Sources
- Service closure announcement of Comico
- Comico website (Japanese)
- English Pocket Comics closure as reported by Anime News Network at the time
Transcript
This is Aside Manga News for August 17th, 2026.
Earlier today, the Japanese digital manga service Comico has announced that it will discontinue its service. The following is the schedule for this closure:
On August 31st it will end adding any new chapters to the existing series. It will also no longer sell the in-app currency and will close new member registrations. Ongoing series may end prior to August 31st.
Until September 28th, you must spend any of your in-app tickets or view any of the rented chapters you have purchased.
Lastly, you can view any of your previously purchased titles up until the final closure date on January 6th, 2027. At that date, the app will no longer allow viewing of your purchased titles.
Instead, starting on January 7th through April 30th a program will be setup to migrate your purchased books to the “Mecha Comics” digital bookstore. The details of this program will be announced in September and will require actions taken by the customers to migrate their books. This will not be an automatic process and must occur during that 4 month time period in 2027. Any unspent coins that were purchased with money will begin a refund procedure in January 2027 as well.
The Comico service in Japan has had a number of manga series launch on the service since its creation in 2013. One of its biggest titles was ReLIFE which had 15 print volumes released in Japan. Comico also had several spin-off versions that have been created and closed over the years. For English markets, it was called “Pocket Comics” which operated for 5 years between July 2020 and ending in October 2025.