Crunchyroll Manga VS Shonen Jump: Which Is The Better Value?

Many people don’t even realize Crunchyroll has its own manga feature and manga app! Is Crunchyroll Manga the unsung hero of manga readers, or is it better to stick to the Shonen Jump app, which is more well-known amongst manga fans?

Shonen Jump is better for reading manga than Crunchyroll Manga. The Shonen Jump app has more manga, and the manga it has is more popular than the manga available on Crunchyroll. It also has more features, like offline reading. Shonen Jump is also much more affordable than a Crunchyroll subscription.

I tried out both apps and Shonen Jump just outshined Crunchyroll in every aspect. I compared Viz Manga to the Shonen Jump app and found that the two apps are pretty much on par (they use the same subscription afterall.) The Crunchyroll Manga app, on the other hand, is basically living in the shadows of the Shonen Jump and Viz Manga apps. I’ll go over the full comparison below, but here’s the rundown:

If you happen to have a Crunchyroll subscription already and don’t read much manga, you may be happy with Crunchyroll manga. It functions fine and the app is easy enough to use. If you enjoy manga though and want to read popular, high quality series, then you need a Shonen Jump subscription and either the Shonen Jump app or the Viz Manga app. No question about it.

Price - Winner: Shonen Jump

You really can’t beat Shonen Jump’s pricing. It only costs about $3 / month and gives you access to pretty much every popular manga series because Shonen Jump publishes so much modern manga.

Crunchyroll Manga costs so much because you’re also paying for the anime subscription. That’s all well and good unless you just want manga, then you’re overpaying every month for something you don’t use. If I’m judging Crunchyroll based solely on its manga collection, I wouldn’t even pay $1 / month for it, let alone almost $10.

Free User Experience - Winner: Shonen Jump

Crunchyroll Manga offers some manga chapters for free, but not many. On top of that, it can feel quite random which chapters are and aren’t free.

Shonen Jump, on the other hand, has much more consistency. The first and last three chapters of any manga on Shonen Jump are always free. So if you’re caught up with a manga series, you can stay up to date on it without paying a dime. You can also check out the first three chapters of any series to see whether or not you’re into it or not. Because of this, Shonen Jump easily takes the free-feature trophy.

Premium Features - Winner: Crunchyroll Manga

I mean Crunchyroll gives you access to a ton of great anime, including hits like Spy x Family (cough cough, here are 10 great episodes, by the way.) It’s hard to compete with that, even if you’re offering a ton of awesome manga. If you don’t care about anime, though, you’re going to get a lot more out of a Shonen Jump subscription.

On top of this, Shonen Jump actually limits its premium users. Premium users can only read up to 100 chapters per day. I will say, though, that this limit is hard to hit and won’t bother most people. 100 chapters ends up being about 8 - 12 volumes. So, you could easily pick the best volumes of JuJutsu Kaisen and read through all of them in a day, if you want!

Still, you should know it’s there and understand what all you get with a Shonen Jump subscription before actually paying for it.

Features - Winner: Shonen Jump

Just to be clear, I’m not counting the anime features of Crunchyroll. I know I did for the premium features belt, but that was just to give Crunchyroll a W. Now, I’m talking 100% about Crunchyroll Manga’s features vs Shonen Jump’s and Shonen Jump just has more.

Crunchyroll Manga feels very barebones. You can read manga and you can favorite manga. That’s pretty much it.

Shonen Jump, on the other hand, allows you to favorite manga series, and download manga series for offline reading. You can have up to 100 downloaded manga at a time, so you can pretty much save half of a series to your phone to read offline.

It would be nice if Shonen Jump had some kind of collection management where you can set wishlists, backlogs, etc, but they haven’t added that feature yet. That’s one of the main reasons I created Checkinmanga in the first place, though, so if you do need a free collection / backlog management app, you can always check it out (wink wink.)

Manga Library - Winner: Shonen Jump

I’ve mentioned it a few times now, but Shonen Jump’s library is unmatched. It has the most popular manga series of all time, including Dragon Ball Super (which still isn’t over, by the way), Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Bleach, etc. The list goes on and on. You’re just not going to beat Shonen Jump’s library of manga, especially not for the price.

Usability - Winner: Tie

As far as finding the manga you want to read and actually reading it, both apps do an excellent job. Their readers are very easy to use, you just swipe and read. Overall, I do have a preference for Shonen Jump’s app. I think it’s faster in general, but it could be my bias so I'm going to leave this as a tie. There’s not much of a discernible difference between how each app actually functions.

