this service?

Seems to work fine for me, but there definitely are some bugs. Some series state they’ll be updated in 2038– which looks pretty silly. I really want to see Square Enix publish its JOKER comics in English, but unfortunately my biggest complaint is that this apps follows a Webtoons/Tapas style way of publishing— instead of the alternative magazine subscription model with some limits the way the Shonen Jump app is. Additionally some chapters are artificially split into multiple parts. It leaves a really bad impression because the only reason this could be done is to scam money out of a reader by making them pay for 2 to 3 parts just to read one chapter.

What goes through their minds when making something that is so horrendous like MangaUP? Tons of panels are censored for no reason, chapters are split into 5 or even 8 separate sections that you can’t even buy for free all in one day. Also you can only rent the chapters for 3 days? F that, I could literally find a pirated site that doesn’t censor every page for free in minutes. The cherry on top is that this company literally doesn’t care either and will not stop doing things poorly. If you really want to support the artists, do so through another avenue because I’m 99% sure this company isn’t doing anything to support said artists and only want to micro transaction it’s very few users.
Bad app.

MangaUP uses a convoluted currency based system like a video game to read the manga instead of a simple subscription service which would be easier to use and be much less confusing. The chapters themselves are broken up which means it costs more points and coins to read single chapters than it should normally cost. On average a single chapter is in 3-4 parts which uses not only any “free” daily reads you get but also eats away at in app currency you buy forcing you to spend more to complete a series. While the selection is good, many series are misplaced in their respective categories and others don’t make sense to why they were put in certain categories.

I dont really know what Square enix was thinking. I guess everyone can get into the anime/manga space but to not only censor everything to kneecaps to folds in pants and even the letter Y… I think you should just go pirate the manga instead. The worst part is that MangaUP is riddled with micro transactions as well. So we get a scuffed app that has censoring made for anyone under the age of 11 but I gotta pay for each chapter. Yea stop wasting your time here and work on the rest of the ff7 remake. I want people to support the creators original work but its kinda hard to do so with alternatives like MangaUP. DO NOT DOWNLOAD MangaUP.

This is without a doubt an anti consumer piece of trash full stop. Not only is the monetization completely greedy and the censorship so unnecessary and intrusive, but the quality of the images themselves is laughably bad. The fact that they charge money for anything MangaUP has is honestly offensive. The only way to make MangaUP work would be to completely change everything about it. You would think a big company like Square-Enix would actually put out something at least serviceable but this is a joke.

MangaUP is great for reading mangas and books, I downloaded MangaUP not liking mangas, and now I love them! I’m a huge fan of the Square Enix community as well. I love their games and manga! My personal favorite thing they made is Final Fantasy VII, crisis core, reunion. These mangas are very great, and I have recommended MangaUP to many of my friends!

It’s not bad you use currency that is free by the way to read it you are able to buy more but you can read 8 chapters a day with free stuff not horrible if you have no other options

You start you read it good but when you read you can’t read the rest and you intrusted why not make a whole story the person won’t know it unless they buy it but for people who don’t spend it make them upset they can’t read the rest I got intrusted but couldn’t read the rest

Not sure why the bad reviews. I downloaded and starting reading immediately with no problems whatsoever. Imma huge Square and manga fan so this is a dream come true. Stoked for what the future brings with MangaUP.

This is the worst manga reader app I have ever seen.

I will start with the most offensive. You don’t purchase anything. You rent the ability to read 1/3rd of a chapter for 3 days. After the 3 days, you have to rent it again. They artificially split every chapter into 3 sub chapters to make you purchase the rental 3 separate times.

They heavily monetize everything, with three separate types of currency.

They will ban you if you screenshot anything.

They also heavily censor everything, even when a manga is rated 17+. Fully clothed people in swimwear are being censored! Got a warning for screenshotting an example of the terrible censorship to show my friend.

This is such a bad app and a blatant cash grab, it’s almost funny. Stay far away from this trash fire.

What’s the point of spending money on parts of chapters that you aren’t even able to keep. It’s like they’re telling people to pirate the manga??? Why not just implement advertisements into MangaUP or something??? The way they’re monetizing right now is very unintuitive, and while it’s likely friendly to the authors, it is the exact opposite to those trying to use MangaUP .

Thank you for actually letting us buy the manga and not the cheap 72 rental MangaUP still mess up when trying to go to the next chapter but that’s once in a blue moon

The only app that has Apothecary Diaries so far but is a little annoying to use. The coins are so expensive! It's cheaper for you to buy the e-books at $7.99 if you're an eager reader like me even if you get a certain amount of points everyday it's just doing too much. Once you get to "advanced" chapters you have no choice but to spend money on coins to unlock them if you haven't unlocked and read the chapters before it. So annoying.

I like MangaUP because it’s an easy way to read mangas with out spending little-to-no money. I’ve had it for almost a year now and I still use it. You get coins every day, and the next day, you’ll get your coins refilled. I recommend it if you like mangas.