Comments on: OneManga Shutting Down: Manga Scanlation Scene Changing Fast

By: MangaFox Scanlation Site Still Running » Manga Worth Reading

MangaFox Scanlation Site Still Running » Manga Worth Reading — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 18:46:47 +0000

[...] summer over publishers trying to shut down scanlation sites — which caused the best-known free online manga site, OneManga, to stop posting manga [...]

By: Aiculik

Aiculik — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:14:37 +0000

I would love to buy original manga. But I can’t. Simply because there AREN’T ANY titles translated into my language. Mangas in libraries? Keep dreaming. In twenty years. Maybe.
So what options do I have?
Well I can purchase it via Internet. That means, those few titles that are offered in internet bookstores. If I’m lucky and the title is available, I can then wait till whole volume is finished and translated into English. That can take months. Then wait till the order comes. That can take 6 to 8 weeks. Means I can get few mangas only 6 months after it was published in original for a double price, because of shipment fees. Yaaaay!
Or I can check sites like One Manga. I can read chapters just few days after they were released. And as a bonus, it’s for free.
The reason why scanslations are so popular is the fact that English is now widely spread and understood all over the world. So until the publishers don’t understand this and make mangas legally accessible for anyone who wants to read it, thre will always be sites like One Manga.
And the solution I think is rather simple. If publishers published mangas on
internet, in several language variants, and people would be allowed to download it or to view it for a small fee, lot of people like me WOULD switch to it and pay. The real, high-quality translations with proper profreading would be worth it.

By: jigoku13

jigoku13 — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 05:38:34 +0000

i am probably much older than many who read manga, and i can easily afford to purchase them, and prefer to, when available. however, i found that the scanlations kept me far more current than publishers. i am busy, and found the access provided by onemanga to be invaluable, not to mention the ability to view and read manga that i had never heard of, nor would i. being a 38 year old woman, a mother, and a professional, slams me out of the demographic, and i suspect i am an outlier far outside of the target market. if i had not been able to keep current with “bleach”, and was forced to rely on the molasses styled english translations, i am sure i would have rivaled, my dear, little aizen, when forced to wait!:) not to mention, i was severely tickled by the punk rock spirit of the scanlators. how will i ever find another akumetsu? so sad, so sad:(

By: Anonymos

Anonymos — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 20:55:53 +0000

My Library is in another city (about 20-30 mins. away) making it drive up the gas prices too. I’ll probably go with getting a part-time job in that city, then drop by the library on my way home everyday. Or better yet, get a part-time job at the library XP (at least once I get my liscense,which I don’t have only because of procastination anyway)

By: Hsifeng

Hsifeng — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 23:10:23 +0000

Johanna Says:

“Anon — I’m sure your mom will be happy to take you to the library…”

I’m not so sure. Even if Anon didn’t have just over 5 dollars in late fees…

You might be surprised at how many “stay-at-home” parents, after they and their spouses choose to raise their children (like I and some of my friends were raised where we grew up) in places where nobody can reach a library, store, park, etc. without an automobile, oft complain “you’re treating me like a chauffeur!” when those children ask for rides to those libraries, stores, parks, etc. Of course, there are also the families without stay-at-home parents and their adults have other reasons too (like shifts at work) for not being happy to give children extra rides.

Parents like these might be happier writing a permission slip for kids to take the school bus to the library after school (when I was in secondary school, one of the school bus routes conveniently stopped at the library on its way from house to house in the afternoon, and in high school those of us who lived on other bus routes could just hop on but in middle school we needed to show the driver permission slips to take that bus to the library), and then picking him or her up (or having the other parent/guardian, if there is one, pick him or her up) from the library on the way home from work.

Then again, maybe Anon doesn’t even have a school bus route thanks to homeschooling, distance schooling, or attending a school which doesn’t have a school bus fleet in the first place (some private schools don’t, some charter schools don’t, I once had a co-worker who sometimes had to leave work early to pick up her son from school because he was too young to take the driver’s license test and they live too-far-to-walk from his high school in in a suburban school district that has no mass transit but still cut transportation for public schools (WTF?!)).

