Also: some people here are complaining about the translation from japanese to english. If it takes several months or even years to translate it to english, how long do you think it would take before it gets translated to dutch? Hmmmm indeed, if I have to follow that pace, I would still be at the episodes where Naruto is a child instead of a village hero.

[...] I’m curious to see how this all turns out. He’s against the act, as many (but not all) comic professionals who make their income from the direct market are, but a later Twitter comment — where he says, “It seems self-evident to me a huge part of comics’ piracy problem is US eco[nomic] inequality & 20-40% youth unemployment rate” — suggests to me that he is, at least, looking at the big picture. He’s probably already aware of the Underground example, but I thought readers here might be interested in seeing another collection of viewpoints, given the wide-ranging discussion that’s taken place here in the past. [...]

[...] People who file-share don’t hate you, artist. They aren’t even thinking about you. They’re thinking “here’s something I’d like to read/hear/view, and it’s easy, so I [...]

[...] of heart over intellectual property or losing the business, money is what talks. And as long as the demand continues, there’s plenty of audience for them. [...]

Holy crap. :(

these online “scanlators” also have another thing over the professional translators in that they do this job because they are passionate about their work instead of being ruled by the almoghty dollar. In essence, these people would honestly want to do a better job because they would have more respect for the hard work and dedication that the artist has put into the manga themself. In other words, while the artist and the scanlator are on opposing sides, they both have an equal ammount of respect of the product, as well as the scanlator having a high ammount of respect for the author and illustrators. they just happen to show this through the most basic form of flattery. (mimicry for thos not familiar with the addage)

[...] a book”, especially for titles they may not love or be uncertain about. In other words, reasons for reading free online manga may differ per person. (Disclaimer: I have reviewed a scanlated series before, [...]

[...] provided her readers with a primer on copyright. At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson responded that the way things are now, there are plenty of incentives for readers to use pirate sites and [...]

[...] she explains why a aggregator site like Onemanga is illegal.  Johanna Draper Carlson replies with a post that readers of scanlations know perfectly well what they’re doing is illegal, and just [...]

Secondly, what’s with manga publishers in the west putting no effort whatsoever into the presentation of their carefully translated products? I’ve bought manga volumes published in French, a language I have only the most minimal grasp of (albeit much better than my grasp of Japanese, haha) simply because their publications are *beautiful*. I’m talking slipcovers, foil embossings, coloured page edgings, the works. By comparison, volumes published in the USA look about as quality as a crossword book or telephone directory. If the publishers made their products look like something you’d wanna spend money on, they might find people doing just that. Seriously, even just hiring better graphic designers for colour choices and whatnot would help. I’m looking at you, xxxHolic.

[...] up on my post pondering what users get from scanlation sites and many of the issues surrounding posting and reading free manga online, there have been some [...]

[...] few days ago, Johanna Draper Carlson on Comics Worth Reading made the claim that “Legal doesn’t matter” in regards to scanlations. When it comes to the relationship between a reader and the unauthorized [...]

but I’d like to say another few things…

from what i’ve heard/read japan just doesnt want to do internet access digital stuff. They still have cd stores, they have large creator oriented (fan or original) cons, they have many anthologies, they have high priced merch (them blue rays) and a lot of other things that dont work in America.

we cant keep blaming the american publishers as they are doing what they can to keep themselves aflout and keep to our demands. In fact, this should be the time were we support them the most in any initiative they try and give feed back. I recently read Arata (that new Watase comic. not a watase fan) on Viz then read a few more chapters on onemanga (to see if it was worth following). Let me tell you, if I had liked that comic I would have waited till the viz one came out for quality sake.

Which is something else, I’ve found that I like to buy really well presented (and good stories but thats an opinion) manga even more expensive then to buy 10$ ‘economical’ manga cause I dont feel its worth 10$. Publishers being more selective is a good thing for me and not just flood the market with more generic ‘teen’ books.

I’m fine with another Watase book, but I’d love to read ‘The taste of God’. Luckly, I can import the frence version (and maybe english if europe has one) cause even niche books are hard to find scanlations of.

1. Readers/consumers are starving for the content they find there. They will read BAD translations. They will puzzle through BAD scans. They will go surfing for the original scans when the chapters are coming out too slow, even though they are unable to read the original language– just in the hopes that they can manage to puzzle out what happens next.

2. All of the above means that: The work isn’t being legally translated and published fast enough to keep up with the demand.

3. The readers wait MONTHS for some dedicated/devoted/nice scanlation group (who will put in hours of their own time) to release new chapters of the stories they are following. The readers will voluntarily join (or try to join) scanlation groups just in the hope of making the content come out faster.

4. It is a great way for readers/consumers to find new stories and authors they like. It might need to be tweaked–but this is part of the new emerging publicity/marketing model. You can’t shut down the net. Creators and publishers need to work with it instead.

In the end, it all comes down to lack of easy access. The legal publishers are NOT doing their jobs. Popular/well thought of mangakas *might* only have one or two books translated and for sale at store fronts and amazon. Take the title Gokusen, for example. This is an insanely well regarded, fifteen volume story in the manga fan community. In Japan it spawned anime, a tv show of three seasons, a movie… some of which are available to buy. But can I buy the original manga? No.

I think if the publishers make the stories available and easy to buy they will make more money. To argue that they are losing money because of the scanalation groups seems weird to me. Very few scans are posted that are already available somewhere else. It takes too much work to make quality scans and clean them for readers to waste time with readily available material. Most uploaded scans exist because if they weren’t, no one could read them anyways. The publishers would be better off worrying about all the money they are ALREADY losing because they aren’t meeting the demands of the market, instead of some hypothetical money that might lose upon publishing.

If you follow posts in the forums, the readers are aware that actually buying the manga supports the creators and that this action gives the readers more of what they want: good stories. But to belabor the point… They can’t buy what doesn’t exist. (And they will buy, regardless of their age–just check out itunes.)