Is Viz Media raising prices on its manga volumes?

Next year marks the end of an era, with ICv2 reporting that, as of January 2024, VIZ Media will raise the price of its manga titles from $9.99 to $11.99.

The price rise — as yet unconfirmed by VIZ itself — was made public thanks to listings for future releases on Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s websites, and appears to show that Viz is raising the price of a single manga volume from $9.99 to $11.99. (Notably, Liz’s own website doesn’t appear to include pre-orders for anything beyond the end of 2023 at present.)

ICv2 wasn’t the first to notice the increase; Reddit users seemingly noticed the trend in May, to much upset. “You've got to be kidding me that we're going to be buying cheap paper and horribly misprinted books for 20% more the price than before,” complained one fan. “I hope the quality control also improves,” added another.

Should the increase take place, it’ll be the first time Viz has raised its prices in 15 years. As ICv2 notes, the new $11.99 price would still be lower than comparable released from Kodansha, Yen Press, and Seven Seas Entertainment, which charge $12.99, $13.00, and $12.99 through $14.99, respectively. In that same period, the average price of a U.S. monthly comic book has gone from $2.99 to anywhere between $3.99 and $4.99.

In case this makes manga fans want to quit collecting the volumes, Viz has a new manga app for fans to keep up to date with the latest releases, with 15 titles published simultaneously in English and Japanese.