Mobile App: - Winner: Shonen Jump

Both apps are pretty much comparable. I’m just putting the Shonen Jump app as the winner here because it has more features (like the download and offline reading feature.) Reading manga on both apps feels pretty much the exact same. The Shonen Jump app just has less bugs, less missing chapters, and is overall a more enjoyable experience. Shonen Jump’s app actually feels like a full app as well with “What’s Hot”, “Newest”, “Fan Favorites”, etc. Crunchyroll Manga, on the other hand, just feels bare bones - basically it’s a list of manga.

Site: - Winner: Crunchyroll Manga

Overall, I’m honestly not a fan of either site but I’m actually easily able to navigate around Crunchyroll’s site. For Shonen Jump’s site, I find myself needing to just straight up Google “Viz One Punch Man” to actually find the manga I want to read on my computer. With that being said, I use the Shonen Jump app when I feel like reading most of the time - so I’m not the best judge of how each site functions.

Crunchyroll Manga Features

• Read manga on PC
• Read manga with an app
• Favorite manga to read later / find easier
• Small library of manga (many obscure and niche titles)

Shonen Jump Features

• Read manga on PC
• Read manga with an app
• Read up to 100 manga everyday
• Save up to 100 manga total for offline reading
• Favorite manga to read later / find easier
• Free users can read first and last three chapters of every manga
• Huge library of the most popular manga

Features Overview

As you can see, the features are basically the same. Shonen Jump only lets you read 100 chapters everyday though (although most people won’t touch this limit.) On the flip side, Shonen Jump actually lets you read manga offline as well, so there are ups and downs.

One thing to note, beyond the features, is what manga is available on each app. Most readers are far more likely to find manga they enjoy on Shonen Jump. It has everything from Dragon Ball Super to Chainsaw Man (and who knows when that will end now that Part 2 is out.)

So while the basic features may be similar, as far as reading manga goes, you’re going to get a much bigger bang for your buck if you go with a Shonen Jump subscription and the Shonen Jump app. It’s cheaper and it has a lot more manga than Crunchyroll.

Crunchyroll Pros

• A Crunchyroll account also lets you watch anime
• Aesthetically looks nice
• UI and functionality are top-notch

Crunchyroll Cons

• Does not have many popular manga series
• Free chapters feel random. Chapter 1 - 3 may be premium only, while 4 - 6 are premium, then 7-10 are free again
• You’re also paying for the anime account, which drives up cost if you do not watch much anime
• Some manga are missing huge chunks of chapters
• Lots of bugs and “nulls” / missing info
• Overall feels very bare bones. No collection management or anything similar

Overall, Crunchyroll manga feels like an afterthought because, most likely, it was. If you’re a fan of anime and manga, it’s honestly worth it just to pay the extra $3 / month for a Shonen Jump subscription. Crunchyroll just doesn’t have the library to justify downloading and using the app, let alone paying for a subscription (unless you also watch anime, of course.) Most of the manga series on Crunchyroll manga aren’t even finished, and some are missing huge gaps of chapters, so it makes it really hard to read through a whole series.

Shonen Jump Pros

• A monthly subscription is very cheap
• Has pretty much all Shonen Jump manga available to read
• UI is clean and feels very easy to use
• The reader works and looks nice so reading manga on a phone, tablet, laptop, PC, whatever is easy and not encumbering
• You can favorite manga
• You can download up to 100 manga to read offline at a time
• Can read newest 3 chapters of any manga as well as the first 3 chapters of any manga

Shonen Jump Cons

• Can only read up to 100 manga chapters daily
• The browser site can be a bit annoying to use and sometimes it is hard to find the manga you want (the App is extremely easy, though)

I love the Shonen Jump app and think it’s one of the best-value subscriptions available in general. As far as manga goes, there’s no beating it. The app is extremely easy to use and a membership is only about $3 / month so it’s very easy to justify and in my opinion, Shonen Jump is as worth it as they come.

While the limit of 100 chapters per day is a bit disappointing, I’ve never even come close to that limit and I imagine the majority of readers are in the same boat. 100 chapters probably ends up at around 8 volumes, which is a lot of manga to read in a single day unless you’re sick or in a book worm mood. If you look at what all you get in a Shonen Jump subscription, though, you’ll quickly see that it is well worth the price.

Overall, Shonen Jump is just much easier to use than Crunchyroll Manga. It has a much larger library and many more popular books. Crunchyroll Manga’s collection is full of obscure and incomplete series. Shonen Jump is also cheaper and has very generous free features. So, it’s a no brainer for me when I say that the Shonen Jump app is by far the better manga app when compared to Crunchyroll Manga.