Harlequin manga comes to eManga.com!

Earlier this year, I took a tour of eManga.com and though my experience was overall a very positive one, the one thing I wished for was more content. Well, it looks like DMP is making that wish come true, though time will tell if this is content I’ll truly enjoy. Never having been a fan of Harlequin romances, my immediate reaction was on the negative side, but that judgement is far from fair. I’ve never read any Harlequin manga and it’s only right that I give it a shot! With eManga’s recently announced weekend promo (thanks, Michelle!) this is surely the time to start!

Regardless of my own tastes, it seems likely that this is a good move for eManga. With their primary focus being boys’ love manga, romance is clearly key and I’d expect the audiences for both types of romance to overlap quite a bit. For more insight, you may want to take a look at reviews from those who have been reading Harlequin manga, like Julie at Manga Maniac Cafe, Bamboo Dong at Anime News Network, and Craig Johnson at Manga Life. Meanwhile, check out DMP’s press release for more details:

Gardena, CA (December 3, 2009) – Digital Manga Publishing, one of the manga industry’s most unique and creative publishers,is proud to announce their online collaboration in making Harlequin romance manga available online at eManga.com! Harlequin Enterprises Limited (www.eHarlequin.com) is a global leader in series romance and one of the world’s leading publishers of women’s fiction. Harlequin manga are comic adaptations of Harlequin’s romance novels and are currently digitally distributed by Harlequin and SOFTBANK Creative internationally. Harlequin manga will now be available for rental through eManga’s online manga service, bringing the manga versions of the popular Harlequin romance novels to the US for english readers to enjoy!

Beloved by readers the world over, Harlequin has shipped 5.8 billion novels worldwide since its inception. In 1998, Harlequin Enterprises Limited began licensing their novels to Japanese publishers, culminating in the creation of Harlequin manga, which are drawn by various shojo mangaka, and geared towards teenage and adult women. Now, twenty of these titles will be available through eManga.com for rental alongside Digital Manga’s own rental library. These twenty titles have never before been available in their print manga form in the US, until now.

The first of the Harlequin manga titles available for rental will be: Millionaire Husband written by Leanne Banks and illustrated by Kanako Uesugi, Prisoner Of The Tower written by Gayle Wilson and illustrated by Karin Miyamoto, The Sheikh’s Reluctant Bride written by Teresa Southwick and illustrated by Ayumu Asou, Word Of A Gentleman written by Lyn Stone and illustrated by Tsukiko Kurebayashi, Married Under The Italian Sun by Lucy Gordon and illustrated by Mayu Takayama and Sale Or Return Bride written by Sarah Morgan and illustrated by Kazuto Fujita.

eManga.com streams content through an Adobe Flash player, which allows readers to access their library wherever they have an internet connection. The reader has custom features that include two-page, one-page, panel-by-panel reading, three custom zoom options, a bookmark bad and auto play. The reader is also made to work with different screen sizes to maintain great image quality at any screen size. The standard eManga rental package is $10 for 1000 points, with entire books averaging between 200-300 points. Higher packages come with free bonus points. Points are kept in user’s accounts, allowing for quick and easy rental of titles at anytime, anywhere. For most of the titles on eManga, you also have the option to read the entire book by spending eManga points to “rent” the title for a limited amount of time (currently 72 hours). If you later decide to rent the same title again, it will be automatically upgraded to an “unlimited” rental, which does not have time restrictions.

For more information and to begin reading right away, visit www.emanga.com and click on the Harlequin tab under “publishers”.