This is an editorial. The views and opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the views of The One Piece Podcast or Raftel Productions. This Monday we will be interviewing Stephen (One Piece translator for Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha) and Molokidan (One Piece translator for Mangastream’s now defunct scanlations). Make sure to tune in!
A War on Two Fronts by Zach Logan
No matter which side of the debate you land on, the manga industry is radically changing. The corporations that published manga in the United States are deteriorating. Around a year ago, VIZ Media downsized significantly and began to cut back production. Tokyopop shut down months later. Borders bookstore shut its doors completely in 2011, rendering a huge blow to the manga industry in a time when it was already crippled significantly. The industry has reacted by shifting distribution to digital development. VIZ Media developed their solution in VIZManga, and later, in Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha.
Scanlations have existed for well over seven years, and have become more pervasive than ever. OneManga, a former scanlation giant, was one of the top 100 websites as ranked by Google in 2010. Mangastream, largely heralded as its successor, garnered well over 400,000 Facebook fans, and over 100,000 followers on Twitter. This kind of brazen promotion and popularity has caught the eye of the owners of the properties these sites have reproduced. In Japan, Shueisha and other companies have looked to shut down these sites. Stateside, VIZ Media has represented these publication conglomerates in looking to protect their market brand. These sites have hurt their bottom line after the bubble popped in Asia, and after the recession began in the United States. This process has essentially turned into a game of “Whack-a-Mole.” For those not familiar with this American pasttime, it essentially boils down to the fact that Shueisha and others close down one site, only to see another pop up. The only way for the game to end, in this case, is to prevent a need for the moles to come up, or tape all the holes down so that the mole pops out just where you want it.
There are some simple facts that need to be percolated amongst the anime and manga communities:
The Internet is not free. In Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union the Internet barely escaped a law that would have banned all obscene materials. Not only would this have essentially ended the Internet pornography industry, but it would have provided the standards we have on basic cable television to the Internet. In the wake of that case, the Internet has blossomed and been a bastion for libertarianism. It is still, however, not free. If you do something illegal, you still are liable. If you provide scanlated materials to a mass amount of people, the companies that own that material can shut you down. Intellectual property exists to motivate those who create to continue creating. It’s law that is so sacred that it’s in the U.S. Constitution. These laws are what make the works of Oda, Kishimoto, and even Kubo a possibility. For those who claim you can do anything you want on the Internet and expect no consequences, you not only maybe hurting yourself, but you are hurting the principles that make it possible for creativity to proliferate.
The Internet provides. The Internet is unquestionably one of the greatest innovations of the century. It has provided a means of instant communication to people around the globe. A mere decade or so ago, the proliferation of manga legally (or illegally) simultaneously, near-simultaneously, or earlier than the release in Japan would have seemed far-fetched. This has created a sense of entitlement, but I don’t mean to say that in a wholly negative context. We are all intellectual property criminals, let’s face it. The Internet creates a means of distribution that makes it impossible to resist. The ability to read the latest chapter of One Piece as soon as it comes out is not only easy, it’s a brainless task. How can a struggling manga industry, then, take this kind of model and still incentivize and reimburse those who put their time and energy into it? A lot of fans also ask, how can I make sure what I (would) be paying (would) go to the author and not a corporation?
VIZ is trying to fight the scanlating by producing Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha, and they’ve certainly come closer than anyone else at producing a model that may work. The problem is twofold.
First, the hurdles of licensing. Any reasonable fan can admit that it’s likely easier to do something without following the rules then it is to follow the rules. Scanlators merely scan, translate, and render the images they take from the magazine and put it online. VIZ, on the other hand, goes through a painstaking process to make sure the license can allow certain distribution models (from color pages, to statements in the text), they have to figure out how to distribute it, they have to pay people who translate, edit, and typeset all the material, and they have to get everything approved. One may produce a product that pays back to the original author and has better quality, but the Internet will always go to the first because they provide a means of consistancy and speed.
Second, the hurdle of geography. Licensing goes far beyond the intermediary steps we do and don’t know about. Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha, though unfortunately behind by two weeks from the releases in Japan, still provide quality translations. The problem is, those translations are only provided to those in the United States and Canada. The international manga fan remains in the dark. There’s no way around it, because in order to legally distribute manga online (simultaneously or not), the company of each individual state would have to get approved. This is no easy task, nor is it likely to pan out in many smaller states.
So this presents us with the war on two fronts. The war on scanlations, and the war on the manga industry. The war on scanlations can never end unless an alternative can be reached that is legal and affordable for everyone. The war on the manga industry cannot end until the war on scanlations concludes.
We are left with some difficult predicaments: am I entitled to read my manga chapter every week without paying? Is the dissemination of that material on the Internet a crime, and if I read it am I significantly hurting the author and the creators of the work? Can the manga industry ever provide a reasonable alternative, a la Crunchyroll for anime?
We must push VIZ to speed their Shonen Jump Alpha releases in the wake of the shutdown of Mangastream. We must push Shueisha to provide Shonen Jump Alpha as an immediate alternative to those around the world. So instead of complaining and whining, make your voice heard and let them know you want simultaneous worldwide releases of One Piece (or whatever your favorite manga might be). It may seem impossible, but it’s already begun to happen to anime. It maybe possible for manga as well.
Keep reading for former One Piece Podcast member, Tsukento, and his take on the current situation. For his full article, check out his blog.
