[Update] Manga Rock shut down leaves users scrambling for alternatives

This story is being continuously updated….new updates are being added at the bottom…..

Original story (from September 03) follows:

A well-known manga piracy site Manga Rock announced through the J-Cast news website that they are shutting down after almost a decade of operation.

According to Not a Basement Studio, a subsidiary to a technology company Noizer Limited who manages the scanlation website, Manga Rock launched in 2010. A group of college students started it as a project, gathering scanlations that were already released.

The popularity of the site increased over the years to the point where they launched their own app, charging customers with $4.99 monthly subscription. As people continued to patronage the site and the app, it is clear that their customers had no idea that the scanlation site was illegal.

During their announcement, the company stated:

At that time, we didn’t understand the manga industry, we didn’t know the origin of the scan (including the non-official license), and we know that it will damage manga artists and publishers over time Moreover, as the popularity of “Manga Rock” increased, so did the damage, so we deeply reflected on our role in accelerating the popularity of scanning and made the victims cartoonists and publishers more As a result, we plan to close our scan collection site and app, and recommend that similar scan collection sites (there are many) be closed as well. I ’m really sorry for the inconvenience to the manga industry

Manga industry supporters tweeted their disapproval of scanlation websites saying these are illegal and must not be supported. @daleydonuts expressed in a tweet that there is no need for scanlation websites to see latest episodes of manga since they are available at Shonen Jump and Manga Plus apps for FREE. Shonen Jump and Manga Plus are available in Google Play and App Store.

Currently the website for Manga Rock is inaccessible for a lot of users, while the app is still up and running. But we should see it shutting down too in the coming days. Readers are now taking to discussion platforms like Reddit to know about the available alternatives.

Manga Rock app has been taken down from Google Play Store, however, it’s still available on the App Store (as of writing). The cached version shows the listing was available, but now it has been taken down for reasons unknown.

According to J-Cast news, Not A Basement Studio shared the following info with them over this development:

Manga Rock’s closure work is still ongoing and has already disappeared from the Google app store.

Manga Rock team announces a new platform, apologizes as well as explains everything about the shut down. Complete story here.
Feature image credits:Viz Media/ Funimation

Manga Rock officially dead as reading scanlations are no longer possible. Complete coverage here.

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Alternatives for Manga Rock such as Mangazone and Mangadex rise. Head here for more details.

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