End of One Manga

[Minion]

So I was cruising the site when a rather ominous message appeared before me. The basics of it were that since publishers had changed their stance of scantilation, One Manga was going to pull all of it's manga gradually, and they will be gone completely by next week. The forums will remain, though.

[Darkandus]

This is happening to a large quantity of sites which host manga scans. In fact some are already gone.

[Wittgen]

To that I say hooray. Stealing is not good for the industry. At all.

[doc.exe]

Well, on one hand, I understand that the manga publishers want to protect their sales, and really, we are actually violating the law by reading and not paying. I at least try to buy a manga volume or two from licensed publishers from time to time, but I know that too many people never pays for anything.

Nevertheless, when you take into account how long it takes for too many titles to be released on this side of the ocean, that too many series are never licensed to begin with, and that the licensed manga tends to be too expensive... Well, forgive me if I tend to read most manga in scanlation sites.

In any case, I wonder how much the sales of manga publishers are affected in reality by the scanlation sites.

[Wittgen]

I can't speak too much about manga, but I know the anime industry is on the verge of collapse.

[doc.exe]

Well, I read somewhere that some studios like Gonzo had a lot of financial trouble, but the entire industry on the verge of collapse? That sounds serious. Knowing how Economy and Finances works, I suppose it is more related to the recession and other factors than just piracy. Can you elaborate?

I wonder if whatever is causing that may also be affecting the manga indsutry. It may explain why the publishers changed their stance regarding scanlations. If you have financial or economic trouble, the normal course of action is attacking everything that may be eroding your profits.

[Wittgen]

First of all, I have to say I have a problem with the villainizing language you're using. The manga industry isn't attacking people. They aren't bad guys for wanting people to pay for the product they're putting time and effort into making. It seems they are pushing to crack down on ridiculously illegal scanalation sites. That is their right.

As for the anime industry, it is not in very good shape. The amount of money being made from licensing has plummeted. DVD sales are weak in America because American anime fans have fed on fansubs until they were fat with a sense of entitlement to free anime. Catering to otaku has helped, a bit, but it's a stop gap solution. Making stuff to appeal to an extremely small Japanese subculture that will spend absurd amounts of money on merchandise and DVDs isn't exactly a great business plan for a global product.

[MEKristian]

First of all, I have to say I have a problem with the villainizing language you're using.

Pot, meet kettle.

[doc.exe]

First of all, I have to say I have a problem with the villainizing language you're using. The manga industry isn't attacking people. They aren't bad guys for wanting people to pay for the product they're putting time and effort into making. It seems they are pushing to crack down on ridiculously illegal scanalation sites. That is their right.

As for the anime industry, it is not in very good shape. The amount of money being made from licensing has plummeted. DVD sales are weak in America because American anime fans have fed on fansubs until they were fat with a sense of entitlement to free anime. Catering to otaku has helped, a bit, but it's a stop gap solution. Making stuff to appeal to an extremely small Japanese subculture that will spend absurd amounts of money on merchandise and DVDs isn't exactly a great business plan for a global product.

Well, first, I didn't mean it as villainizing language. As an Engineer, when you find a problem that is affecting a system (understand system in the general sense, i.e. anything that is made of parts that interact with each other, receives some inputs then produces an output as result from that interaction) and you procede to solve that problem, it's said that you are "attacking" the problem. In this case, the scanlation websites terminately pose a problem to the manga publishers' sales, a problem that they need to solve if they have financial troubles. I suppose I should have used a different term but I'm just accustomed to that one.

Second, I understand what you mean that they are in their right. I agree that there are too many people who feel wrongly entitled to "free things on the Internet", not realizing the amount of work that these people put in their products and that they deserve some money for it. I for once try to acquire official DVD's and licensed manga when I have the chance, but unfortunately, I'm poor and I don't have enough money to spend on them as I would want. Specially when there are more pressing matters than what in the end amounts to simple entertainment. So, forgive me if I try to get as much things as free or as cheap as I can.

Third, I didn't really imagined that licensing was so important for the anime industry. I remember reading somewhere that You tube and similar sites had been a problem for them, not only in America but also in Japan. I just didn't imagine the effect was so severe.

[Wittgen]

I apologize if my post came off as making you out to be a bad guy, doc. Such was not my intention. Also, I apologize for mistaking your intention with the word attacking. I am not an engineer, but I can see what you meant.