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VIZ’s “War on Manga” by Tsukento
Think the title is a little silly? Unfortunately, it’s an accurate portrayal on the exaggerations some fans are going as far as to make over on Viz’s Facebook page. Why is that? On February 11, 2012, manga scanlating group, Manga Stream, published a statement on their website that said they would be no longer doing fan scans of Weekly Shounen Jump manga due to demands from Viz. The following series’ were affected:
- Bleach
- Claymore
- D.Gray-man
- Hunter × Hunter
- Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
- Naruto
- One Piece
Needless to say, as soon as fans read this, the internet seemed to explode.Now let me first start things off explaining my own thoughts on the situation. I’ve been pirating virtually everything since back when Napster was the big thing everyone was using before it became a big hot issue to download music over the internet. Even to this day I still do it; games, anime, manga. Whether it be streaming or download. I am very much the definition of a pirate.
However, I can rightfully say that I still support the industries I seem to “steal, plunder and rape” from with my hijinks. I have lord knows how many boxes full of manga volumes, anime VHS tapes, DVDs and a couple of Blu-rays, as well as an obscene amount of games purchased physically and digitally. If you’ve seen my posts on Twitter, chances are you’ve stumbled upon my photos of my collections and random purchases.
I may not be able to buy anime and manga right away as they come out, but I still find my ways to chip in when I can to not only support the industry but to get the things I like when they’re released here. With that, I also understand that it costs companies like Viz money to obtain a license from the original company so they can then translate their product, mass produce them and then ship them out. Some series’ are major hits whereas some aren’t. Sometimes there’s not enough money to be made because the series doesn’t have a big enough fanbase, while sometimes it can be the fault of the company for not backing it properly to raise awareness. It’s never easy to pinpoint which is the exact cause.
With the loss of the WSJ manga being brought to the internet by Manga Stream, it’s both a hit to the fans as well as the pirates. Viz’s hopes were clearly meant to force pirates to look to legal methods for reading manga digitally, which they offer with Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha. Unfortunately, the fired attack also managed to hit some loyal fans in the same process. Fans of Claymore, D.Gray-man, Katekyo Hitman Reborn! and Hunter × Hunter were equally angered by the removal of their series’, as only three of removed series’ are even being shown and promoted in WSJA. The KHR! fans are a little more upset as this is a series that has spanned for 37 volumes in Japan, with only 16 released by Viz, as they have no plans to continue translating the series, having placed it into indefinite hiatus status.
It’s also understandable for some other fans who pirate for other reasons to be upset – neither the manga nor WSJA is available in their regions/territories. As of this writing, WSJA is only available in the US and Canada. This leaves a majority of the world locked out, especially those that are native-English speakers. With no way of being able to officially obtain their manga, what other alternative did they have? One could suggest they import manga from the US, but that becomes rather pricey and (honestly) inconvenient. This is a problem that’s been affecting them with anime streams and with Viz hitting Manga Stream, this only doubles the punishment for those who couldn’t pay for these, even if they wanted to.
Viz has a LOT to do if they want to make WSJA something to turn to as an alternative to pirating manga. They need to make their service available offline for those not using smart devices. As it stands, you’re only given temporary ownership over your volumes of WSJA for a fixed amount of weeks. Why can’t subscribers keep them if they bought them with their subscription? Why do they have to be online in order to read them on their computers? A program similar to Steam would benefit Viz greatly, as it doesn’t hinder those who purchase the manga greatly, allows them to access these things while offline and still prevents them from sharing them online with those who didn’t pay for them. As it stands, Viz’s methods are more closer to Origin.
Not only this, but this should be more accessible to other platforms. The iOS shouldn’t come first at all times; especially when reading manga on a cell phone is an extraordinary pain. That’s the 1st page of Bakuman Vol. 1 as through my iPhone 3GS. No modification was done to the image. It’s exactly as it appears on my phone and requires all sorts of zooming and swiping in order to properly read any manga on Viz’s app. If anything, it would be more ideal to work a way to get manga apps onto the 3DS and PSVita. The PSP originally attempted something like this with various western superhero comic books. Their screens seem like much better alternatives than the smaller smart phones.
Finally, the big issue being they need to focus more on other series’ to promote what they have and raise awareness, rather than focusing on the small group of manga they’re boasting about in WSJA. With the additional pages they mention having, it would be more ideal to rotate around certain series’ or at least do spotlights. Heck, best option would be to turn to fans and get an idea of what they want to see. On top of that, attempt to reach outside of the North American market. One of the big problems the anime industry (and sometimes gaming) suffers from is when certain parts of the world won’t ever see a stream or release because no one will license a property for their area. One of WSJA’s main drawbacks is that several people are left out because they’re not able to access it.
Now with all that said and done, don’t mistake this as me bashing Viz or anything of the sort. If anything, my suggestions are merely constructive criticism pointing out what’s wrong with their methods and services, along with a few ideas of how they can be fixed. The fanbase, however…there’s no fixing that. After browsing Viz’s Facebook page, I’m left utterly baffled some of these people can even form a coherent sentence, as their anger towards Viz is the equivalent of a child. Some fans are being very civil and expressing their concern calmly. Some just outright bashed their heads on their keyboard and hit “Send.” I think it’s only fair I now look at what they have to say and point out what exactly is wrong with some of the fanbase.
This is going to be the part where I pick some Facebook comments and give my two cents on them (aka tear them apart). Obviously I won’t be including any full names, because I’m not a jerk and don’t exactly want anyone getting the idea it’s cool to harass people on their Facebook page. Remember, this is for education and entertainment; not bullying.
Kris: money whores!
Joshua: Thanks a lot you jerks, MangaStream is 10x better than you. You’re just upset that it was popular unlike you.
