Mimic Girl - Ch. 6.5 - Mimic Sleeping, Alternative Version and FANBOX
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@mommunism Sorry to break it to you, but the author is also a human being with financial needs. Also, most of the authors that do the “100 days” thing have their own successful manga and are just doing it for fun. There’s also just as many “full-sized” manga here, so I really don’t get why you’re whining about free content.
@liquidsword EVERY author is a human being with financial needs, but most put far more effort into their work and still don't do shit like this. Of the 100-days authors on this site, only half of them have other manga, and that doesn't change the fact that it's low-effort spam. Full-sized manga existing is also irrelevant. Nobody wants to sift through garbage to get to decent content (especially since this site's "latest updates" section is shit when expanded). Pricing is irrelevant too. Nobody could critique almost any site if free content was infallible. The competitors are also free, and they're better. Lots of people go there (or on forums) begging people to come here, saying it's better. I'm just addressing people like that.
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@mommunism
You should then blame the translators who prioritize translating, as you say, low-effort spam instead of deep and meaningful manga, right?
@kenx First of all, I don't care whether manga is "deep and meaningful". I just want authors to put a bit of thought into it. Click-bait titles and copy-pasted panels are the bottom of the barrel. Secondly, I haven't been exclusively blaming one group. It's a mix of authors like this, the translators who advertise for them, and the community who eats this shit up. It's the same type of thing that happened to Youtube years ago. Several bad creators made bait for kids, Youtube endorsed it with the algorithm, and viewers clicked the videos without speaking up, so now the site is shit.
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@mommunism
The wording of your post didn't give that impression.
Bruh, you want editorial standards on literal twitter comics?
I said "translators" too (as in, plural). Again, refer to the first point.
Bruh, it's twitter comics, they just draw for the recognition and because cute art.
Different media, different situations.
@kenx Don't just make a bunch of claims. Justify them. What wording gave you the wrong impression? Why isn't this comparable to other media? Why shouldn't people have standards for comics that are put behind paywalls and posted on manga sites? I didn't complain about authors who make Twitter comics for fun. I complained about the lazy beggars and trend riders.
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@mommunism
I can understand where are you coming from, and until now I never noticed their "invasion", probably because Im used to them. And never thought about their differences, but they really are 1-4 page twitter comics . Mangadex allows them simply because no one ever questioned them, but feel free to do so in the right section,not her in the comments.
I can understand where are you coming from, and until now I never noticed their "invasion", probably because Im used to them. And never thought about their differences, but they really are 1-4 page twitter comics . Mangadex allows them simply because no one ever questioned them, but feel free to do so in the right section,not her in the comments.
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@mommunism
I remember reading a post somewhere here (>source: dude trust me) that theorized that these twitter comics are just artists seeing a quick way to get recognized (either for their art, their story, or both) and jumping on the ride.
Also, if you want a tag for this, as Kinopeng said, gather support and make a thread in the forums.
Well, this part over here.
Because it's a literal twitter comic. Twitter's primary purpose is not to publish manga, it's just to shitpost in 140 characters or less. The fact that some artists are using it to promote themselves (and give us cute girls) for free is not what the site was made for.
... I was talking about the literal twitter comics, not the paywalled stuff.
Thing is, among the literal sea of applications for manga in Japan, it's difficult to make a name of yourself or your art if you're a newcomer. You can get lucky and get senpai to notice you, but those cases are rare.
I remember reading a post somewhere here (>source: dude trust me) that theorized that these twitter comics are just artists seeing a quick way to get recognized (either for their art, their story, or both) and jumping on the ride.
Also, if you want a tag for this, as Kinopeng said, gather support and make a thread in the forums.
@kenx There's no way you genuinely think "decent" is the same thing as "deep and meaningful". You are not this delusional, you're just being disingenuous. Your second point isn't much better. It being a shitpost doesn't distinguish it from most of YT (especially old YT) or exempt it from criticism. People complain about low-effort memes all the time, and they should. The comic behind the paywall is part of the "literal twitter comic", and if low-effort trend-riding shitposts are an entry point to the manga industry, that justifies my point even more.
