Personal Post | Where I Read Manhwa, Manhua, and Manga

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I remember back in the early 2000s when I found my first manga (Japanese comics) at a thrift store. I think it might have been a random volume of Black Cat. I hadn’t seen anything like it, and from there, I was hooked. Unfortunately, there weren’t as many avenues to getting manga back then, especially not in the middle of nowhere Alabama. So, I usually got my manga fix from whatever manga scan sites and fan translation sites were available at the time. That, thankfully, is no longer the case, and finding good, new manga is just as easy as popping into my local Barnes & Noble or hitting up Goodreads for some recommendations.

It wasn’t until last year that I stumbled upon manhwa (Korean comics) and manhua (Chinese comics). Thankfully, I caught this when it was already readily available, so there are plenty of places to pay and read legitimate translations of amazing comics. However, for every legal site and translation, there are about one hundred illegal ones. If I had discovered manhwa and manhua at the age I was when I found manga (probably early teens, if not before that), I probably would have exclusively used those sites and, as a result, would be harming the fantastic creators who put this work out for us to enjoy. So, in hopes that I can point people to some legal avenues to get their fix of manga, manhwa, and manhua, I want to share a list of my current favorite platforms.

There are a million places to read manhwa, manhua, and manga, but only a few do so legally. The list I am about to provide is not comprehensive by any means, but any review I’ve posted for any manga, manhwa, or manhua more than likely came from one of these places. If you are ever interested in where I read something in a review, I have tags listed at the bottom of every post with the location where I read it. If it is not listed for some reason, don’t hesitate to ask. Please support creators and the official releases so we can continue to get the content we all love.

I almost exclusively read digitally now (I’ve moved so many times, and I am tired of lugging around my physical library of around 600 books). I say that because if you want to read physical copies, unfortunately for manhwa and manhua, it will be hard to find anything, but there is a plethora of manga and light novels in physical form. A few manhwa are getting physical releases in English, so hopefully, we’ll see more available in more locations soon. Even if you don’t care for the digital format, though, I hope you will give these comics a chance. It’s a heavily underrated medium. If you do decide to get into them, though, please do so legally. Support our creators.

3 thoughts on “Personal Post | Where I Read Manhwa, Manhua, and Manga”

  1. Thanks for the list! Which ones of these are free/mostly free? I know webtoons is, but I’m less familiar with the others 🙂

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