I am gravely disappoint.

[elementalhero]

I'm sure most of you guys have heard by now, but a whole bunch of manga distributors have teamed up to start cracking down on scanlation sites. They've already hit Mangahelpers, and Onemanga is soon to follow.

I think this is a really bad decision on their parts. Without online manga sites, a good three-quarters of my current manga collection (which has grown to easily over one hundred volumes) would never have been purchased. Manga is expensive, and that makes it hard to justify buying on faith. But being able to read series beforehand and decide that this is worth spending money on definitely has gotten me into the vast majority of the series I currently am purchasing.

I understand the concern over people just reading scanlation sites and not buying volumes at all, believe me. But what they should be doing is what Viz and other animanga distributors have already begun doing with anime - put it online yourselves. Viz now offers many anime series, both dubbed and subbed, for free streaming on their site. Why can't they do the same with a manga viewer? Think about it - going page-by-page refreshes ensures that they can make a hell of a lot of money in on-screen advertisements. And they can make this online manga available for download to a Kindle or iPad or hard drive for a lower price than buying the volume itself. And there will always be people willing to buy the print volumes. I love manga volumes. They're very visually AND tactile-ly engaging.


Don't shoot yourselves in the foot, manga distributors. Work with new media, not against them.

EDIT: shit mangafox took down all its Pokespe oh my god no I need this to survive work this summer oh my god fuck no

Comments

[ironyaficionado.livejournal.com]

Seriously, that is just a bad idea. I won't even ponder their stuff if they go through with all that.

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

What they fail to realize is that removing online manga sites will not make people go, "oh, oh well, guess it's time to drop $200 at my nearest B&N to get all that manga I've been missing." No, what's going to happen is that manga fans are going to get pissed and withhold their money. I'm sure their low sales have less to do with scanlators than the fact that the economy is still shit right now, and people are cutting costs, and they can't afford to pay ten bucks a volume. I am cradling my head and moaning, "no no no you stupid shits don't do that no," as if I'm watching a horror movie instead of a bad business decision.

Not to mention they're going to lose money and productivity to the legal suits they are threatening. I can't even begin to articulate how dumb this is.

[ironyaficionado.livejournal.com]

Next, they'll go against the people who come into bookstores, read a volume, and then put it back on the shelf. :|

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

[ironyaficionado.livejournal.com]

I wasn't even thinking about that. What a brilliant one you are.

At the same time, I kinda wanna leave a post-it in one of the volumes that says something equivalent to "Snape kills Dumbledore." A spoiler guard, so to speak.

[serenemuffin.livejournal.com]

shit mangafox took down all its Pokespe oh my god no I need this to survive work this summer oh my god fuck no

SHIT.

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

I. I. I am about to burst into tears. What do you want from me, Viz Media? I buy every volume of the series I read online that I can afford, as soon as I get to a store. I am a consumer whore for you, Viz Media. I need my Pokemon Special to get through the hell of this summer, or my mind will snap like a dry twig. Why are you doing this to me.

[laurelsblue.livejournal.com]

...I don't know how they expect to keep the same level of interest amongst people without access to Jump and the other magazines manga run in. A new volume comes out every what two, three months? That's a bit of a wait for a casual fan.

I have to confess I'm one of the people they have problems with as I don't own a single volume of any of the five series I'm following at the moment but this doesn't make me want to change that.

Mangatoshokan still has PokeSpe here.

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

Oh my god thank you for that link /glomps

But yeah, honestly, I think they're in for a rude awakening when they realize how much of their fanbase they're about to alienate big time. And in a niche market like manga, alienating your fanbase is the dumbest thing that you can possibly do.

[laurelsblue.livejournal.com]

No problem. I saw a (locked) post over on pokemon mentioning that it had been taken off Mangafox apparently due to it being licensed by Viz and that link came from the comments.

I suppose it's a threat that's been hanging over the scanlations community for a while now. The fact that someone was stupid enough to tweet Kubo their congratulations on the new Bleach chapter before it was even released in Japan and the fact that apparently the vast majority of traffic for early raws is from Japan didn't help.

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

...Okay seriously. It's one thing to read them online because they're not available in your country, but the fact that the majority of early raw traffic is from Japan and now we're getting the hammer brought down kind of ticks me off.

[thehopeofdawn.livejournal.com]

I understand the concern over people just reading scanlation sites and not buying volumes at all, believe me. But what they should be doing is what Viz and other animanga distributors have already begun doing with anime - put it online yourselves. Viz now offers many anime series, both dubbed and subbed, for free streaming on their site. Why can't they do the same with a manga viewer?

THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING. COME ON, GUYS.

.......SCREAMS IN HORROR NO NO NO POKESPE CAN'T BE DOWN.

