Good day all,
I realize it has almost been a month since I posted here last, however a number of factors have influenced my activity…. mainly many sleepless nights doing assignments and the time inbetween doing 5 minute gaming sessions and being at uni.
Anyway, I am back now so I guess all is well.
I recently heard of the site onemanga.com announcing that it was closing down next week due to pressure of manga companies. Now first off, I am not going to be going “THIS IS MORALLY WRONG TO TAKE AWAY OUR MANGA!?!?!” since really, everyone has their own opinions on this, instead I am just going to pose a few statements and be on my way.
- Will this presumed lack in piracy mean that Australia WILL ACTUALLY get manga on the shelves? Personally, I have bought a lot of manga, and the others I have gotten from libraries around where I live, however the supply of stores stocking manga is small and no one really wants to buy a lot of it since the cost of one small volume can get up to $AUD 25!!! I can buy two full length novels (Or at least 1.5) for the price of one volume of manga and that lasts me much longer. So yes, I do hope this means more Australian distribution and cheaper costs so I dont have to keep ordering online.
- You cannot deny, a lot of mangas got popular through fan translations, these have often been picked up by manga companies for English distribution and seems to have sold quite well. Once again, I do believe that companies are entirely in their rights to request all fan translations removed once licencing has been announced, but I just hope that the flow of popular manga isnt halted because of this.
- I am looking at a few manga companies about this….. any chance of quicker releases so we dont have to wait 6 months for another volume of a manga? You cannot deny that if a release is slow or even haltered due to various reasons, that fans would want to progress the story at SOME point.
- The manga market in Japan has a much higher variety of series then the limited number for English distribution. Will we see a much greater variety of series being released in English without conflicting with #3?
I am neutral in this case, I can see the benefits of both sides arguments and see issues with both of them, however, I do hope that because of these incidents that companies will actually make manga more accessible and not just regress into a market of expensive and limited books….. since now some prices and value for money are making me cringe.
That is all for now folks, thanks for reading!
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