Johanna Says:

“…Many libraries have growing manga collections, and they can get you almost any book in print through Inter-Library Loan.”

Now this, it’s always a welcome reminder. ;)

Anon Says:

“…The inter-library loan suggestion is appriciated though. I hadn’t even considered the idea, and even though it seems a bit impractical for me, I will try it when I can XD…”

See, Johanna’s now got you on the path to trying out even more books! :D

WorldCat.org doesn’t offer a way for non-librarians like us to place requests online, but it is handy for seeing what’s available where. For example, I live in Massachusetts. If the nearest library with a copy of a book I’d like to read is in Dallas or Vancouver then I’ll go ahead and fill out an interlibrary loan request form next time I go to my local library. :) If the nearest library with a copy is in London or Sydney, the librarians there would be much less likely to agree to send the book all the way here…so I’ll spare my local librarians the hassle of trying to get them to agree, and I won’t bother requesting it in the first place. ;)

By: Johanna

Johanna — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:47:09 +0000

That’s the assumed logic right now, that the less well-known a site is the safer it is, at least for now. Some of those working at manga companies were or knew scanlator fans, so that might provide some sympathy/protection, too. But with sales declining and companies in trouble, I don’t know that any sites will be left alone, since the companies have become determined to eliminate the unfair competition.

By: Mic

Mic — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:56:03 +0000

Hi Johanna, I haven’t been following this news much as I’m not really affected by these hosting sites, but what I would like to ask is will anything happen to the scanlators (for the time being at least)? I do realize that there are thousands more groups out there so it would be more difficult to take action against them, whereas sites like OneManga have gotten too out of hand that they usually come up first on Google search.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 22:32:12 +0000

An online reading site is a site like the departed OneManga, a website that puts up the work of scanlators for anyone to read easily. That’s what the manga publishing companies are fighting.

By: Anonymos

Anonymos — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 22:10:58 +0000

Franzeska, thank you for explaining. I think… I was trying to add in the opinion of a future consumer. To Johanna, my mom would be very unhappy to take me to the library, most likely because I have just over 5 dollars in late fees. Also, my library does not let you check out books for the time your account is “in the hole” by just this amount (5 dollars). As soon as I get a license, I will most likely drive there myself and possibly pay off my late fee (with saved up christmas money, of course) and frequent the library often. I believe I have about 5 months until that time so until then I will settle for my school library. The inter-library loan suggestion is appriciated though. I hadn’t even considered the idea, and even though it seems a bit impractical for me, I will try it when I can XD. Oh, and as a side note, I will not have access to the internet for three days. This is important, because I don’t want anyone to attempt a reply and get nothing in return without knowing why. Looking at the date on Johanna’s message, I’ve already done it but I wanted to let you know at least -.-’ takingitoutside, would you give me an example of a reading site? The phrase ‘reading site’ just isn’t striking any cords for me.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:45:36 +0000

Anon — I’m sure your mom will be happy to take you to the library. Many libraries have growing manga collections, and they can get you almost any book in print through Inter-Library Loan.

By: Franzeska

Franzeska — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:01:23 +0000

I’m not blaming you, Anon; I’m saying it doesn’t make sense for you to offer suggestions to the commercial industry when you don’t and can’t actually support that industry. Scanlators are paid in attention, fame, and gratitude: For them, it makes sense to base decisions purely on what people say they like. Commercial publishers are running a business: They get paid in money, and they’re going to base their decisions on which products people spend money on.

takingitoutside – Yes, absolutely. My experience was similar. My friends traded fansub VHS tapes, and a lot of us eventually started wanting to read the manga those series were based on.

By: Anonymos

Anonymos — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:41:05 +0000

To Franzeska: ouch! As a last defense, I would buy the manga if I could. I prefer purchased manga and reading an actual book instead of scanlations. Unfortunatly, I am given no allowance and my mom won’t let me get a job. So I’ve only been left with illegal scanlations and possibly manga borrowed from friends.

By: takingitoutside

takingitoutside — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 05:03:32 +0000

>>It is simply not true that online reading sites have created a market for manga. They’re a response, not a cause.