Davey: Jealous that a group does a better job than you – and for free?
Francesco: You are evil. EVIL SATAN WORSHIPPERS!
Daria: That moment when a business is anal because a free provider does pretty much everything better.
Francesco (Again): Now that’s where you were hiding, ADOLF HITLER!
Nothing but “u jelly” and senseless name calling. Didn’t think running a business to ensure your product made a profit and wasn’t being stolen equated to being a money whore and being worshippers of the Devil. News to me.
Bilal: I used to buy your issues whenever they were out in my country. Since you guys put an end to Mangastream, I am never ever going to buy anything from Viz again.
Now this one makes no sense. If you bought issues when they were available, why would you forcibly limit yourself by not buying anything at all?
Robby: Oh, and if you wanted…make viewing of manga online free. Going digital means you can do that.
No. No that doesn’t. You know nothing of how that works. Shueisha would kill Viz if they offered these things for free online. Not to mention, they’re the ones who give the final okay to what Viz does.
Trevor: You guys are WAY behind on Bleach (Which is at Chapter 480 in Japan, You’re at Chapter 424 from what I saw, Which is the beginning of the previous arc…its going to be over a year until you catch up!)
Actually, Bleach is at Chapter 477 in WSJA. So it’s only 3 chapters off. Might help if you keep up with current events, rather than randomly complain.
Rin: I hope your company bankrupts and burns. LONG LIVE MANGASTREAM!
Ray: I hope you guys ROT IN HELL.. I HOPE YOUR COMPANY GETS BANKRUPT
Abdiasis: I’ll be happy to watch your sales go plummeting down!
Alex: Let s boycott them so they ll go bankrupt…… hopefully!!!
Yeah! I hope hundreds of people lose their jobs and have to struggle with money! I also hope for the only major company that helped shaped this industry to crash and burn, preventing us from ever seeing official releases again! That’ll teach those MONSTERS for taking away my illegal goods!
David: your fate will be the same as Tokyopop.
Being owed tons of money after being cheated out of it by Borders and because people like you refuse to buy manga?
Tom: Congratulations Viz, I don’t buy your products often but I always buy naruto games when it’s coming out and now I won’t
Congratulations! You’re taking your anger out on Namco Bandai, the ones responsible for publishing those games. Nice job!
Estevan: I will spread the word NOT to subscribe to the poorly received Shonen Jump Alpha, it won’t. If you think I’ll buy the manga and B&N, think again. It’s practically a library.
So in other words, you never used Alpha, otherwise you wouldn’t word it as if you’re going to explain based on the experiences of others. You also never buy manga, considering you see bookstores as libraries. So really, what exact right DO you have to complain for?
Torres: You will not stop internet freedom!
Muhd: U TAKE SOMETHING PRECIOUS FROM US AND IT IS FREEDOM……..
…The freedom to steal manga? I’m not sure I follow.
Terresa: I will learn Japanese and buy straight from Japan. The result? Faster, more accurate manga and I am supporting the artist directly and not having to give money to companies like this one.
To bad part of the money is still given to the publishing company. Oh, did I forget to mention that Viz is a part of Shueisha? So your goal accomplishes nothing. If you have the time and money to spend on getting lessons to learn another language for the sake of reading manga, then you have the time and money to pay for official releases.
Luis: trying to monopolize those series, uh? so are you guys gonna stop the other groups as well?
Well…they kinda do have the license to them, after all.
I’ll stop here. Now take a good look at the comments above. Is this really what our fanbase looks like? Shallow, petty, self-entitled whiners who feel they DESERVE to be given free things? As I’ve mentioned earlier on, there are definitely a lot of problems Viz has that needs to be worked out as they effectively hurt people outside of their range that couldn’t even contribute if they wanted. Said folks have been calm and explained carefully why they don’t like the situation. Meanwhile, the outspoken vocal individuals have clearly shown their true colors and how, for a good majority of them, they have absolutely no idea what it is they’re talking about or how things work.
Look, Viz is a business. They have Shueisha breathing down their necks on making sure they don’t screw this up and to make sure they try killing off as much rampant piracy as possible. They kinda have to keep your money in their interest. It’s not like they don’t take an interest in the fans, either. After all, we did get an entire Shonen Jump dedicated to the fans. Yeah, they still need some kinks to work out with everything. But to outright compare them to Adolf Hitler? Because they took down your illegal manga? Are you kidding me? This is partly why I don’t actively take part in any fanbases; the people surrounding it tend to outnumber the ordinary, sane fans.
Sorry I agree with the whole internet isn’t free thing, but I don’t care for VIZ at all. Over the years of reading manga I gotten into the whole Japanese culture thing and decided to learn a bit of the language. I bought a couple of raws and decided to compare them to some of the Giants from the U.S.(tokyopop,viz,etc). What I found was very crappy translation Naruto for example if I see a line where I know it reads something it is toned down for the younger audiences .Why is that? We pay full price a premium of sorts to read a near perfect translation yet we get sub par work. I understand that Viz wants to get money from the kiddies but then you should make an honest translation for the adults. It was the same problem with Tokyopop I complained many a time on the forums about the GTO Early Years translations and all they sent me were weak excuses. The translations were way off and there were many grammatical errors. I’ve seen more errors in Tokyopop than I ever seen in my entire life. But I’ve hardly seen any in manga stream also manga stream is much more closer to the translation. That’s why we need them it keeps rival companies on their toes so you just cant put out a crappy product and tell yourself well “I know its sub par but the people have no other place to go so I can do anything I want.” That’s why I am anti this. Its like a monopoly and the only people who benefit from it is Viz. I hope that Viz just doesn’t go the way that T-Pop did. They lost the manga licensing because of the complaints to the publishers over seas about the poor quality that was coming out on this end. It had nothing to do with borders. Go on the forum and the fans plus the editors will tell you. Well that’s my rant maybe I should start scanslating give it to Viz and show them an example of how it really should look.
