Anime/Manga - Discuss Japanese cartoons and comics here; NO CULTURE WAR DOOMPOSTING!

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Imo the publishers would make a lot more money if they set up a subscription site for their western markets, and allowed fan translations for mangas on the site if they didn't think an official translation would be all that popular (free labor). A lot of people just aren't interested in buying physical copies in the west and trying to individually sell digital copies sure as shit isn't going to work. Having a subscription site would also allow them to get advertisement revenue, sell their other products, and test the waters so to speak with indie mangas for basically free. Hell, a publisher like Square Enix could even make an absolute mint off of it by selling their games on the site at a slight discount over Steam which takes a 30% cut.
i dont understand why comixology forces people to navigate right to left for manga. i get the novelty of pretending my phone is a book with pages that curl, but its not a book with a permenant binding.

sos i buy digital and then pirate the manga to read on a normal app.
any reader I can find that's not Nu-batoto or MDex.
mangapill or mangakalot since you cam scrape them easier.

my scan groups havent uploaded anything to Mdex since it went down, they just dump on an always changing mega address.
 
Imo the publishers would make a lot more money if they set up a subscription site for their western markets, and allowed fan translations for mangas on the site if they didn't think an official translation would be all that popular (free labor). A lot of people just aren't interested in buying physical copies in the west and trying to individually sell digital copies sure as shit isn't going to work. Having a subscription site would also allow them to get advertisement revenue, sell their other products, and test the waters so to speak with indie mangas for basically free. Hell, a publisher like Square Enix could even make an absolute mint off of it by selling their games on the site at a slight discount over Steam which takes a 30% cut.
In no universe will fan translations ever be monetized officially. If you’re going to have a PAID subscription service, what incentive do scanlators have to offer up their work for free for you to make money off of? Obviously they won’t. If you solve this by paying them? Then it’s not free labor anymore, and you might as well be paying your own professional translators.
 
In no universe will fan translations ever be monetized officially. If you’re going to have a PAID subscription service, what incentive do scanlators have to offer up their work for free for you to make money off of? Obviously they won’t. If you solve this by paying them? Then it’s not free labor anymore, and you might as well be paying your own professional translators.
I wasn't talking about using that for all manga, just for ones that didn't have enough viewership to release an official translation for. As for whether the scanlators "offered it up" it really doesn't matter since most of them are fine with aggregate sites reposting the translations anyway, and it's not like they could really complain regardless since they're technically pirating the manga from the publisher. This is more or less a way for the publisher to play nice with fan translators instead of making a fool out of themselves like so many other companies do with DMCA takedown fiascos. The fan translators get a tacit degree of legitimacy and access to potentially paid translation gigs if they're good enough, and the publisher gets some free translations and free advertisement to offset the profit losses from piracy, which is simply inevitable.
 
viz, adv, urban vision, tokyopop, central park media, manga entertainment, they all tanked around there. dark horse limited their manga releases around then too. asian horror movie distro tartan uk tanked then too. just a collapse of industry in general.
So it's probably more due to the recession than anything although I specifically mentioned Tokyopop and Borders because at the 2007 peak 50% of manga bought where series licensed by the former and 40% where sold at the later.
If anyone is wondering why this was the case, it was because they made a deal to get manga into book stores (take a guess which one) when they where only sold at comic stores prior.
Imo the publishers would make a lot more money if they set up a subscription site for their western markets, and allowed fan translations for mangas on the site if they didn't think an official translation would be all that popular (free labor). A lot of people just aren't interested in buying physical copies in the west and trying to individually sell digital copies sure as shit isn't going to work. Having a subscription site would also allow them to get advertisement revenue, sell their other products, and test the waters so to speak with indie mangas for basically free. Hell, a publisher like Square Enix could even make an absolute mint off of it by selling their games on the site at a slight discount over Steam which takes a 30% cut.
I don't know about publishers using fan translations because a) it kind of feels a bit scummy on the same level of certain comic books stealing art from fans and passing it as there's and B) apparently the original publisher/author can request some aspects to be translated a certain way. the only one I can remember is AoT where a few gear/weapons we're requested to be called something different when there where more accurate translations. I think I remember a few other cases but I have to go digging,.
although I still kinda wish someone could do this with Hox. the man is able to sometimes hunt down incredibly niche series that no one would look at otherwise and give them a decently sized following,

Also there are a few manga subscription sites but there not that well used/talked about.
Mangaplus is probably the most popular now since its jumps official English service and free but the catch is only the first and latest 3 chapters are available
Viz has been trying to get one going for almost a decade now, their current one is the same as mangaplus but you can pay $2 a month for some backlog
Book Walker, eManga, and J-Novel Club are all pay-by-volume
Comic Walker has an English option but only has 40-50 series translated and most of them are older ones
And Crunchyroll's reader is somehow even worse then there video player.
 
