MediaCatalyst Star in Japanese Manga

AMSTERDAM - MediaCatalyst Bring Japanese Manga to Mobiles With DOCOMO Netherlands

Amsterdam-based interactive agency MediaCatalyst have used their mobile expertise to help DOCOMO Netherlands, crack the European market and bring Japanese Manga to mobiles.

See: www.mediacatalyst.com

DOCOMO NETHERLANDS, a European subsidiary of NTT DOCOMO, INC., launched the service in France last week via the French telecom operator Bouygues Telecom.

The Japanese word Manga, literally translated, means “whimsical pictures” and covers a broad range of subjects: action-adventure, to mystery, or horror to business & commerce. Although ‘Manga’ was an original term for comics published in Japan, this market has steadily been growing to these shores with more westernized subjects and versions.

Due to Manga’s growing influence, Manga cartoons have seen an increase in popularity over the last two decades in Europe with Japanese publishers attempting to grow the market in foreign shores by publishing more and more titles into European languages.

Creating a means of spreading and reading Manga more easily, such as in the mobile market, must be the next step in this process, and ensures the epic storylines, brutally perfect drawing style, and cool characters’ influences will be even more visible over the next two decades.

MediaCatalyst has a history of global mobile expertise from their award-winning work since 2001 on the Sony Ericsson mobile e-commerce and PlayNow Arena sites. This work, in turn, gave them the expertise to tailor an approach and level of service to suit DOCOMO Netherlands’ needs.

In 2009 MediaCatalyst became a strategic partner to DOCOMO Netherlands, providing them with MANGA MODEtm, that enables customers to browse through Manga volumes and books, then purchase and read them via a dedicated reader. This Manga user-experience flow caters for different levels of service from free content, to premium monthly subscriptions or even people purchasing via popular top-up points.

MediaCatalyst is a full-service interactive agency with its main office in the heart of Amsterdam. See: www.mediacatalyst.com and blog.mediacatalyst.com.

MANGA MODE and MANGA MODE logo are trademarks of DOCOMO NETHERLANDS B.V.

Source: MediaCatalyst

Editorial note: Contact: Edwin Duys for further information, Phone: +31-20-626-2976 Email: edwin.duys at mediacatalyst.com