I would love to buy manga and support Viz and the manga industry, but as I live in Australia I really have NO choice if I want to see anything resembling a current arc of any manga, not to mention some of my favourite manga aren’t imported because there isn’t enough of a fan base. You know what Viz I can understand that you’re losing money but to pigeon-hole the entire world like this is retarded, it only leads to more scanlation groups popping up or worse encoded traffic, which you could do next to nothing to stop. Really you should take a step back and re think this seemingly knee jerk reaction, you could stand to make ALOT more money for it too.
Here is a question to ponder. If fan translators & certain sites truly and honestly only cared about filling in the gap for the major Jump series and keeping people informed about what is going on, well, why does it not stop with mere translation? Why don’t they content themselves with spoilers, good summaries or maybe even script translations? That’s fair game and the latter is likely irrelevant from Viz’s perspective. Comics are a visual medium, I think we can all agree that text does not infringe on that product. But there are people who go the extra mile.
Why? I’ll tell you why: for prestige and, yes, for the sites out there, money. Ill-gotten money.
I’ve heard much about how Shonen Jump Alpha is two weeks behind, which is bloody amazing considering where the manga industry & digital content was even a year ago–two or three, the shift is nothing less than dramatic. There was a very recent time when any long-running manga being caught up to the Japanese manga volume releases was just a nice dream. Now we are where we are. How easily some people forget with such complaints as “well they don’t have THIS” and “but it’s North America!” (while I empathize with global fandom, this complaint is also a perpetually moving goalpost: if they catch up in the UK people will shift to some other country where English is a major language. We’ll hear something like “but what about Singapore?!”).
My unfiltered opinion on the subject is this. People can talk about the reasons we are where we are & what can be done better & the manga industry, and I’m about to cite something that does a lot of that, and that’s all very useful. But at the end of the day you have fundamental questions that demand answering: does Viz have rights, and do these Viz flamers have any standing to complain? The answers are “yes” and “no” and they’re not up for debate.
Everyone attacking Viz on this is, quite frankly, a fool – especially the individuals that flamed them on Facebook with the grammar and intelligence of a tantrum-throwing third grader.Deb Aoki, about.com’s intrepid manga blogger, explains everything fabulously on her blog.
http://manga.about.com/od/bookreviews/a/Mangastream-Vs-Shonen-Jump-Alpha.htm
I’m picking out some key parts regarding Mangastream’s deplorable statement:
“It’s not like this news caught them by surprise. (See the announcement of the anti-piracy coalition Japanese Digital Comics Association back in June 2010, followed by OneManga’s shut down in July 2010 and MangaFox’s token attempt to take down VIZ titles in June 2010 (that they later reposted). Sure, MangaStream tried to make some concessions to VIZ by “removing chapters that are older than a couple of weeks.” Clearly, this was an attempt to placate VIZ/Shueisha’s legal team who eventually got tired of the games, and by the sound of Mangastream’s letter, finally sent Mangastream a strongly-worded threat that they had to take seriously. Given all the anti-piracy developments brewing since June 2010, Mangastream was living on borrowed time and they darn well knew it. If they didn’t, they were either naïve or stupid or both.”
“This bears repeating: Mangastream’s scans NEVER paid a CENT to Masashi Kishimoto, Tite Kubo, Eiichiro Oda, or any other manga creator whose work is posted on their site. And for good measure, they probably didn’t pay the fans who translated, scanned, cleaned up, and lettered the manga hosted on their site either.
“So who made money? Well, probably Mangastream and the various scanlation aggregator sites who make money off the Google Adwords / display advertising that’s posted on their sites. I’ll say it again. Not a SINGLE PENNY of this advertising revenue ever did or ever will go to the creators who drew the manga. Got it? Good.
“Despite that inconvenient truth, Mangastream’s letter drips with bitterness:
‘(VIZ has) succeeded in little more than invoking inconvenience to the community as their digital magazine missed the mark; it runs several issues behind and only features 3 of the above series. So long as their product continues to be slow, awkward and inferior to something a ragtag group of nobodies can churn out in a few hours – fans will continue to look to scanlation groups and aggregators for their weekly fix.’
“See how insidious this reasoning is? They’re basically saying, ‘Hey fans – big bad VIZ is being sooo mean. They sic’ed their lawyers on us. We tried to fight the good fight, but alas, we cannot any longer. VIZ’s product is inferior to ours, and it’s sooo slow. VIZ is just a big, bad company full of greedy incompetents, while we are for you, the community of fans! We are the good guys! Fight the power!’
“Before you swallow that bit of swill, let me introduce another inconvenient truth: The reason why the ‘ragtag group of nobodies’ can ‘churn out’ the latest chapters of Shonen Jump manga in ‘a few hours’ is that they don’t have to worry about tedious details like, oh… getting approvals from the original manga creators, editors or publishers in Japan? It’s easy to be fast when you don’t have to worry about things like that. It’s also easy to be profitable when they’re only paying for their Internet hosting costs, and not paying anything to the editors, the letterers/clean-up artists, translators, the publishers and most of all, the creators of the comics that they claim to love.”
