I just recently bought a Sony PRS-505. I have a lot of work to do in converting all my scifi/fantasy books to the open .Epub format. So I was thinking, anyone know of a good place for getting manga? I have the converter software, but am wondering how a page of manga will look on a 6in screen.

Anyone read manga on an E-reader? If so, good, bad, meh?

I'd be interested in this, too.  I've looked around and found a number of web sites where you can read manga online, but only a couple of them allow you to download (membership fee required).  The only free ones I've been able to find are...  rather dubious.

Derrick, if you get some manga loaded onto your e-reader, would you mind posting your experience with it here?

Definitely. I have tomorrow off til noon, so I'll probably muck about with a chapter or 2 of Yotsuba!& [since I do own that and do know where to DL chapters].

Also, I think the Mobileread  .  com forums have some info. I'm heading over there now...

Ok. I DL'd a chapter of Yotsuba!&/Yotsubata!, converted it and put it on my 505.

1: Small. 6in diagonal is not quite enough read the text.

2: Probably either due to the source material or the converter [I use Calibre to convert my .CBR{renamed .RAR file] to epub], the white is completely grainy. I'm guessing the source material, since it was a scanlation. I wish there were legit sources for e-manga, argh.

3: The epub file was about twice as large as the original cbr file. 7 mb for 1 chapter. Not an issue on my computer, but for the reader, with its internal storage of only 200+'ish mb, not cool. I know the 505 has the capability of storing stuff on SD cards, but I don't want to have to buy another item, not yet.

Really, it was just too small. Now maybe on the Kindle DX, it would be just fine. But a 6in screen won't cut it for me.

So I guess I'll just stick to reading manga in pbook format :-)

Ah, too bad.  I was hoping it'd look decent enough to read.  Do you think it’s more an issue of the screen resolution, or the quality of the scan?

I'm curious how it would look on a Kindle DX... I don't think I'd ever get a DX, though.  The size of it kinda defeats the portability.

Thanks for the review, Derrick!

I think it is more of a screen SIZE problem for me. I read the stuff I DL'd on my computer just fine. Given, you can tell it is a scanlation, but it was almost as good as a pbook. But on the 505, it is just to small, well, maybe if you squinted a lot :-)

I think it would be just fine on the Kindle, but at almost $500, no way!

I am still interested in finding quality sources for emanga though. I can always store it and archive it onto a dvd or something...

A co-worker who also reads manga recommended I check this out:  http://www.electronicmanga.com

Derrick (or anyone else), have you tried this out?  If so, any impressions?  I think I'll download it tonight and give it the once-over.  The thing that has me intrigued is that it appears you can use it to read manga on your iPhone.  If that's the case, then surely it would be useable/convertable to another e-reader and look decent, too.

Ok, I tried out the eManga reader mentioned in my post above.  It looks nice, performs well, and the idea is good; however... 
there is so little selection (and none of it is mainstream) that is just isn't worth it (even though it's free).

I plan on checking the MangaCasts page every now and then to see if they expand their selection, but until they do, I'm giving it a pass.

Or maybe if they added a feature to pull scanlations from one of the many other sites out there...

Unless they break up a page, I don't see how a page of manga can look good/readable on a smaller size than it was drawn as, [ie, the typical manga size book]. And to break up a page, that just seems impossible, since there is no common format for panels in manga. Specially some of CLAMP's stuff :-)