Viz offers digital download for Sadamoto’s Eva manga

In very good news, Viz has added Sadamoto’s Evangelion manga adaptation to their online digital download store.

Some of the older physical book volumes were getting harder to find;  particularly Volume 9.  The initial run was a big burst of the first nine in 2004, followed by one every year and a half or so.  They usually print less as a longrunning series goes on (you make a disproportionate amount of “Volume 1″ because people sample those), so Volume 9 isn’t very common (I doubt I’ve ever seen one on a store shelf).

Further, what with the decline of bookstores the past few years in general, and the recent shutdown of Borders in particular, it was getting harder to find physical manga volumes.

So not only is this convenient, they cost $0.99 a chapter.  Viz calls them “chapters” but the English translation they’ve used before is “Stages” (whatever, people know what “chapter” means…).  Given that there are over 80 chapters now that might seem a bit steep….but keep in mind that there are currently 12 physical book volumes, at $10 each, so 120-80 you actually save a good $40 by getting the digital downloads.

The only snag is that they’re incrementally releasing them one at a time on a weekly basis, and as of October they’re only up to chapter #8 or so.

Still, this is great news.

(this post is a placeholder until I can load up more pictures, please check back soon).