Shueisha announced on Thursday it has launched its global digital manga platform Manga Million in over 100 languages including English, Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish, French, Turkish, Tagalog, Korean, Polish, and others. The platform has over one million pages of translated manga from 400 titles at launch.

The company stated that over 150 of those titles are shojo manga. The titles include ONE PIECE, Naruto, Bleach, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Jujutsu Kaisen, Kingdom, Oshi no Ko, SPY×FAMILY, Chainsaw Man, NANA, Kimi ni Todoke – From Me to You, and more.

The application is free without registration for a “limited time” but Shueisha confirmed with ANN that the company has not has not yet decided on a timeline for free access. Shueisha also confirmed with ANN that AI translation was not used for this project. The company stated in its announcement, “International licensing partners from around the world provided support for this unprecedented translation endeavor, making MANGA MILLION one of the largest initiatives in Shueisha‘s history.”

Editor-in-Chief of MANGA Plus by Shueisha Shuhei Hosono is the initiator of the Manga Million project and he stated regarding the launch:

The project began with a simple question: what if we marked Shueisha‘s 100th anniversary by translating one million pages of manga into 100 languages? As we developed the concept, we also saw it as a way to address the language barriers that still prevent many readers around the world from accessing manga. We hope that MANGA MILLION, an unprecedented translation initiative spanning 100 languages and one million pages, will spark new discoveries and connections between readers and Japanese manga.

Shueisha also operates the MANGA Plus platform and app, which is available worldwide outside of Japan, China, and Korea in English and other languages. The app mainly focuses on shonen titles from magazines like Weekly Shonen Jump, Jump SQ., and Weekly Young Jump, as well as the Shonen Jump+ platform.

Source: Press release

Things on the Eastern front are now as bad as they could be—and I don’t just mean for Tanya. At this point, both the Empire and Russy Federation are being led by the inept—though with starkly different goals.

On the Russy side of things, Loria is using his position within the party to pursue his own goals. He has something he wants even more than victory: Tanya herself. Because of this, the Russy offensive is being handled extremely recklessly. There are the normal military orders, and those clash with Loria’s orders—likely creating the scene of Russy artillery firing on their own advancing troops as we see in this episode.

And on the other side of the conflict, as was evident last week, the Empire’s issue is that those in power care only about staying in power. They’re more than willing to throw bodies at the problem to secure some fabled idea of “victory”—even if the reality is that this will gain little besides dragging out the war.

But the real issue with the Empire is that the leadership only wants to hear opinions that support their goals. This means that the most competent—those who can see the situation without bias and are willing to speak truth to power—are being removed from positions of power. This, of course, includes Zettour.

He has long been the strategic powerhouse of this war, and with him shipped off to the eastern front—tasked with holding the front lines during the Empire’s foolish new military push—the military command back in the capitol is in chaos. Zettour acted as far more than his rank and title would imply. He was a fixer and a politician in addition to being a military man.

Now, he’s a man tasked with being the scapegoat should the upcoming offensive fail—which it almost certainly will. And so Zettour faces an impossible challenge: to use a defensive front to win an offensive battle. With his forces already stretched far too thin, he has only one card left in his arsenal: Tanya.

As far as tactics go, Tanya is the only person we’ve seen on par with Zettour—and she sees things exactly as he does. The best plan they can come up with is to use Tanya’s forces as bait—to draw the Russy forces in and smash them.

Of course, the problem is that Tanya’s troops have to act as both bait and rescuer, leaving both forces far undermanned. And now that both Mary’s squad and Loria’s machinations have also focused on Tanya in addition to the main army—well, it looks like this might be the end for both Tanya and Zettour.

Rating:

Saga of Tanya the Evil II is currently streaming on
Crunchyroll.

Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.

Man, Clevatess is such an interesting little avatar of unfathomable destruction. At the beginning of “Battle With Oneself,” we have Zavthier and Gart flying up to the top of the dark tower our anti-hero just summoned last week to point out that, for as ominous and threatening as this display is, they can totally all tell that a part of Clevatess actually enjoys getting to adventure around in his guise as Klen and act as the protective guardian of Alicia and young Prince Luna. Clevatess may have schemes within schemes to unpack and execute, but he might want to play his hand with a little more caution if he doesn’t want the facade of his new life to come crashing down. Sure, all of this is couched within the pretext of Clevvie’s “ambitions,” for which Alicia and Luna are merely tools to be exploited, and so on. Come on, though. We all know that you don’t go summoning an eldritch tower of doom from the abyssal cracks of the earth to help rescue a lost Hero that you don’t at least care about a tiny bit.

It’s this tiny sliver of relatable humanity that makes Clevatess such an excellent figure around which to center such a dark fantasy. If he were too obviously empathetic and personable, then nothing would separate the Dark Beast Lord from every other not-so-secretly lovable Demon King that fill out the anime rosters each season. Conversely, if Clevatess were truly nothing but a heartless god of death who cared not one whit about the people and creatures he exploits in the pursuit of power, then Clevatess the anime simply wouldn’t be all that fun to watch. The secret about anti-heroes that so many other anime seem to completely ignore is the “hero” part of the equation. If Clevatess was simply a genocidal hell-hound with an unquenchable bloodlust, we would not have a show. When you hear that the Dark Beast Lord is finally coming to life after enduring a “Millennium of Loss,” though? You can’t help but root for Clevatess to tear apart whatever gets in his way, like the blazing flames of a wildfire that will nourish the soil with all of that ash and bring on a new era of life in its wake.

The current systems of power are obviously not to be trusted with ushering in a brighter future. As Dean Cardinal Romain demonstrates, Solsein Academy is very proudly making unholy pacts with Hell’s most wretched demons to bolster its army of child soldiers. If nothing else, the Clevatess Crew absolutely needs to shut down this sham of a school before the quest takes a sharp turn into Doom territory. Alica is currently stuck in the body of an adorable rodent, after all. I don’t even think she could squeeze the trigger of a BFG no matter how hard she tried, much less get some honest ripping and tearing done.

In a fascinating turn, Alicia’s quest becomes just as metaphysical as anything else this week, as her desperate flight from Andrew’s bizarre menagerie leads to a confrontation with a giant Evil Alicia who beats and berates our poor protagonist for all of her fears and failures. Given just how much crazy bullshit the Hero has been through since she died the first time, it’s a welcome opportunity for the show to address some of Alicia’s internal development, especially since it is very satisfying to see her stand in such defiance against her sassy doppelganger. Alicia is nothing if not adaptable, and she has long since learned to recognize that great things can come from unexpected curses if you can learn to roll with the punches. She already managed to figure out the perks of being an undead abomination; you can bet that our heroine will find out how to make the most of being a cute little rat monster with a giant tail.

Clevatess might be the only anime that could make a genuinely thrilling moment of heroism out of Alicia declaring, “There’s a strange sensation down near my ass!” That’s exactly the sort of gumption that separates the champions from the washouts in this industry, I’ll tell you what. I also have to give Alicia bonus points for seeing through the ruse of that evil mirror at the end of her trial. I always hate it when stories have characters have to lose the memories of their adventures, and I think we can all agree that the memories of Alicia the Ass-Blasting Rat-Thing are far too precious to simply toss into the void. Hopefully she will be able to use her explosive tail powers to finally escape the clutches of her captor next time around.

Episode Rating:

Clevatess Season 2 is currently streaming on
Crunchyroll.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on BlueSky, his blog, and his podcast.

Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.