Site Update - 14th of May 2025

[Manko-sensei]

Should a chapter be edited in an automated way (that means, using a program to do the typesetting/cleaning) you should report it, if a chapter is badly edited or the translation is made by any sort of software it's still eligible for the site. MangaDex per se never did quality control and will never do, the only thing not allowed is doing meme translations (except for April Fools') and modifying the images beyond the usual editing process (which is always hard to prove since you'll probably find different versions magazines, tankoubon, web sites and Fanbox/etc.).
Regarding the part of FAQs and other policies from the site, Internet reading comprehension is worse than ever so I'd rather abstain commenting that part. Alright, I think I've earned my cut and I'll be receiving some sweet funds from the big corpos .

 

[shoujocon]

The issue with the current policy is that it's not enforced. You can easily find AI-scanlated chapter thanks to the blatant errors but MD will not take it down despite the fact that they already ban full AI / MTL releases.

There's no rule that bans ai/mtl translations, just the one that says it's banned to use fully automatic tools that do everything, it's very much within the rules to mtl a chapter and then typeset it yourself.

 

[JVick]

The issue with the current policy is that it's not enforced. You can easily find AI-scanlated chapter thanks to the blatant errors but MD will not take it down despite the fact that they already ban full AI / MTL releases.

They can't ban AI/MLT, they're already redirecting to mangaplus.

 

[bondejeger]

There's no rule that bans ai/mtl translations, just the one that says it's banned to use fully automatic tools that do everything, it's very much within the rules to mtl a chapter and then typeset it yourself.

There are several releases that are obviously made with an automatic AI tool like cotrans (which is fairly easily identifiable by the shitty square AI generative fill) that have just been edited slightly afterwards (you can save the images as psds for editing afterwards). Most likely several of new coin based paywall groups used this or a similar tool.

 

[bondejeger]

They can't ban AI/MLT, they're already redirecting to mangaplus.

Just wait until Emaqi finally enters the stage for real. You've seen nothing yet.

 

[RonBWL]

There's no rule that bans ai/mtl translations, just the one that says it's banned to use fully automatic tools that do everything, it's very much within the rules to mtl a chapter and then typeset it yourself.

I was referring directly to this very rule which is never enforced.

 

[shoujocon]

I was referring directly to this very rule which is never enforced.

It is enforced, not saying that always but I know personally that they delete at least some chapters. At least the very obvious ones. Personally I don't really think there's much difference between people using a fully automated site and typesetting manual mtl themselves anyway.

 

[Bok3tto]

Telling me you're a simp without telling me you're a simp. Got it.

Everybody has feelings about this but seriously—save the insults and rhetoric for political discourse. Everyone in here is an entitled sack of shit so the surprise Pikachu face is so hypocritical—the DMCA takedown was warranted and totally justified because scanlations are point blank illegal.

Publishing is a business that is set up to ensure creatives get paid for their efforts and time spent. Scanlations are using FOMO as an excuse for violating copyright law and disrespecting creatives.
Scanlators are just as complicit as publishers in hurting authors because we are STEALING their work under the guise of support instead of PAYING for it. We are arrogantly insisting that we have a right to someone’s art because we love it and we are ensuring, therefore, that creatives will NEVER get what they deserve in terms of money and acclaim. We are ADDING insult to injury.

Publishers could leverage us, sure, but deciding we should go ahead and do it anyway and then they should be grateful? We’re making their job—finding and making these works available—harder by wasting their time taking our shit down because we are stealing from them.

The money they get from sales pays wages for editors and translators and tech folks who run the platforms and the payment apps, means more works become available, and pays authors.

Scanlators do NONE of that. We’re the pebble in someone’s shoe breaking the skin of their heel and forcing them to slow down. We’re an irritation. We may over time cause publishers to see that change is necessary—the payment stuff is tech and that’s driven by exchange rates, treaties, tariffs, shipping, a lot of considerations beyond ‘they won’t take my money’. If we help in anyway it’s like if someone sneezes and puts out a match by mistake.

Whatever issues you have in coming to grips with what’s happening only you know, but for your own good stop making this personal and figure out how to leverage your platform, your skills, your whatever without making ’arrogant asshole’ a personality or a lifestyle choice.

 

[Bok3tto]

Mangaplus did it pretty correctly in my opinion.
Allowing the beginning chapters to be read for free, allowing readers to see if the hook is tasty enough to bite(i.e. the manga is to their taste and they can imagine purchasing that) while timegating the rest is a really fair compromise.

In an ideal world, clever publishers would look at this scanlation scene and consider it useful for interest gauging, recruiting high quality translators, allowing Manga to have a much broader audience so it isn't solely the japanese userbase deciding, with what happened to Watamote(was about to be ended, but it's popularity on the chans came to the author's attention and thus it continued) being available to much more. Manga are an investment, after all, so the publishers should have it as their interest to have more of them succeed instead of being axed.

But sadly, they are shortsighted

A lot of publishers do that first bit and it’s a good business model they just need to figure out the regions, payment, etc. Might just be resources, Crunchy shut down their comments because they didn’t want to put money into moderation (but also they were getting read for filth over the mail thing).

Agree with ideally—thinking of going back into publishing with a proposal to figure out leveraging strategies. If you can’t beat ‘em, figure out how to make ‘em your bitch.

