Viz: Shonen Jump Alpha digital version: just two weeks behind Japan releases
 

So Viz apparently announced Shonen Jump Alpha, where they will release, digitally, Japan's weekly Shonen Jump anthology, fully translated into English, two weeks after it streets in Japan. For the manga layman, this includes most of the most popular boys titles, including Naruto, One Piece, Bakuman, etc., which is usually only released in collections here, and usually months if not years behind the Japanese collection releases (which are themselves released way after the weekly chapters).

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/21253.html

The kicker is that these will not be available for purchase, but for rental; 48 issues per year for 25.99, or 99 cents for individual issues for four weeks, able to be read on iphones, ipads, computers, etc.

The issue, of course, are scanlations, the fanbase that releases, for free, fan translations of the weekly chapters as quickly as possible, which cuts into the official release sales (I would think).

I know I'm a manga fan, but this, to me, is a huge move. I know the ipad/tablet market is not yet mature and that not everyone is going to move to digital, but I would love to subscribe or rent American comics day and date (or even a month behind). I know Marvel has a sub plan, but it doesn't work on tablets. And the fact that they are going to translate not only the manga that they are currently releasing, but all of the manga in the Japanese edition plus the articles. And they are going to stop publishing their print version of the anthology entirely.