Also, I'm really not trying to take a moral high ground or anything. I can see how what I've said could very easily be interpreted that way, but I'm really not. I've torrented things. I've watched fansubbed anime and read scanalated manga. I'm not going to look down on people who have done things that I myself have done and do. It's just that I'm also not going to do anything but cheer when these particular industries take steps to protect themselves or, even better, update their business plan to let them survive in the internet age.

I say these particular industries because some industries are pretty scummy, and I don't really think they have a moral leg to stand on when it comes to fighting piracy. While, really it's just the music industry I think that about.

Licensing is actually quite important. Many studios rely on the money they can make from licensing in order to make anime that is of the quality that anime consumers are now accustomed to.

[doc.exe]

Don't worry, no offense was taken.

IMO, I think that is the solution: Upgrading their bussiness plans for the Internet age. Unfortunately, it seems that many companies (not only in the anime and manga industries, but in the entertainment sector as a whole) are still struggling with that. I hope they manage to find a solution, because it would be a shame if such a fantastic industries crumble.

And well, if I'm not mistaken, Manga helpers was trying to develop a platform in conjuction with manga publishers that would provide some middle ground: Allowing manga fans to get acces to manga while at the same time allowing the publishers to get some money from it. I don't know what was the result of that project though.

[Wittgen]

Glad to hear about the no offense.

I'm in total agreement about the middle ground. I'm really hopeful for the likes of crunchy roll. If a similar service could be created for manga, that would be great. I'm not sure that such things will succeed, though. Various forms of entertainment might instead simply become extremely decentralized. The average successful musician will follow the jonathan coulton model. The average successful comic artist will follow the model shown by Penny Arcade/Something Positive/(any one of many, many successful webcomic businesses). Centralization has some advantages, but I don't know if it's going to hold up.

[Minion]

This might sound ignorant, but I don't see how my reading manga online, for free, is hurting any company. Mostly because I personally would never purchase manga. I'm not saying that it doesn't hurt anyone, but I just don't see how.

[LightLink17]

This might sound ignorant, but I don't see how my reading manga online, for free, is hurting any company. Mostly because I personally would never purchase manga. I'm not saying that it doesn't hurt anyone, but I just don't see how.

I'm basically like this. If all the scanslation sites died, I just wouldn't read manga anymore. I really only keep up with Naruto anyway.

[Disconnected]

This might sound ignorant, but I don't see how my reading manga online, for free, is hurting any company. Mostly because I personally would never purchase manga. I'm not saying that it doesn't hurt anyone, but I just don't see how.

If everyone is reading Manga online for free then no one is buying the Manga so the Mangaka's aren't making any money and thus go broke and cant make Manga anymore.

[Wittgen]

Put another way, if unlimited copies of any anime or manga are available for free, then manga and anime have literally no value. Selling something totally without value is not good business.

[gman391]

Valid points. But I also think going after scanlations in their entirety is....short sighted. Not that the companies don't have a legitimate problem. But as with Light and Minion if there weren't scanlations I still wouldn't be buying manga. I simply lack the money or inclination to go search for a decent comic book store. Especially when If I'm willing to wait I'll find out what happens anyway due to word of mouth and such.

People like me are probably a minority. I admit that. But taking down scanlations is also going to hurt the industry. A lot of people are getting into series and manga-ka's through scanlations it's free advertising.

Over all a subscription model would work better for both sides in the long run. But that's just my opinion.

[LightLink17]

Something to think about.

I don't know if my case is all that common, but while I've never bought a manga before, I have bought merchandise. I've bought posters, I've bought plushies, I've bought figurines, (and once I bought dvd's but this has only happened once) and I wouldn't have if I wasn't able to watch the actual show or read the manga. And I wouldn't have watched or read anything if scanslation sites and fansubs didn't exist.

[doc.exe]

As I see it, the problem is not the people that was not interested in purchasing the manga in the first place, but the people that used to buy it and stopped because they could get it online for free.

At the end, it all comes to value. If you don't see enough value in adquiring the licensed volume of the manga or the official DVD's of the anime, you are not going to do it no matter if you actually are a fan of the series. And if the sales of those volumes and DVD's are the main source of income for the producers, publishers and artists... well, then we have a serious problem.

Now, one would think that adding some sort of agregate value to the product would solve this, but it is a more complex problem than that. There are the issues of distribution (as gman says, not everyone is willing to invest time in going to the shops that provide this kind of mercancy... specially if there are not that many in your local area), the issue of the taxes (in Latin American countries like Mexico, this is a serious issue, sometimes the price of a product gets duplicated because of the taxes) and the fact that adding any sort of bonus content will inevitably increase the price of the product, leading to less consumers being able or willing of purchasing it.