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

LOOK UP, LAURELSBLUE SAVED US WITH A LINK TO AN UP-TO-DATE SITE. WE'LL GET THROUGH THIS BB /SAID BY THE GIRL WHO WAS ABOUT TO START BREATHING INTO A PAPER BAG

And honestly? They could conceivably make a hell of a lot of money off an online manga viewer if they play their cards right. Heck, even a site you need to pay a yearly/monthly subscription to might be feasible for fans if the selection is unlimited. I have never taken a business course and I am thinking of these things. What are they doing?

[waltzonshadows.livejournal.com]

OHGODOHGODTHANKYOU.

They could! Viz's anime channel gets a lot of usage out me, and an online manga viewer? Would get so much traffic.

To be fair, though, these are two different levels of the process we're talking about. Viz is an American company; this crackdown is coming from the Japanese themselves, as I understand it.

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

Hmm. That might be a problem.

[brbjourneying.livejournal.com]

Yeaaah, that's the thing. It's more the Japanese worried about...I really don't know, but that much I do know.

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

/shrugs

[admiral-yen.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with you, in fact your little proposal is probably one of the most sensible things I've seen in a long time. And I think it makes sense to say that yes half of my doujinshi collection wouldn't be what it is today either if it hadn't been for scanlation groups or hosting sites. AnimeA is soon to follow too, they have banners posted on every manga/doujin page asking the public if they know whether or not something has been licensed and this senseless, "well you need to either buy it or you can't preview it" shit is ridiculous.

If I were you and that were my suggestion, I would probably write a formal letter/e-mail to company reps from big name manga distributors and try to explain your feelings (which I can say at least line up with mine and quite possibly a good majority of other peoples feelings as well) and see if you can get them on board. If you needed signatures or something I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to get 'em electronically especially if you write any manga hosting website to post a link to a petition website.

Lemme know how it goes, and even if you don't pursue it, I still think you have a great idea there.

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

The problem is not so much that I can't couch my objections in terms suitable to send to a company and more that I have no idea who I should be writing to. It's not one big company that's doing this: in fact, although I talk about Viz Media in this post mostly, it's actually most of the big name Japanese companies that are taking the initiative on this. I don't know which one to voice my complaints to.

[admiral-yen.livejournal.com]

WELL SHIT hahaha the Japanese companies want this then I have no idea. I'm totally clueless too on how to approach the subject with anyone for that matter.

It seriously sucks though, I know I've been out of the loop on most things internet-wise and now this is just ruining my online life too.. augh... keep me posted?

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

Ha ha, yeah, most of the internet is beginning to freak out about this... I'll probably post about it if any more information turns up.

[admiral-yen.livejournal.com]

Good. I'm beginning to feel terror tremors. This is just like that time when people threatened to take my internet pornography away from fanfiction.net, livejournal.com communities and mangafox.com's online vie- OH WAIT THAT SHIT ALREADY HAPPENED. >:T

Fuckin' stupid overly protective censorship for lazy parents and or institutions who can't moderate properly and unintentional copyright infringements on stuff that why does it even have a copyright in the first place on it if no one's making any money off the damn thing through personal use alone... this crap about publishing and rights to stuff not even being available in our country... I swear NOTHING is sacred anymore.

also ilu have I told you this recently? ♥

[fugthimble.livejournal.com]

FUCK ME

FUCK MANGAFOX


FUUUUUCK

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

CHECK THE COMMENTS ABOVE, WE HAVE A NEW LINK

/COMFORTS YOU D':

[dayadhvam-triad.livejournal.com]

:( Yeah. An article on this was posted to ontd_political--a lot of people were discussing online manga viewers, just as you said. /le sigh Unfortunately these distributors do not seem to see reason...

omg 100+ volumes! O_________O Wow, that's so many!

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but I collected them over about five years of my life ^^ I've also held a part-time job of some kind for four out of those five summers, so it's not like I got my parents to buy them. Of course, many of them are about to be Ebayed or sold or donated (although I'm probably just going to end up buying more to replace them, sob).

I saw you made an entry, but I didn't comment on it because there were FMA spoilers in it, and I follow the American release of that series...sorry! But I did miss you and I'm glad to see you back around C:

[dayadhvam-triad.livejournal.com]

Haha, I see. Where do you usually buy them? I don't have any volumes, mainly b/c the places where I used to live had bookstores with very small selections, and my mom would never let me buy books anyway regardless of manga or non-manga (b/c otherwise I'd have a huge pile). At college I just don't want to buy volumes that I would end up having to store and move around all the time. In the future, though, I would like to get sets of the completed series that I like. :)

How far has the American release come along? (like where are they in the story?) I hope you remain unspoiled, the later chapters are so awesome. :D I've missed you! I hope that your first year of university was okay (despite annoying roommates D:) and take care of yourself during your job :)

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

I usually get my manga at Borders or Barnes and Noble. The large chain bookstores tend to have a pretty good selection.

I actually don't remember where we stopped last D: It's been a while since I got to read it and I haven't bought manga in months due to being at college. Somewhere around volume 20?

[dayadhvam-triad.livejournal.com]

I see. *makes a note* hmm I've heard there's a comic store around here, may go check that out too...