August 22, 2005
Companies offer cell-phone comics in Japan
Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. will almost triple the number of comic books it formats for viewing on cell phones in a move that will make it the No. 1 provider of popular Japanese "manga" comics for cell phones, a company official said Monday, reports the Associated Press.
"The Sony Corp. unit will increase the number of titles it offers to 300 over the next year. That's more than double the number offered by top rivals NTT Solmare and Toppan Publishing combined, though the two competitors also plan to boost their libraries.
Japanese viewers pay 315 yen ($2.90) to download five manga titles a month by an artist of their choice.
Cell-phone comics use a technology called Comic Surfing, developed by Tokyo-based venture firm Celsys, which takes viewers through manga stories at a carefully calculated speed and sequence.
The manga frames are specially formatted to fit on tiny mobile phone screens. Pop-up frames and vibration during action scenes add to the drama. Cell-phone comics with preprogrammed sound effects are also coming soon, said Toppan Publishing spokesman Katsunori Onishi".
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