@mommunism Who gives a shit, just read it or don’t read it. If the site gets overrun by twitter comics, then that is a direct consequence of people having a taste for those things. And even then I seriously doubt that will “ruin” a site people go to so they can read paid content for free. Either you go to another place for whatever you want or you can just pick and choose what to read. You’re really taking this way too far and seriously.
@dolankek As of the my first comment here I was already in the process of going back to the aggregator I was at. I just have a huge follow list that's hard to move over and there are one or two titles that are only here (the same goes for that site, but I've mainly read stuff here for a while). I'm commenting about it because I enjoy venting and I enjoy arguing against things that I disagree with. The same thing you're saying about the manga here could be said to you about my comments. Just don't read them.
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@mommunism sorry for the 1 month old reply but I also enjoy arguing against things that I disagree with. And I must say that calling this chapter an "ad" like you did to prove your point that MangaDex is just as bad as agregators is a massive stretch. When people criticize agregators and their ads they are 100% NOT talking about scanlators telling us how to support the author. What most people on this website dislike about agregators are the intrusive ads and pop-ups from which the agregators are making money.
Scanlators do a massive work, mostly for free, because it's a not for profit hobby. Their intent isn't to profit off of the work of the authors, but to spread the mangas they like and allow us readers to enjoy mangas that would otherwise not be released in the west. Agregators steal this work without asking them for permission and put a shitton of ads over it. They profit off of the work of people who didn't intend to make profit in the first place. It's both a fuck you to the scanlators as well as a fuck you to the readers (by spamming us with shitty ads and "PLEASE REMOVE YOUR ADBLOCK" messages). It's absolutely not comparable to posting a chapter telling us how to support the author and arguing otherwise is 100% arguing in bad faith.
@Kekitus It's not a stretch. My point wasn't that aggregators don't have more intrusive ads, it was that their ads are easily blockable. Ads like this are not.
Even if that wasn't the case, scanlators are still stealing work, and plenty of them are profiting off of it, whether it's through donations, their own sites, or commissions. There is no justifiable line to be drawn between them and aggregators. The only difference is in magnitude, which is arbitrary.
If you want to talk about this chapter specifically, my problem is mainly with the predatory aspect that Fanbox has brought to "manga". This type of subscription service and/or paywalled content ruins every industry they touch. It's fine to charge for a product, but it's incredibly shitty to bait people by giving them free content until they're invested and then hiding the good parts later on. It's pretty insulting that the soul purpose of this chapter was endorsing an author with the ego to Fanbox the laziest format of comic on the site (which doesn't even belong here, as it's not manga).
Even if that wasn't the case, scanlators are still stealing work, and plenty of them are profiting off of it, whether it's through donations, their own sites, or commissions. There is no justifiable line to be drawn between them and aggregators. The only difference is in magnitude, which is arbitrary.
If you want to talk about this chapter specifically, my problem is mainly with the predatory aspect that Fanbox has brought to "manga". This type of subscription service and/or paywalled content ruins every industry they touch. It's fine to charge for a product, but it's incredibly shitty to bait people by giving them free content until they're invested and then hiding the good parts later on. It's pretty insulting that the soul purpose of this chapter was endorsing an author with the ego to Fanbox the laziest format of comic on the site (which doesn't even belong here, as it's not manga).
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@mommunism your point is about how annoying the ad is. My point isn't about this. Because most people didn't leave agregator websites solely because ads are annoying. Apart from intrusive pop-ups, most ads can be blocked with adblock (though you still get the "please desactivate your adblock" half of the times). It's more of a moral issue: I don't want to support a website that steals the work of scanlators to make money off of their back without contributing to anything.
Now sure scanlators are also technically "stealing" work. Scanlation is indeed illegal and a breach of copyrights. (Even though in this case the work being translated is already in free access so). But they at least put work into scanlating it, and most of them do it for absolutely free. The keyword being "most", especially since most scanlators who benefit from their scanlation retired from mangadex to get money from ads on their own website. Stealing the work of people whose goal isn't profit just to make money off of it is highly morally questionable.
