Manga with Sounds, Professional Manga Readers

Enjoying manga has always been about using one's eyes. To listen to a manga, people either have to watch the anime or listen to drama CDs. This situation is about to change with an ambitious new program from Kodansha's Monthly Magazine Z. On January 26th, a new website called www.yomishi.jp will be opened.

Yomishi.jp will provide downloadable sound files from Yomishi (讀<ヨミシ>師) (literally reading masters). After downloading the sound file of their favorite manga, visitors can play the sound file, enjoying dialogues read by a professional manga reader while reading the manga.

According to Yomishi.jp, in the beginning there will only be sound files to three manga from Monthly Magazine Z:

- Night Head Genesis, read by DJ Taro (Eyeshield 21)
- Far East Strange Tales, read by Nagasawa Miki (Neon Genesis Evangelion)
- Jabberwocky, read by Mako Hyoudou (The Mars Daybreak)

More will be made available as time goes on.

This has no relation to the "other" kind of professional manga reader.