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So it's probably more due to the recession than anything although I specifically mentioned Tokyopop and Borders because at the 2007 peak 50% of manga bought where series licensed by the former and 40% where sold at the later.
If anyone is wondering why this was the case, it was because they made a deal to get manga into book stores (take a guess which one) when they where only sold at comic stores prior.
borders ended up having giant sections of manga and gunpla near its closure...barnes and noble looks the same today.
 
I wasn't talking about using that for all manga, just for ones that didn't have enough viewership to release an official translation for. As for whether the scanlators "offered it up" it really doesn't matter since most of them are fine with aggregate sites reposting the translations anyway, and it's not like they could really complain regardless since they're technically pirating the manga from the publisher. This is more or less a way for the publisher to play nice with fan translators instead of making a fool out of themselves like so many other companies do with DMCA takedown fiascos. The fan translators get a tacit degree of legitimacy and access to potentially paid translation gigs if they're good enough, and the publisher gets some free translations and free advertisement to offset the profit losses from piracy, which is simply inevitable.
An official licensor stealing fan translations and putting it on their official, paid subscription service is very different from some random website rehosting scanlations and raking in the ad revenue.

I don’t know enough about copyright law (if this is even what it falls under) to say whether or not it would be ILLEGAL, and certainly if a publisher chose to do it there’s no way a scanlation group would be able to do anything about it (except quitting in protest, thus denying them more content), but it would be, as the cool kids say, “not a good look” for a publisher to steal fan content and charge their customers for it.
 
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Well it looks like manga sales in the US finally surpassed its former 2007 peak
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Article doesn't give an exact number but guessing from the graph its around $240-245 million

Still nothing compared to the japanese market which made 612.6 Billion Yen (around $5.5 billion) in the same year.
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Pandemic has created a real explosion in sales from both long time collectors and those new to the hobby if the various places they post about their collecting is any indication. It's not helped by the feeling of false scarcity, created by shortages and supply chain issues, making people jump on new titles as soon as they come out rather than typically waiting which in turn makes more people rush to buy when they see things going OOS. More disposable income too since so much was shutdown and it's pretty easy to buy manga online.
 
So in the recent chapter of Gate it looks like China is on the move but:

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So they're involving Russia, France, England, India and Middle Eastern countries after all?
 
The first episode of Dragon Maid looks incredible but I'm pretty surprised they're starting off with the giant tittied shortstack giving the main character a penis.
 
Ascendance of a Bookworm and My Next Life As A Villianess: All Routes Lead to Doom! will both probably go down as two of the more under appreciated anime to come out in recent memory.

The former, in my opinion, is a lot more serious than the second one. The latter is a lot more light hearted if anything else. Plus, it helps that it was based on a novel.
 
After much delay I've finally gotten around to finishing up everything from last season, going to put my thoughts on each behind spoilers to make it easier viewing.
This one was sadly quite disappointing in the end with its switch into a tournament arc that felt very stretched out to hold the viewer in suspense of hearing the Sawamura's performances. It also felt really weird since Sawamura had stated early on that he didn't care for tournaments or rankings, rather the struggle to find his own sound drowned out by his sadness over losing his favorite sound with the death of his grandfather, which I found refreshing for the genre. I also couldn't care for most of the side cast or drama outside the Sawamura's internal struggle, which the show kept wasting time focusing on. The performances were the definite highlight of the series and I did rather enjoy Sawamura as the lead.

6/10 made me remember I still have to watch the second season of Piano no Mori which I felt did the tournament stuff a bunch better. First opening is up there as op of the season along with the first ending for ed of the season.
Ended up loving this SoL a lot more than I thought, probably my favorite SoL of the season, real endearing cast of characters. I'd basically recommend it to any fan of Slow Life SoL, though outside that your millage may vary (I could see some people finding it boring). Felt like a lot of heart went into the series, Aoi Yuuki was great with all the different voices she pulled off.