Aoki closes by sayingi n part
This is making for a long comment, but this closing sentiment is important: “I’m not saying shut up and just take what VIZ is giving to you – you, as fans, as consumers, and people who are paying your money to read Shonen Jump manga, are entitled to say what you think, what you want, and how you think things can be improved.”
That part is key. You have a say (a civil say) if you are a customer. The types that act like victims over this and insist Viz does a horrible job and therefore won’t ever support it? For the most part these aren’t customers. They’re jerks with a totally misplaced sense of entitlement. As Aoki says, Viz surely knew they weren’t going to please everyone right away. They don’t need to. They just have to market & reach out to the people who actually care. And this they are doing, better than they ever have before. As Aoki asks: is it really so hard to appreciate how far things have come?
One thing I don’t like about manga translating and selling companys like VIZ is that they translate even the sounds which really sucks in my opinion. The sfx’s, especially in Bleach, were part of the Art and if I were to buy the manga from viz and read it I get big fat FROOOMMMS and KAAABOOOOMMM and that is something really annoying.
I am going to dick around with proxies now, I don’t understand why they wouldn’t accept my cash.
i’ve been in the U.S and Canada before i used to buy all the products movies, manga, all the games for my favorite series but after i moved to the middle east i cant get my hands on any of the jump series i relied on manga stream for my weekly fix of manga but when i saw what Viz did i was outraged and i agree with all those people who left hateful comments because taking manga from fans is like taking a cigarette from a full time smoker thats been smoking for 50 years they made a problem they have to face the consequences and i doubt manga stream is going to be affected as much as Viz
The problem here is on a lot of fronts. First The manga industry is hardly global, for the fans in Europe,Africa and most parts of Asia they have almost no means to get manga except of course shipping it from Japan or the USA. That can get costly pretty fast and we all know people aren’t made of money. Second point I’ve seen samples of both viz translations and Mangastream translations. Viz translations dare I say it are a lot worse than the mangastream translation, they are dumbed down and the translations are unreliable some times. Here’s a solution why don’t you hire some of Mangastream’s staff which does a lot better job doing the scanlations in turn making your own revenue higher? They don’t quite think that much ahead and with all the laws standing around making it harder for them to do something I don’t blame them.
Third Point, the marketing strategy. They need to keep ahead of their times we are living. Ever heard of Steam? Yes steam, it was created in response to piracy, games were usually either unavailable or really pricey so people started pirating them. Problem is they were low quality so in turn they created steam releasing high quality games at acceptable prices, in which they did not spend money shipping and other costs. Why not do something like that it would increase their revenue by a lot, people wouldn’t pirate as much and it would be available all over the globe. Seriously it would be a golden idea and they would even save money
@Todd that just shows how little do you know about how scanlating works , while i do confirm that you are right on several points , you are also wrong on just as many
I succeeded in evading the country restriction. But then I took a credit card to the knee :s, I now have to fix a credit card to make payments :c.
Hey,
After reading Todd’s post I decided to came here and state that their are somethings in his post that are simply WRONG.
He say’s:
“And for good measure, they probably didn’t pay the fans who translated, scanned, cleaned up, and lettered the manga hosted on their site either.”
MangaStream and those fans are one and the same. There is no company behind the actual workers, mangastream ARE the fan’s who translate and edit.
They may have a member who just holds a server and does administrative bullshit. But if he gets any money more than the others, it’s basically stealing from MangaStream. Just that.
Where the money goes? Well, GoogleAds is no golden pot. Really. You need A LOT of viewers to get A LOT of income.
And they do have a lot of viewers. It so happens that a lot of viewes in an image sharing website is expensive. You need a pretty decent server to sustain that many bandwith. And I’ve never done the math but I doubt they had that much to spare.
If they made or made not, who knows?
But accusing them of getting money is a baseless accusation. And that’s kind of a crime too.
But your post becames fallacious when you invent a “they” different from the “translators/editors (…)”
I’ve been part of an (international) scanlator group, and there is no such a thing. Its just doing it for the fan. And yes, there is prestige involved. Things like “we are faster than X” or “We are slower than Y but at least our translations are accurate”. But there is no monetary greed. Just a kind of voluntary attitude towards giving people something to read.
What we’re doing was kind of legal, as in our country those mangas are not licenced (altough, I haven’t find the specific laws).
Also I’ve nothing against Viz. I kind of have a problem against the current copyright laws. I just find it awful that we’ve proven methods of creators getting paid, while viewers getting it for free (TV!!!). So I can’t be for any paying system. But that is another matter.
Dear Zach I have been subscribed to shonen jump for several years my main problem sj alpha is I don’t get to keep a copy of it. That’s it I still own all my shonen jumps since I started in 2007. I don’t get why I can’t download a copy to my flash drive so I can always read them. I am not happy about psyren getting axed either but I guess I will find some illegal sight online to read that series as long as Google’s protecting us our government not going to shut us down I agree that shonen jump should turn into the steam of manga and anime that would be cool.
Oh yeah the other i think that sj alpha should do is ask you personally what 5 or 6 manga you want to read in shonen jump alpha so your favorite manga doesn’t get axed and you can read your favorite manga without having to worry about them being axed by others who disagree with you. I think that if your paying for this service that’s the very least they can do to improve upon the service they provide.
I don’t really see the problem, the fact that so many people wants to read manga shouldn’t be a problem xD it should be a cash machine for those making it! And it can be so the way it is now, we all should be able to read it for free. The internet is free IMO, and it will and should be payed by commercials and advertising. So why don’t they start putting commercials into it, which the author can profit from. It wont bother any of us, and as I see it, there already is commercials in some manga’s – at least Japanese commercails. So they just need to make it work some way, so we all get the commercials interesting for us. Like google or facebook give us commercials. Piece of cake and much more money than if u have to pay for the Jump…
I think one of the reason sites like onemanga is popular, because it fast release. It not like they are 100% accurate with there word or sometime miss page.