An Internet subcription service may be a possible solution, but like Wittgen says, I'm not really sure how succesful it will be in the long term. It may lead to a major polarization of the market if some creators, artists and companies find succes in it while others don't.

Now, closing scanlation sites is really a close term measure, not an everlasting solution. I understand why they are doing it if the situation is really serious. When it comes to crisis, most companies look at the fastest ways of gaining some money (or at least, prevent it from escaping), no matter if said solutions are only close term or low impact measures, or if their effects may be harmful in the long term, but in the end that is not enough.

When an industry is in serious trouble, it's usually because of a combination of factors. In this case it seems piracy and illegal online distribution is one of the more serious, but I really doubt it's the only one. In that sense, the manga and anime industry should look at all those other factors and also atta... find a way of solving them.

[Phht]

One the one hand, I can see how illegal online distribution could cause issues in an industry that really relies on every sell it can manage. On the other hand, after the efforts of the RIAA and MPAA, I can't help but discount piracy as a major factor for profit loss for any industry. Unfortunate, but true.

My only thought on the loss of one manga is: Dammit, we won't be able to yank up pages of the series and go "look! see!" while making arguments. It was a good reference archive that everyone could view.


Oh, and holy crap will there be a lot of broken links on these forums (especially the manga discussion threads) once the naruto stuff leaves.

[MrRigger2]

I was just thinking of the same thing, Phht. Especially that one thread about whether or not Kakashi was a horrible teacher or not, that got several pages in a day.

MrRigger

[serbii]

Personally I would only buy manga that I had already read some of online so I knew I liked it. I wouldn't just spend $15-20 on something I hadn't tried. Ditto anime but at least that I can get from a library or friend or download a couple of eps. Manga is much less accessible outside of the internet, especially if you're not in the US or Japan.
Also there are a lot of series that will never come out in official english versions and when they do they're left half finished.
So I mourn you one manga, a portal, and only source of manga for so many.

And I have no desire to argue about copyrights, I got that out of my system years ago :P

[Random_fan]

Now I really need a job, I barely have the money for my monthly comics, how am I supposed to buy manga on top of that? Though I do understand why it's being done and can't blame them for doing it. Now to try and read 300 chapters of one piece in a week.

[Arganaut]

You know, this is going to backfire on them. Its kind of like how musicians and music companies back in the tried to shutdown or otherwise force into line sights like Nappster or Kazaa. And just like with Nappster and Kazaa, attacking the problem isn't going to solve things... its just going to force things like Onemanga and other manga scan sites into more and more murky territory of the internet.

Seriously, the problem is NEVER going to go away. Piracy will always, always exist, and I'd hate to break it to the manga companies but usually there are far more consequences of banging the bee hive that is the internet with a stick than there are rewards.

Also, count me in with the 'if there are no scans I still won't buy manga' crowd. I can just go to the nearest Barnes and Noble, pick up a manga and read it in the store without buying it.

[Lthayer3]

I pretty much agree with Arganaut. The scanlation sites won't go away, and people who only want to read them for free will still do just that.

I, too, will likely never buy any manga (unless I actually become somewhat wealthy one day). Same goes for anime DVDs. However, without sites like One Manga and fansub groups like Dattebayo, I would never have known about or become interested in manga and anime in the first place. And there is a very real possibility that I will end up purchasing some forms of related merchandise in the future. Besides that, quite a lot of product recognition is being spread through people like us. I'm sure everyone here has spoken of anime/manga to friends and family at some point. Many of us have probably even gotten a few friends hooked on the stuff. The chance of some of those people purchasing anime/manga merchandise (whether for themselves or as presents) at some point is fairly high. Without the free introduction, I don't think anime would be anywhere near as well known in Western countries. There would be far fewer anime conventions, and carrying anime/manga wouldn't be profitable to more than a handful of comic stores. If anything, sites like One Manga have likely increased the overall amount made by manga publishers, just lowering the amount made per person reading manga.

What anime and manga companies need to do is find a way to make at least some money off of what they see as a problem. Crunchyroll is a step in the right direction. Other companies and publishers need to realize that the internet is the future, and their works will be available on the internet whether they want them there or not. Really, this is a problem with American television and comics as well, although to less of an extent at the moment. Traditional cable TV, print media, and dvds are all slowly going the way of the dodo. Companies need to learn that if they don't start supporting the internet movement, they're just going to suffer.