On the other hand, I much rather prefer "ads" like this one. As I mentioned earlier, most scanlators work for free and that's because their aim is to spread and share a manga that is unaccessible in the west. A lot of scanlators even drop their series as soon as an official translation is announced. "Ads" such as this are proof that the scanlator actually care about the author and that their goal is definitely not to profit off the back of the author.
Now your last point is actually different from your initial point (which was about mangadex not being as ad-free as people said it would be), and I can more or less agree with it to some extent. I'd say that at least part of the content is free and that you shouldn't expect the whole content to be free just because part of it is. It'd be like complaining about musicians who release an album because they were uploading free music on soundcloud at first and that's what got you invested in it. It's especially true when, in cases such as this one, the paid content is kinda unrelated to the free content. In this case, each "chapters" are separated very short slice of life moments, so you're not missing anything important if you're not buying the free content. It would have been a slightly different story if there was an actual plot with free chapters that started to become paid-for content after a cliffhanger.
Even then, I'd still tell you that the author is free to turn his content into paid-for content at any time. Most authors online start out with free content because they have to build a fanbase. If they started with paid-for content right off the bat they wouldn't get any reader because of how the internet works : there are tons of free stuff everywhere so people want to avoid paying as much as possible. Unless you already built a fanbase nobody is going to pay for a webcomic. That's just how things are.
The internet being so full of free stuffs also turned people into entitled brat that will complain as soon as a content creator asks money for his work. But reminder : that shit wasn't supposed to be free in the first place. If you don't want to pay for it, I 100% understand since as I said the internet is filled with free stuff. But complaining about a content creator asking for money to see his work is something else.
Finally the point about it not belonging to here as it is not manga is also kinda weak. Even though the website is called mangadex, it has never been said that only mangas stricto sensu should be uploaded on here. Webtoons, manhwa and manhua have always been welcomed on the site after all, so I don't see why Twitter comics wouldn't. If that's not your cup of tea I can understand, I mostly don't read any manhua because I don't like them. But saying that they don't belong here because it's the "laziest format" according to you is a weak argument.
Now sure scanlators are also technically "stealing" work. Scanlation is indeed illegal and a breach of copyrights. (Even though in this case the work being translated is already in free access so). But they at least put work into scanlating it, and most of them do it for absolutely free. The keyword being "most", especially since most scanlators who benefit from their scanlation retired from mangadex to get money from ads on their own website. Stealing the work of people whose goal isn't profit just to make money off of it is highly morally questionable.
On the other hand, I much rather prefer "ads" like this one. As I mentioned earlier, most scanlators work for free and that's because their aim is to spread and share a manga that is unaccessible in the west. A lot of scanlators even drop their series as soon as an official translation is announced. "Ads" such as this are proof that the scanlator actually care about the author and that their goal is definitely not to profit off the back of the author.
Now your last point is actually different from your initial point (which was about mangadex not being as ad-free as people said it would be), and I can more or less agree with it to some extent. I'd say that at least part of the content is free and that you shouldn't expect the whole content to be free just because part of it is. It'd be like complaining about musicians who release an album because they were uploading free music on soundcloud at first and that's what got you invested in it. It's especially true when, in cases such as this one, the paid content is kinda unrelated to the free content. In this case, each "chapters" are separated very short slice of life moments, so you're not missing anything important if you're not buying the free content. It would have been a slightly different story if there was an actual plot with free chapters that started to become paid-for content after a cliffhanger.
Even then, I'd still tell you that the author is free to turn his content into paid-for content at any time. Most authors online start out with free content because they have to build a fanbase. If they started with paid-for content right off the bat they wouldn't get any reader because of how the internet works : there are tons of free stuff everywhere so people want to avoid paying as much as possible. Unless you already built a fanbase nobody is going to pay for a webcomic. That's just how things are.