To tell you the true you could get 20% more sale if you release fast with single release. People around the world would be made if their site went down, because the want mange every week, more like everyday lol. Okay let say you make a site or have it on iPod app and release them on Monday or Tuesday with that you beating them on time and because of that your 100 official so no one wrong word or miss page. This would make you #1 place to get manga. Why would I go to sit like mangastream? People want free but please also want faster release.
i read all of this and i still don’t see any other option for me to get manga other than illigal ways, that or pay over 500% transport fees to get it here, the same applies to anime, i allso don’t have the physical storage space for the products, and the digital servise on manga is not available here, i would use it if i could but allas, i cant. just becuz i live at a inconvinient place meens im not allowed to read manga? from what i read, if there is not big enoth fan base where you live you loose the rights to read the manga? what sort of fucked up dictator reasoning is that if i may ask?
The problem lies with the business model itself that Viz, Shueisha and those other companies like to use. With the internet, it is a model that no longer has a competitive edge and is consequently falling. However, rather than adapting their business to the relatively new technology and the new way of thinking that inevitably comes with it, they have chosen to instead persist with their outdated business model, by trying instead to adapt the new technology to it.
As it’s been correctly pointed out, even though it appears that reading scanlations online is “free”, there is still money being made from it. So, rather than waging a war to try and crush this new way of doing business, it would be much more beneficial to utilize and adapt to it. How do you think hulu.com does it?
Other problems are of course the bureaucracies that no one wants and the politics that no one cares about. No one likes censorship or having things “toned down”. Those that do aren’t even paying customers, nor are they even remotely interested in the product, so why are they the ones that are being appeased?
Also, competing modes of business aren’t necessarily piracy. Piracy is by definition “theft”. However, to duplicate something isn’t theft, it is duplication. If someone buys an apple, and uses the seed in it to plant his own apple tree, is that “piracy”? Of course not. It is simply more for everyone, and that is exactly what duplication is; “more for everyone”.
Once everyone comes around to realizing all that, real progress can finally be made.
Allso, 1 of the bigger reasons many people choose the illegal version is that the fan made translations (anime and manga alike) are a lot better then the official one, the picture quality is better, and its for free. why pay for a version thats far inferior the the free one? well, i would still pay for it if it was digital, not to expensive and i get to keep what i pay for (why the hell would i pay for it otherwise?) and if the translation is closer to what the bigger fan sites offer i would even pay a little bit more
when the 2 options for non US people are A) wait 18 months (yes 18 months, 1 volume every 3 months, 9 chapters per volume, current chapter available to buy is 516) for this weeks chapter to come out in the UK.
B) mangastream
these are the options. who reallys wants A? even if you want to support manga, who wants to hear about stuff that you don’t get to see for over a year? that’s just not living in the real world, no matter how much you try and say internet isn’t free, very few people will be willing to wait 18 months. Like Gabe Newell said, piracy is a service problem, when the best legal alternative is so far removed from the easist option, it’s no wonder it’s so successful.
Simply do what Crunchyroll does for manga, have it translated and available for $ the day after, not 18 months.
First of all, mind your tone.
Because most people who complain about recent VIZ vs MS, are still fans who love the series.
If your point is to promote WSJA, make it so that it is not in offensive language.
Now there are several other points you should know
- In some countries like Myanmar, the average person earning is less than 30$/month which they can barely live and eat.
For them, internet is the only source they can afford intellectual products; it is not as if everyone is a leecher just because they want to be.
- Tsukento, your comments about Facebook page might be true to some extents but you are doing it the wrong way.
Someone complains about the huge gap in manga chapters of online vs WSJA and your response is his inaccuracy in manga chapter number which is off by 3?
Seriously, online chapters sometimes have wrong numbers due to special chapters, etc. but that was not his point, was it?
- So some people complain about “quality translations” and some people complain about “selective manga”, they are somewhat true you know.
- Thirdly, MS is a respectable scanlation group whose wish is to promote the manga they love, there is no reason to bash them.
TBH, internet policing has practically very little effects because in some countries, the international laws don’t work.
Most fansub/scanlation groups listen to VIZ when addressed directly is because they care about them even though they have the option to reject them.
For example, Tazmo and co. – they don’t really listen about whatever the officials are saying, do they?
—————–
Bye then, hope you justice-wanna-be guys are enlightened a bit.
(^^ I chose this tone ‘cuz I am angry with how you guys talked about us fans. Learn to pay respect, even if it is internet.)
Oh yes, before someone might troll, let me correct my typo
*Thirdly = Additionally
I can go with viz having the copyright laws. Viz quality isn’t as good as other sites and it’s something that they need to work on. The problem I have is now I can’t read Reborn or hunter x hunter. I checked the viz website and they have nothing. What are they going to do about that?
If it wasn’t for scanalations I probably would have never become a one piece fan. But since then I have bought numerous one piece manga books, dvds, I’ve even bought unlimited adventure for the wii twice, which buy the way they don’t make anymore. I don’t mind paying for it but I need my one piece now.
“Where the money goes? Well, GoogleAds is no golden pot. Really. You need A LOT of viewers to get A LOT of income.”
According to Alexa, MangaStream.com was getting 15 million pageviews a day on average, and they had ads on every page of the site.