Online reading sites, maybe. Scanlations in general, no. Reading sites grew from the scanlation scene, which involved scanlations hosted on scanlators’ sites and in IRC groups. It is absolutely true that that scanlation scene created a market for manga. Anime hit it big before manga, and a lot of people got into manga from anime. Since anime was distributed online through the same methods as manga back then, many anime fans made the jump to downloading manga and became fans of manga because of scanlations. That’s how I did it, as did many of my friends.

By: Franzeska

Franzeska — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 08:30:19 +0000

“Btw, couldn’t the publisher’s just ask scanlation sites which manga’s are popular so they have idea’s for what they show in things such as Shonen Jump? They could also look at unlicensed manga for fresh new licensed manga, now that I think about it (that would also bring the fans of said manga to their… ummm, magazine? Not actually sure what it’s called -.-’). Just a thought :)”

15 years ago, 10 years ago, US publishers absolutely did look at scanlations to see what was popular. They’ve said so many times at conventions and Q&A sessions. They probably still do it now. However, these days, they also have the option of looking at what actually sold for actual money to actual customers. It’s great that you like manga, but unless you can vote with your dollars, publishers can’t afford to pay attention to you.

“I suppose it’s a kind of “you can look, but you can’t touch” thing and maybe a touch naive”

You think? Whether you’re reading online or downloading, you’re still pirating. Scans you can read via the web are more expensive to host, so those sites are more likely to be full of ads and to be, at least in some sense, for profit.

Though you’re right about downloads being easy to share and copy: OneManga got its content by collecting downloads from scanlators and reformatting them for its website. Based on OM’s readership, I’d say far more people were accessing a given scanlation on that site than were downloading anything.

The real issue isn’t what format you read scanlations in, it’s whether scanlations actually make publishers lose money.

By: Anonymos

Anonymos — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 08:03:36 +0000

As an added thing… I don’t really approve of downloading manga and the like. My view on scanlations is that it’s a grey area, but I’m not totally against it as long as the site/scanlaters have not created the site for profit. My view on downloading manga is that it’s a total black area. I suppose it’s a kind of “you can look, but you can’t touch” thing and maybe a touch naive, but manga downloads can be taken and sold or copied and given away. It’d be something to you ‘own’. Ack, it’s a bit more than naive isn’t it? Oh well, it’s my opinion. My view on anime is a little less sever, because of streaming issues, and just like the lack of manga in libraries, there is an inconsitancy in subbed anime shown and on tv, the showings are just too erratic. Unless the person copies it and sells/gives it away. I apologize to all who read this if it’s a little inconsistant, I had a major headache earlier today *sigh*. It wasn’t very… fun. Anyway, thank you for your time and for reading my opinion :)

By: Anonymos

Anonymos — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 07:48:09 +0000

Even though I’m only just entering my junior year of high school, I thought I’d try adding my own bit to the pile. Only about a year or two ago I had only read a few manga and watched a bit of anime (mostly detective conan for the anime). It was only when I found One Manga that I really started devouring manga. That’s right, I said devouring. I finished the dc manga in a week or less, then started on naruto. So basically, I read them fast enough to get annoyed with the load time of each page. One day it was buisness as usual when… a page showed up saying that the manga was no longer shown. In total confusion, I discovered that the manga was taken off of the One Manga site. Out of curiousity and some spare time, I found some quotes of a message that was appearently disappeared before I got a chance to see it or notice it. So now I have no manga. If I had any allowance, I would probably save up and buy manga. Unfortunatly I don’t recieve such a nicety. To tell the truth, I prefer the book version of manga, but as I have stated, no money. Until I found your article, I had no idea what onemanga’s reasoning was, so thank you for that. Btw, couldn’t the publisher’s just ask scanlation sites which manga’s are popular so they have idea’s for what they show in things such as Shonen Jump? They could also look at unlicensed manga for fresh new licensed manga, now that I think about it (that would also bring the fans of said manga to their… ummm, magazine? Not actually sure what it’s called -.-’). Just a thought :) Anyway, I just have one question Johanna… why are ‘manga’ and ‘anime’ showing as misspelled words as I type this comment, seeing how this is about them? Just curiousity…