The internet being so full of free stuffs also turned people into entitled brat that will complain as soon as a content creator asks money for his work. But reminder : that shit wasn't supposed to be free in the first place. If you don't want to pay for it, I 100% understand since as I said the internet is filled with free stuff. But complaining about a content creator asking for money to see his work is something else.
Finally the point about it not belonging to here as it is not manga is also kinda weak. Even though the website is called mangadex, it has never been said that only mangas stricto sensu should be uploaded on here. Webtoons, manhwa and manhua have always been welcomed on the site after all, so I don't see why Twitter comics wouldn't. If that's not your cup of tea I can understand, I mostly don't read any manhua because I don't like them. But saying that they don't belong here because it's the "laziest format" according to you is a weak argument.
@Kekitus My point was about how annoying they were because that was a key argument for people who try to get aggregator users to migrate, and like I said before, this is who my comment was directed at. And to be clear, every single ad there is easily blockable. Ublock has a "disable popups" button and you can quickly block divs where the "deactivate adblock" messages appear, not that either of those have been a problem for me in the first place. I also did address the moral argument, so my point was not about a single criterion.
I'm pretty sure "most" is not the right word for scanlators who work for free. I just opened five chapters as a test and saw a paypal and/or patreon for 3 and a website for another, and looking up the name of the last linked to yet another website. Not a thorough test, but it seems to reflect my experience in general. Even if it was free, doing something illegal for fun (personal interest) isn't that different morally than doing it for money (also personal interest).
The paid content absolutely isn't unrelated to the free content, and that's the problem. It's the same characters in slightly different situations. It's more like a musician releasing the first half of a song and paywalling the bridge a week later with no prior notice. The bridge sounds different than the rest, but it's the same setting/style. If you want an even more apt, but somewhat niche comparison, it's like League paywalling a mode (like URF). People would go fucking crazy. And that's still an example where the original product is relatively high-effort. This one is not.
Comic authors in the west don't start out with free content, they almost always release free content exclusively. I've never in my life met someone who pays for a comic unless it's an optional method like Patreon. In JP it's reversed. Most authors start out paid and stay paid, often with a "label" like a magazine. That goes for book authors here as well. Who exactly is following the business model of free -> paid? The reason nobody pays for content like this initially is because it isn't worth money unless you're manipulated to have a previous investment into the material. I pay for plenty of things. I have dozens of games I could have pirated, but I bought every one because I think they justify their price. It's not about entitlement, it's about value and consistency.
Manhwa and manhua are just other country's words for manga. Webtoons have been justified because they often have the same style as manga. This one doesn't. Each chapter is four copy-pasted panels of one character and nothing else. Obviously what "belongs" is an opinion, not an argument, since words like manga are colloquially defined, but it's not an opinion to any meaningful degree that content like this is the laziest kind on the site and that keeping it entails lower standards.
I'm pretty sure "most" is not the right word for scanlators who work for free. I just opened five chapters as a test and saw a paypal and/or patreon for 3 and a website for another, and looking up the name of the last linked to yet another website. Not a thorough test, but it seems to reflect my experience in general. Even if it was free, doing something illegal for fun (personal interest) isn't that different morally than doing it for money (also personal interest).
The paid content absolutely isn't unrelated to the free content, and that's the problem. It's the same characters in slightly different situations. It's more like a musician releasing the first half of a song and paywalling the bridge a week later with no prior notice. The bridge sounds different than the rest, but it's the same setting/style. If you want an even more apt, but somewhat niche comparison, it's like League paywalling a mode (like URF). People would go fucking crazy. And that's still an example where the original product is relatively high-effort. This one is not.
Comic authors in the west don't start out with free content, they almost always release free content exclusively. I've never in my life met someone who pays for a comic unless it's an optional method like Patreon. In JP it's reversed. Most authors start out paid and stay paid, often with a "label" like a magazine. That goes for book authors here as well. Who exactly is following the business model of free -> paid? The reason nobody pays for content like this initially is because it isn't worth money unless you're manipulated to have a previous investment into the material. I pay for plenty of things. I have dozens of games I could have pirated, but I bought every one because I think they justify their price. It's not about entitlement, it's about value and consistency.