“Oh yeah the other i think that sj alpha should do is ask you personally what 5 or 6 manga you want to read in shonen jump alpha so your favorite manga doesn’t get axed and you can read your favorite manga without having to worry about them being axed by others who disagree with you.”
Alpha has a reader’s survey you can take on the official website, in which you can rank the series, similar to the ones published in the original copies of WSJ in Japan. It also asks about preferences in merchandise and other such things.
WSJA’s TOC is also arranged by popularity based on the Japanese reader poll results.
“Dear Zach I have been subscribed to shonen jump for several years my main problem sj alpha is I don’t get to keep a copy of it. That’s it I still own all my shonen jumps since I started in 2007. I don’t get why I can’t download a copy to my flash drive so I can always read them.”
That’s because they still want people to buy the volume releases.
Just like how in Japan, Weekly Shonen Jump is printed on really shitty paper and sometimes the artwork isn’t even finished or has errors.
People in Japan usually just throw away their copies of Weekly Shonen Jump when they’re done reading them.
Then, if they want to own the series to read it whenever they want, they buy the tankobon releases which are printed on good paper and include corrections to art and dialogue.
Last thing I want to say…
“One thing I don’t like about manga translating and selling companys like VIZ is that they translate even the sounds which really sucks in my opinion. The sfx’s, especially in Bleach, were part of the Art and if I were to buy the manga from viz and read it I get big fat FROOOMMMS and KAAABOOOOMMM and that is something really annoying.”
You only say that because you can’t read Japanese. Since you can’t read it, you just see scratch marks and stuff, and think it’s “art”.
I can read Japanese.
When I see the untranslated SFX, I see:
ZUGAGAGAGAGA!
or
DOGAAAAAN!
Or whatever.
I won’t buy manga from Viz only b/c the translations are poor and toned down. For now I will either find another site like Mangastream or wait until the volumes are released in Japan.
Unfortunately, there is literally no choice, and therefore no competition, when it comes to manga. There is no legal method to obtain different variations of the work, and decide which one you want to spend your money on. Then again, “monopoly” isn’t accurate either. There’s not enough demand to generate the sales for 2 companies to compete on the same series. What’s the result? A single company gets a series and consumers are forced to either buy their version regardless of quality, get it illegally, or not get it at all. That’s a very poor state for the industry.
The current business models in play just cannot work moving forward. When this happens, the content creators usually start pressing to crack down on the “evil pirates”. They think it’s not the business model that’s malfunctioning – it’s the piracy. They’re the reason for the problems they’re facing. However, that’s incorrect. Piracy is a symptom here. Every other major industry that has taken that viewpoint has faced crippling losses. The music industry is still trying to figure it out, but they’re *finally* starting to make changes to their business model to turn would-be pirates into customers. And it didn’t happen by attacking the pirates or hosts (they tried that and it failed for years). It happened by offering various methods to obtain the digital items DRM-free, quickly, affordably, and with choices of who to purchase from. That’s still in it’s infancy, but it’s finally starting to take hold, and all signs is it’s being greeted with open arms. Maybe it will fail, but it’s still better than holding on to a dying business model.
Some users will never pay for the material. Sorry Viz, but you’re never going to make a cent on these people no matter what you do. You’re wasting time, effort, and face trying to stop them. As for the others who might be turned into consumers, how can you beat the “free” that the scanlators are offering? You can: you can beat a “free” product by offering a greater value. Most pirates right now don’t see Viz’s releases as a greater value. Some see it as lower value. Yes, *lower than free*. Viz needs to create a product that is worth more than whatever scanlators can put out there. This can be done. There’s no valid reason why a small group of users from across countries and time zones can release a finished work within hours on strictly volunteer time and for no profit. I read the article above and realize some of this is out of Viz’s hands. It’s not Viz’s decision not to release worldwide, or to have considerable to significant delays in releases across countries. They also can’t throw the Japanese publishers under the bus: it’s biting the hand that feeds. However, Viz needs to realize that people don’t want to hear excuses. Think of all people as potential consumers of your products, and scanlators as a competitor. How can Viz win them over, but not on price? If they cannot think of a way to do so, then they *will* fail. I don’t want to see that, but if there’s no way for a company to offer what consumers want (even if it’s out of their hands), and that can’t be changed in a reasonable timeframe, then it’s time to exit as a business.
Personally, I don’t think that’s the case. I think it’s possible for Viz to turn the ship around and produce something that has a greater value than the scanlators’ releases. However, I don’t know if they will do so, or if they will continue to walk the path they already made for themselves.
Now that I’ve said all that analysis of the current state of things, here’s a suggestion. It might be impossible or silly, but it’s worth being said. What’s the perceived worst part of Viz’s releases? Time & availability? I don’t know when Viz gets the material, but if there’s a delay on that side then it needs to be identified and removed. There’s *no* reason why scanlators can get it done within hours while a company that focuses on this can’t get it done within 24 hours (barring approvals from the publishers, but that needs to be addressed as well to speed things up). What’s the next biggest issue with the releases? Translation. Why not find a way to allow multiple translations of a series (even if only in the digital formats)? Let consumers decide which “version” they want to go with. One can be more kid-friendly while others are more true to the original material. There are plenty of qualified, reliable translators out there that can handle this task for an affordable rate. There’s plenty out there already that do it for free already, so if they can make a couple dollars and get to work on the material they love at the same time, it benefits everybody.
Okay, now to “rip apart” some of the responses to comments.
“Now this one makes no sense. If you bought issues when they were available, why would you forcibly limit yourself by not buying anything at all?”
