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About Yen Plus

Yen Plus is a monthly comics anthology published in the United States, Canada and Great Britain. (A comics anthology is a regular publication which collects several ongoing comic series into one tome - imagine if you took several single comic book issues, ripped off their covers, stacked them up, stapled them together and put a new cover on them.) The first issue was the August 2008 issue (released in the July prior); publication continues today.

The comics printed in Yen Plus have been licensed or commissioned by Yen Press, a comics publisher, and subsidiary company of Hachette Book Group. Almost all of the comic series published by Yen Press were originally published in either Japan or South Korea, and have been translated by Yen Press from their respective nation’s language; currently, Nightschool and Maximum Ride provide the exception to this rule, premiering to the world in English in Yen Plus.

Outside of the comic content, Yen Plus regularly features a “letter from the editor” from editor JuYuon Lee; an “afterword” section with shorter letters from other Yen Plus crew members; a “new releases” section highlighting new comic volumes released from Yen Press; a fan art section; and a “next issue” section. The magazine also often features interviews with those involved with the comics it features.

Yen Plus’s comics span a wide range of genres. Nabari No Ou and Sumomomo, Momomo are oriented towards males, whereas Sarasah is decidedly a “girls’ comic.” One Fine Day and Bamboo Blade are family-friendly, whereas Jack Frost is a violent, bloody, sexually exploitative mess. Maximum Ride is a serious action adventure epic, but Soul Eater plays it for laughs. Yen Press rates Yen Plus as being for “older teens.”

Content is published in Yen Plus as it is translated/created. Later, several issues’ worth of each comic series (usually over 150 pages’ worth) will be collected and published in extended single-comic volumes. This strategy allows Yen Press to effectively monetize the same content twice; first as it’s published in Yen Plus, and then again as it’s published in volumes and purchased by those who don’t read Yen Plus (or enjoyed a comic so much in Yen Plus that they want to read it again in a dedicated volume).

Japanese comics are printed “backwards;” one starts reading the book with the book spine on the right, reading the “back” page first, and starting on the upper-right corner of the page and reading leftwards. Pages are flipped “backwards.” Yen Press preserves this formatting. (Learning to read comics right-to-left like this is an acquired skill for those new to Japanese comics.) Thus, there are two halves to each Yen Press issue; a left-to-right part, which contains the Korean and original English comics as well as other non-comic content, and a right-to-left part, which contains the Japanese comics. To reflect this, each issue has two front covers; the left-to-right part’s cover features art from one of the left-to-right comics, and the right-to-left cover features artwork from one of the Japanese comics.

Among monthly comic anthologies being published in English today, Yen Plus is unique in regards to its globetrotting source material. Other English anthologies feature original English material, or entirely Japanese comics. Yen Plus took the formula and added a heap of Korean comics for good measure.

Yen Plus is also unique for its size. The February 2009 issue will feature twelve separate series; each issue typically features a “preview” of another comic series being published by Yen Press, to entice readers to buy the collected volumes. The other regular features of the magazine and notably light advertising (primarily for other comics published by Yen Press, plus novels sold by other imprints of Hachette) bring each issue to over 400 pages.

Issues are sold in newsstands for US$8.99, CA$9.99, or £3.99. Six-month subscriptions are US$25.99 in the US or Canada; yearly subscriptions were available at one time, but appear to no longer be available. Subscriptions in the UK were once available, but no longer seem to be. Unfortunately, at least in north America, the company processing Yen Plus’s subscriptions has become notorious for sending some issues out ridiculously late, and some issues are appearing as much as two or weeks after they were ostensibly supposed to arrive. They also appear to play games such as sending resubscription notices warning that this is the “third notice” to resubscribe, despite never sending any previous notices. There also appears to be no way to resubscribe online.

Reviews

“Look, the point is, they eat some cookies.” — Manga Reviews: Yen+ Magazine, PopCultureShock, 1 Aug 2008

“Instead of trying to be a manga magazine for boys or girls, Yen Plus wants to appeal to older manga readers of both genders. It’s a noble effort, but this first issue offers a mixed bag that has something to please (and offend) almost everyone.” — Yen Plus August 2008 review, About.com Manga, August 2008

“…there are some series that I absolutely love and others that I didn’t really care much for. But that was the best thing about [early, now defunct American anthology] Raijin, you have enough variety and content in each issue that you don’t feel cheated that you don’t like everything. There’s plenty there to offer to anyone.… Can it succeed?… Well, I think the odds are still stacked against it.” — Yen Plus: The Rebirth of Raijin, The Anime Almanac, 24 Sept 2008

“A couple of the series are looking pretty mediocre, and there’s one flat-out dud in the form of Jack Frost, but as a whole, it’s a fun read and still a great value given the cost/pagecount ratio. Get started on it now if you haven’t already.” — Yen Plus: The Four-Issue Follow-Up, AnRe, 18 Nov 2008 (written by me)

“Needless to say, I subscribed and am searching for the issues I missed.” — Yen Plus - Review, Extremely Graphic (not really; that’s just the name of the blog), 19 Mar 2009 (but reviewing the first issue)

My thoughts:
I wasn’t looking for it, but somehow I found the first issue of Yen Plus in a local bookstore. I was struck at first by its massive girth; the next surprise was its two covers and its Korean content. Curious, I purchased it. Then I purchased the next one. Then the next one. Yen Plus isn’t perfect, but I appreciate the variety of its content, and think it’s a great value for only $9 an issue.

Then I started this web site one afternoon for kicks. Then it turned into a weekend project, which morphed into a “well, I got this far, might as well finish it” thing.