Manhwa and manhua are just other country's words for manga. Webtoons have been justified because they often have the same style as manga. This one doesn't. Each chapter is four copy-pasted panels of one character and nothing else. Obviously what "belongs" is an opinion, not an argument, since words like manga are colloquially defined, but it's not an opinion to any meaningful degree that content like this is the laziest kind on the site and that keeping it entails lower standards.
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@mommunism I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but I've never really seen people advertise MangaDex because ads on agregators were super annoying. Just googling "what is wrong with agregator manga" gives you at least three different threads where the main argument is about agregator websites stealing the work of scanlators and making money off of it through ads. Its more about the questionnable morality of agregators than the
Also asking for donations to sustain yourself is different than aiming for profit. Scanlating has a cost (mostly from buying the raws but also the time you spend on it instead of working). Trying to reduce that cost through donations isn't making profit, it's just trying to sustain yourself. Most people don't donate through patreons/paypals anyway, and that doesn't stop the scanlators from working. That's pretty much what I'd call working for free.
Whether you do it for free or for the money is morally different. It's not legally different, but I'm sure most people would agree that there is a difference in morality between trying to spread your favorite manga to a western audience that has no access to said manga for free and trying to earn money in place of the author for their work. Morality =/= legality in this case.
Scanlators earning money to sustain themselves through the process is also different from agregator who do nothing but take scanlators work, slap their own watermark on it, and earn money through the ads running on the website. At least scanlator put in some work, agregators don't.
Maybe I didn't express myself well when I said the paid content is unrelated, I mean, it's the same comic so yeah it's related. What I meant is that you can enjoy the free content without needing to have the free content. Hence my example of a content becoming paid-for just after a cliffhanger, or in the middle of the plot. Here there is no plot anyway, so I see the paid content as more of a bonus. To keep with the musician example, it would be like musicians releasing a whole album for free, but there is a track with a different version (let's say a live version, or a different studio version). If you want access to the different version you have to pay, but the rest of the album is free. And yet you'd still be complaining that "it's a shitty practice because there is a track that is paid-for".
Most people online follow the business model of free -> paid, unless they work for a website like Webtoon and earn money through ads. Everyone got to sustain themselves one way or another, and because the internet is almost entirely free for the user (most of the money on the internet is ad revenues), if you're entirely independent and start on Twitter/Pixiv you're not earning anything unless you publish paid-for content (because you don't get ad revenue on Twitter). You probably don't need to follow this model when you're working for a publishing house or on a website designed for content creators (Youtube/Webtoon etc, where the website earn money through ads and give you a share of it). But if you're trying to sell paid-for content on Twitter you definitely need to build an audience first. And the best way to do that is to publish free content at first.
By the way, I also saw the "free->paid" model on some content creator websites/publishers such as Lezhin, where the first chapters are free and the later chapters are paid-for (which is a bit more questionnable imo). But even so, I don't think of it as being that much of problem. It's not my favorite business model for sure, but I can understand wanting to bait readers first before asking them to pay since you said it yourself : nobody would pay for a comic.
It's 100% about entitlement when you start to think that some things should be free just because you don't see value in them. If you don't like something, you don't buy it and ignore it, you don't ask for it to be free. You're also complaining about a free translation, posted on a free ad-free website, just because there is one page redirecting to the author's paid for content in order to support him. If that's not entitlement I don't know what that is.
I'd like to have an official statement from MangaDex on the matter, but seeing how they never took action against it I don't think they have anything against this format. I think that basically anything goes as long as it's not just a drawing (there is a story) and that it has been translated. Maybe I'm wrong on this one, I'm not from the staff so I can't speak for them and neither can you.
