Something I missed in my daily reading that The Comics Journal picked up: Viz is raising their prices on their Shoujo Beat and Shonen Jump imprints, bringing the titles to $9.99 a piece. It looks like the price hike will kick into place come October, as CWR checked around on Amazon, pricing out upcoming volumes.

Word from Viz is as such:

VIZ Media made the decision to stay consistent with the pricing in the marketplace for this industry, which in some cases might be a slight increase from previous years.

The move isn't surprising in the least. $9.99 has been the standard for manga, and so Viz certainly has the ability to move up to this price and not cause too much commotion. 

Johanna at CWR asked if this would really change any buying habits of Viz's products. For me? I can honestly say yes. It's not that I'll avoid buying Viz manga because of the higher price, but when I go out to look for titles to pick up and read a bunch of, I was more apt to pick up several volumes of something from Viz because it was cheaper. Now, though? They're on an equal playing ground with other stuff.

Not like it matters to them all that much. I've been dumping my money into Viz Signature titles recently. What about the rest of you?