Because if I disagree with what a company is doing, then I don’t buy their products. I’m not going to support (via sales) a company that I don’t like. I’d much rather go elsewhere (note: no other legal option available here) or not have the product at all. Pissed off consumers are toxic to a business, especially one that relies heavily on the fans and in a niche market.
“To bad part of the money is still given to the publishing company. Oh, did I forget to mention that Viz is a part of Shueisha? So your goal accomplishes nothing. If you have the time and money to spend on getting lessons to learn another language for the sake of reading manga, then you have the time and money to pay for official releases.”
True, but it’s likely significantly less money going to them. And it makes a statement that the US branch is doing something very wrong. No change is going to occur unless they see a problem occurring or is about to occur. As for the Japanese lessons remark, that’s like asking why bother learning to fish? If you have the money to learn how to fish and go fishing, the you have money to just buy the fish. I think everybody here knows why I chose to use fish as an analogy…that saying goes back almost 2 millenniums. I agree that the reaction is extreme, but don’t knock on somebody wanting to improve themselves and teach himself/herself how to fish.
I’ve been reading the comments soo far…
About scanlators, i dont think they rly made that much money if they made at any at all.
Secondly if u think the authors receive good cash from use buying those manga ur sadly mistaken. Only a very small part (about 1%) goes to the artist. The rest of the money is stuck in between.
And why is SJA 3 weeks behind? For an approval? They got to think more about their translations oke, not a couple of hours but give them a full day. Day 2 Let the several “bosses” read them for approval and make corrections if neccesairy. Day 3 u can Online release it.
To be honest i can’t believe the authors are asked for the translations. I’m a premium member of Crunchy Roll, since DatteBayo showed me the way. I must say Naruto got sooo kiddie i cant watch it anymore.(ViZ handels those translations as well) If the translated tekst differs soo much from their own original how can they approve of those translations???
Last but not least, ViZ rly should get more global, I live in the Netherlands and there isn’t 1 shop that sells manga in 100KM radius. I know 1 store that does sell it and ship in europe but only the big titles which are waayyyy behind. Sooo until they can provide us with manga, they should leave manga scanlets alone in those areas they dont sell. It’s POSSIBLE.
Well I guess more people will download from turrent sites now. The mistake they make is thinking just because somebody reads them online and then they can’t all those people will buy copies. I will just find something else to waste my spare time, the manga’s was getting kinda boring anyway. Would not mind to see the last bleach ark, will I buy it? no.
[...] read up what you can from both sides, then head to this interesting take on the aftermath: http://onepiecepodcast.com/blog/2012/02/12/the-war-on-manga/. There won’t be any commentary about it on this post because my thoughts are not reflective [...]
Well I love manga. I love One Piece most of all! I want to support the author! But I also want the companys who distribute the manga to have full and accurate translations. Meaning NO ZOLO! I also wish to get the manga when it is released. I also want to support the workers who try so hard to do the best they can. But I also want to criticise the ones who arn’t trying hard enough. I need to save money for collage, a car, and to get a drivers licens. I have no job. I want to buy WSJA but I can’t afford it. I want people to get these manga in other countrys. I want more than 3 manga in WSJA. I want people on the internet to stop complaining about the losing scanlations they don’t own. I want my weekly manga fix. I want to continue to read manga. I want people to stop pinning the blame on others, INCLUDING VIZ!
The above are the spoken wishes of not only myself but the people who truly love manga. But wishing and wanting will not do anything. Saying I WANT is not enough. What WILL do is as soon as I get a job I will percious WSJA as well as read scanlations. While I know it’s hard to believe they are trying their best. and as you can see demand and pressure is high. Scanlations are not perfect ether. However they do translate better. But they aren’t leagal. Bottom line I love pirates…but I don’t want to be one. If I love something I pay the genius who created it. I read scanlations to check the water of manga. I do the same with streamed anime. If I like it I buy it if I don’t I save my money for more important things…Like a library book. But reading without planing to buy is just pointless. Sooner or later the author won’t be able to afford to continue his series. because it would be suposedly unpopular. AND WHO’S FULT WOULD THAT BE! if not for yourselves then for the one who works so hard for your entertainment. BUY THE DAMN SERIES!
For everyone bitching and moaning about crappy translations as your biggest gripe, freakin learn to read and understand Japanese with all the money you’re saving by not buying the manga, then get the real story directly from Japan. There is always something lost in translation no matter what language it turns to especially coming from Japan where pretty much every story has at least a moderate degree of specific cultural references that when translated make absolutely no sense.
For those thinking people don’t get paid with manga: any site that has ads and has 400k fans on facebook is getting paid big dollars. It really doesn’t cost that much to get fiber line and a server that can handle image posts nowadays. A few hundred bucks a month for the line and $2500 for a server and you can host webstreaming in the US for god’s sake, and its probably way cheaper to host in other parts of the world. Every person that reads online from one of these ‘fan’ sources is just taking that much money from the artist and licenses they represent. It doesn’t matter how insignificant the money is as it all adds up to a bigger loss for those truly entitled to it. 400k x 1% is a good chunk of money.
The problem isn’t with the company who’s job is really just trying to make good stories and make a living. Its the so called ‘fans’. How can anyone say they’re a fan if they get mad at a company who’s simply taking claim to what’s rightfully theirs? Leeches who’ve been getting it for free should just be glad its been free this long. To all those who say they won’t be coming back to reading or buying Viz: good riddance. You won’t be missed.
I would love to buy manga but i live in india and manga is not available here
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viz if you want to close sites like mangastream , onemanga u should made these manga available through site or book