U-NEXT Launches Free Web Literary Magazine Bungaku Chagama
U-NEXT is using its video, e-book, and publishing infrastructure to build a free literary magazine as an IP development hub, signaling a push to create new contact points with literature.
Reporting from 1 source: KAI-YOU.
U-NEXT will launch the free web literary magazine Bungaku Chagama (Nani ga Deru kana) on August 5. It will feature pure literature, tanka, essays, videos, and audio. Akutagawa Prize winners including Rie Kudan, Aki Asahina, and Hitomi Kanehara will contribute, along with tanka poet Akira Aomatsu and musician Nariaki Obukuro.
U-NEXT's new web literary magazine, Bungaku Chagama (Nani ga Deru kana), goes live at noon on August 5 with all works free to read. The launch roster includes Akutagawa Prize winners Aki Asahina, Sao Ichikawa, Takehiro Ueda, Hitomi Kanehara, Rie Kudan, and Yusei Takiguchi, plus tanka poet Akira Aomatsu, known as YouTuber Veteran Chi, and musician Nariaki Obukuro.
The magazine will carry pure literature, tanka, essays, videos, and audio, designed to be read on smartphones in spare moments. U-NEXT says opportunities to encounter literature are narrowing, and free access aims to create new points of contact. Illustrator DAISUKE KONDO designed the site's guide character Tanuchi. U-NEXT, which started its original book business in 2020, plans to develop works from the magazine as IP across media.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.