However, I must say that as long as it finds its public I don't see what's wrong with it, it just means more variety imo. If your problem is about the quality, then to be honest you can come back after we got rid of the dozens of very low quality stale isekais and/or bad harem mangas that makes for the shittiest pace, the most horrible drawings, the worst plots and the most terrible character writings that are on this website. Because believe me, there are far worse works out here than this. In the end, as you said, it's more of an opinion than an argument, but I don't think this is rock bottom in terms of quality. Sure this isn't the most profound work ever either, but it's far from being the worse.
And I must apologize because that was a long ass answer.
Also asking for donations to sustain yourself is different than aiming for profit. Scanlating has a cost (mostly from buying the raws but also the time you spend on it instead of working). Trying to reduce that cost through donations isn't making profit, it's just trying to sustain yourself. Most people don't donate through patreons/paypals anyway, and that doesn't stop the scanlators from working. That's pretty much what I'd call working for free.
Whether you do it for free or for the money is morally different. It's not legally different, but I'm sure most people would agree that there is a difference in morality between trying to spread your favorite manga to a western audience that has no access to said manga for free and trying to earn money in place of the author for their work. Morality =/= legality in this case.
Scanlators earning money to sustain themselves through the process is also different from agregator who do nothing but take scanlators work, slap their own watermark on it, and earn money through the ads running on the website. At least scanlator put in some work, agregators don't.
Maybe I didn't express myself well when I said the paid content is unrelated, I mean, it's the same comic so yeah it's related. What I meant is that you can enjoy the free content without needing to have the free content. Hence my example of a content becoming paid-for just after a cliffhanger, or in the middle of the plot. Here there is no plot anyway, so I see the paid content as more of a bonus. To keep with the musician example, it would be like musicians releasing a whole album for free, but there is a track with a different version (let's say a live version, or a different studio version). If you want access to the different version you have to pay, but the rest of the album is free. And yet you'd still be complaining that "it's a shitty practice because there is a track that is paid-for".
Most people online follow the business model of free -> paid, unless they work for a website like Webtoon and earn money through ads. Everyone got to sustain themselves one way or another, and because the internet is almost entirely free for the user (most of the money on the internet is ad revenues), if you're entirely independent and start on Twitter/Pixiv you're not earning anything unless you publish paid-for content (because you don't get ad revenue on Twitter). You probably don't need to follow this model when you're working for a publishing house or on a website designed for content creators (Youtube/Webtoon etc, where the website earn money through ads and give you a share of it). But if you're trying to sell paid-for content on Twitter you definitely need to build an audience first. And the best way to do that is to publish free content at first.
By the way, I also saw the "free->paid" model on some content creator websites/publishers such as Lezhin, where the first chapters are free and the later chapters are paid-for (which is a bit more questionnable imo). But even so, I don't think of it as being that much of problem. It's not my favorite business model for sure, but I can understand wanting to bait readers first before asking them to pay since you said it yourself : nobody would pay for a comic.
It's 100% about entitlement when you start to think that some things should be free just because you don't see value in them. If you don't like something, you don't buy it and ignore it, you don't ask for it to be free. You're also complaining about a free translation, posted on a free ad-free website, just because there is one page redirecting to the author's paid for content in order to support him. If that's not entitlement I don't know what that is.
I'd like to have an official statement from MangaDex on the matter, but seeing how they never took action against it I don't think they have anything against this format. I think that basically anything goes as long as it's not just a drawing (there is a story) and that it has been translated. Maybe I'm wrong on this one, I'm not from the staff so I can't speak for them and neither can you.
However, I must say that as long as it finds its public I don't see what's wrong with it, it just means more variety imo. If your problem is about the quality, then to be honest you can come back after we got rid of the dozens of very low quality stale isekais and/or bad harem mangas that makes for the shittiest pace, the most horrible drawings, the worst plots and the most terrible character writings that are on this website. Because believe me, there are far worse works out here than this. In the end, as you said, it's more of an opinion than an argument, but I don't think this is rock bottom in terms of quality. Sure this isn't the most profound work ever either, but it's far from being the worse.
And I must apologize because that was a long ass answer.
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