By: Franzeska

Franzeska — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 03:20:29 +0000

Jake, if you mean websites that cover some aspect of manga (like, say, character shrines to CLAMP characters or all-text translations of Ranma 1/2 with no pictures), sure, there were plenty. If you mean online scanlation reading sites or even sites that link to actual downloads, those are a fairly modern part of manga fandom. When the boom was just starting (early 2000s around the time anime started showing up on Adult Swim and that sort of thing), it was still all about IRC and individual scanlation groups’ sites. Some of the early release tracking sites were just getting going around 2002-2003. The boom peaked around 2006. By the time most of the online readers were getting big in 2007-2008, the boom as such was already over. Manga Fox was founded in 2007. I can’t find the exact start dates of Manga Toshokan and the others, but they’re all around that same time. I don’t think it’s necessarily correct to blame them for the bubble bursting, but these sites absolutely did come along after manga had already achieved mainstream popularity by other means. They were capitalizing on a trend, not starting one.

You don’t need to speculate. The people at Inside Scanlation have done an amazing job of documenting the history of scanlation. They’ve interviewed and researched; it’s about as authoritative as you’re going to get on this subject. The section (1 of 15) on the transition to OneManga type sites is here:
http://insidescanlation.com/history/history-3-4.html

Whichever “manga sites” bunny is talking about, s/he is wrong. Dead wrong.

Here’s another timeline of scanlation (mostly culled from Inside Scanlation but with a little bit of new info and a more compact layout): http://fanlore.org/wiki/History_of_Scanlation

By: Jake

Jake — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 01:56:54 +0000

but Franzeska, bunny was talking about manga sites in general, there were probably other manga sites being opened when manga started getting popular, not just onemanga which might even be considered late in the game because it was opened just 4 years ago. Emphasis on “might” because im speculating.

By: Franzeska

Franzeska — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 17:43:39 +0000

Bunny – There is a difference between scanlators (people who create scanlations) and aggregators (sites which compile scanlations done by other people). That’s not an insult: it’s a factual description. Publishers aren’t aggregators.

When I was buying commercial manga in the US in the mid-90s, there were no online reading sites like OneManga, but there were still customers for translated manga. People discovered it, like they do now, by seeing it on the shelves or first watching anime or hearing about it from their friends. True, scanlation became much more common before manga really took off in the English-speaking world, but OneManga was founded in late 2006, well after the US/English-speaking manga boom began.

It is simply not true that online reading sites have created a market for manga. They’re a response, not a cause.

By: Bunny

Bunny — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 15:19:48 +0000

If anything this whole devestation blow is most likely going to make scanlators(stop calling them agragators if anyone one is a agregator it’s the stupid publishers who can’t think without money in their face), and manga sites jump back even harsher, they will fight till nothing is left. No one is winning in this fight, it’s useless and has no point; publishers have been doing this for years, closing good sites down for their own purpose: money. If half the world didn’t do things that were more meaningful like letting people read manga online, no download and no money then publishers wouldn’t have the sales they have now which I gander is preaty high considering that manga sites are the first sites that come to manga readers heads when they learn or want to read a manga so when it all comes down to it publishers would be screwed without manga sites, they would have no source of income and no manga’s to translate because they would be out of business. Of course it is hard to tell the BOSS the truth when the boss only hears half of what is being said because what is being said is not what he wants to hear. The big bomb shale is I hope publishers can keep their heads because swords are going to fly from this recent scandal of theirs’ Manga sites will fight back and even more aggressively their fans will also fight even harder;

plus if publishers don’t listen and keep shutting sites down they better start making downloads less risky for virus’s and other stuff like that and if they are going to make volumes for god sakes get HANA TO AKUMA on the damn list already! I will so buy that damn manga after all onemanga got me started with it and after reading up to chapter 52 I want more to read and I want to own the book also. This still doesn’t mean they are not off the hook because for the time being they will stay hooked painfully by the lips until they just stop and say fine your all right we wouldn’t be where we are now if manga sites were not out there. Swallow the pride it’s what ruins a country and a entire race.