Major Japanese audio and video software rental enterprise Culture Convenience Club has announced plans to rent manga through its TSUTAYA chain of stores starting this April.

According to a Nihon Keizai Shimbun report dated January 25, Culture Convenience Club will establish a Comics Corner in its TSUTAYA stores, offering rentals of 30,000+ manga books. Currently 46 TSUTAYA stores are already offering manga rentals on a trial basis, and there are plans to expand the service to 100 TSUTAYA outlets and franchises by the end of 2007. The prototype manga rental service lets customers check out manga for four days at a rate of 60 yen per book, but this may change once the standard rental plan goes into effect.

In 2005, changes in the Japanese copyright law made the rental of books legal, with the associated rental fee code implemented in February of 2006. Given the popularity of manga, rental giant Culture Convenience Club appears to be doing all it can to take advantage of these changes before its competitors move into the market.

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