Solid 8/10 maybe even 9/10 for Slow Life SoL fans like myself.
I've already voiced my displeasure multiple times before, so it should surprise nobody that I feel let-down by the conclusion with how much was cut. It managed to stick the landing from a story point of view, but is nowhere the same quality as the first two seasons. One part especially left a bad taste in my mouth with them cutting the flashbacks is in Kyoko pleading Kyo and talking about how awful it felt to be left behind, the whole thing lost soooo much impact in my opinion missing those flashbacks. I'd really recommend this series only to someone who's already read the manga just to see some key moments animated finally, but even then they lack a lot of the manga impact.

7/10
My other SoL of the season that, while not as enjoyable as Slime, was still pretty decent in my mind. The Honda shilling does get annoying at times, but it almost adds a comedic level to it with how much worship for the Super Cub ™️ is in the series. Even more slow paced than Slime, while also has some subtle exploration of feelings of isolation which is primarily shown through the slowly brightening world of Koguma (shown visual in increase the color saturation) as she gains new experiences. I have to say that the episode where Koguma rescues Shii after she wiped out on her bike into a river was one of the funniest of the season in Koguma's entire lack of care. Telling Shii to drag her waterlogged body up the side of a ditch, not calling any emergency services, putting her into her Super Cubs™️ front basket to drive her back in winter weather, stripping her and throwing her into a hot bath (something you don't do), and then saying it was all thanks to her Super Cub™️ being a Super Cub™️. Series features a lot of unintentional comedy that boosted my enjoyment.

7/10 Koguma reminds me of Setsuna and his Gundam worship.
Was loving this since the start and I'm glad in managed to stick the landing well enough, which already deserves praise for being an anime original. If I'd give it one negative about the ending it's giving Vivy the CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT haircut, long hair looked far better on her. Will definitely recommend this series when someone is looking for a good anime sci-fi or just a good anime in general. Happy that Wit Studio is coming out strong after being stuck doing AoT for so long.

9/10
Tied with Vivy as my AOTS, such a fun show to watch each week that didn't take itself too serious. I really liked the Milverton mini arc because they made him properly slimy, which made his downfall that much more enjoyable. Doesn't feel like there's a chance of another season since everything was wrapped up pretty nicely for most the cast unless they run with "Sherlock and Moriarty being Best Friends solving crimes around Europe," which I would totally watch.

9/10 might be a shock to some, but the show had a lot going in its favor for me.

Currently taking a look through this season and seeing which ones look of interest enough to grab the first episode of. Short list at the moment is:
  • Re-Main
  • Tsuki ga
  • Getter Robo Arc
  • Kageki Shoujo
  • Uramichi Oniisan
  • Vanitas
  • Otome Game
  • Genjitsu
  • Sonny Boy
  • Shiroi Suna
  • Love Live
Will be interested to see how many get added or dropped by the end, since I doubt that list will stay fixed.
 
The first episode of Dragon Maid looks incredible but I'm pretty surprised they're starting off with the giant tittied shortstack giving the main character a penis.
The creator of the manga is quite the silly perv. Nothing like the creator of Nagatoro, but definitely into some silly ecchi stuff.
Ascendance of a Bookworm and My Next Life As A Villianess: All Routes Lead to Doom! will both probably go down as two of the more under appreciated anime to come out in recent memory.
I'm glad that they are going to be making another season of Ascendance of a Bookworm. It started out as a slice of life and then took a turn for the magical. The whole class system in their world was interesting, but I'm sure season 3 will show up sometime next year.

As for recent announcements, I am excited for the second season of Vinland Saga that was announced today.
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The first episode of Dragon Maid looks incredible but I'm pretty surprised they're starting off with the giant tittied shortstack giving the main character a penis.
I’m already starting to see people on Twitter getting pissy.
 
Holy shit speaking of isekai is it just me or is the summer 2021 anime run filled with mostly isekai?
I remember reading somewhere the Kadokawa was pumping up production of these things.

Personally, outside sequels I'm excited for Isekai Ojisan, A Faraway Paladin, Slave Harem (the manga is surprisingly comfy), and Fantasy Bishoujo (though the latest arc is weak).
 
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