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!
I agree with your opinions as well. I am having mixed thoughts about this too. If we assume that everyone will comply to the trust laws, will the companies publish mainstream titles faster? Will they license more titles for us readers to enjoy? I cannot stand waiting for another 6 months for the next volume. This ruins the mood of enjoying the series. Whereas, the fans can simply give the English translations for less than 24 hours. I guess the best way to relegate this is to hire those translators and host an online site. Perhaps, we, the readers, can pay a small amount of fee to access into their site and please do not restrict this only to the US market. That is one reason I do not support US companies that license shows in the US. In that way, people will not get fussy about waiting. However, what will happen to the hard copy versions? I guess they will not sell that much less if you are an avid collector.
I, myself, buy these books if I like the series. My factors of buying them is simply watching the animated version for it.
And they need to do something about those ridiculously high prices! I guess I cannot blame them since it takes more money to license, publish, and distribute it. Not to mention, only a partial amount will go to the author. I guess I am ranting more on accessibility to the titles that I want seeing that I am from a third world country. Paying expensive shipping rates hurts.