It’s not just being shortsighted, publishing is a massive endeavor requiring business acumen—you gotta keep hundreds of employees afloat, creatives, turn a profit all based on the whims of faceless millions. They’re constantly looking for something to keep our interest, it’s cyclical, it’s… a lot.

But yeah, K-Manga releasing a region locked app? That was… not it. That’s part of why we stuck with ours as long as we did even after it got a simulpub. They should have held off until they had wider reach. F*ckin’ maddening going overseas and not being able to read something when you’re willing and able to pay for it. 😂

 

[Angry_Panda]

But yeah, K-Manga releasing a region locked app? That was… not it. That’s part of why we stuck with ours as long as we did even after it got a simulpub. They should have held off until they had wider reach. F*ckin’ maddening going overseas and not being able to read something when you’re willing and able to pay for it. 😂

I suspect some of the region lock nonsense is the original language publishers trying to squeeze more out of the overseas licensing - instead of selling one English-language license, sell three or four! Which has worked out how, exactly? Oh, right, we're discussing this on a scanlation site.

 

[bondejeger]

It is enforced, not saying that always but I know personally that they delete at least some chapters. At least the very obvious ones. Personally I don't really think there's much difference between people using a fully automated site and typesetting manual mtl themselves anyway.

The difference is massive. If you ocr an entire chapter script with panel cleaner, order the bubbles correctly, and use google lens to pick up the hand written text (or write them yourself since it's usually hiragana and katakana) and run the entire script through gpt or gemini or whatever, you get a completely different result than if you use a tool like cotrans or ichigoreader that does page by page, sentence by sentence, and not in order. Most likely you haven't even figured out that the ones using MTL doing it properly even was MTL, at least if they have edited it properly afterwards.

Not to mention that those tools use that terrible square AI redrawing instead of just the area around the text and suck at cleaning bubbles.

 

[shoujocon]

The difference is massive. If you ocr an entire chapter script with panel cleaner, order the bubbles correctly, and use google lens to pick up the hand written text (or write them yourself since it's usually hiragana and katakana) and run the entire script through gpt or gemini or whatever, you get a completely different result than if you use a tool like cotrans or ichigoreader that does page by page, sentence by sentence, and not in order. Most likely you haven't even figured out that the ones using MTL doing it properly even was MTL, at least if they have edited it properly afterwards.

Not to mention that those tools use that terrible square AI redrawing instead of just the area around the text and suck at cleaning bubbles.

You're assuming that people who mtl are competent enough to actually know any of this or that they know any Japanese (or other original language). Also, "editing after" is just polishing a turd, you don't know if there's any translation errors, perhaps yo u can tweak sentences to make them sound more natural or whatever but that's it, really. There's no doing MTL properly, there's just being a better liar.

 

[Manko-sensei]

I suspect some of the region lock nonsense is the original language publishers trying to squeeze more out of the overseas licensing - instead of selling one English-language license, sell three or four! Which has worked out how, exactly? Oh, right, we're discussing this on a scanlation site.

Did you know that they only started exporting manga in the early 90s because a big Catalan publisher contacted them because they were interested in some series (like Dragon Ball) that were trending on TV? After that, publishers of other countries decided to contact them as well, but the Japanese ones were simply uninterested on that idea. In fact, the reason why shitty series are published as well abroad (besides head editors shit taste) is because they are forced to buy other licenses if they want best-selling series. But the lack of initiative to export stuff is due the need of having to adjust to different market regulations and thinking out of the box (same quirks as USAians), so if they come to take care of it then good but otherwise they don't feel any need to (it's just another product). As for +18 manga/doujinshi... they still haven't found a way to sell it abroad (at least legally), J-List/Fakku don't count.
Edit: there's actually hentai properly published, but it's really scarce, vanilla and the most normie stuff you can imagine.

 

[bondejeger]

You're assuming that people who mtl are competent enough to actually know any of this or that they know any Japanese (or other original language). Also, "editing after" is just polishing a turd, you don't know if there's any translation errors, perhaps yo u can tweak sentences to make them sound more natural or whatever but that's it, really. There's no doing MTL properly, there's just being a better liar.

MTL provides a far better translation than a lot of the guesslations of novice translators I've read over the years. You're overestimating how much these "mistakes" matter for the general reader. In my experience MTL usually only makes a couple of mistakes a chapter after having it proofread by someone who knows Japanese, and usually it's because of getting the kanji in handwriting wrong, or missing a pun or another meaning of a kanji. Things that definitely wouldn't ruin you enjoyment of reading the manga.

Though I guess you can whine about it as much as you want, because both AI/MTL assisted scanlations and official releases are the future, and there's really not a lot you can do about it. Not that you'd know most of them used MTL in the first place.

 

[bondejeger]

Did you know that they only started exporting manga in the early 90s because a big Catalan publisher contacted them because they were interested in some series (like Dragon Ball) that were trending on TV? After that, publishers of other countries decided to contact them as well, but the Japanese ones were simply uninterested on that idea. In fact, the reason why shitty series are published as well abroad (besides head editors shit taste) is because they are forced to buy other licenses if they want best-selling series. But the lack of initiative to export stuff is due the need of having to adjust to different market regulations and thinking out of the box (same quirks as USAians), so if they come to take care of it then good but otherwise they don't feel any need to (it's just another product). As for +18 manga/doujinshi... they still haven't found a way to sell it abroad (at least legally), J-List/Fakku don't count.
Edit: there's actually hentai properly published, but it's really scarce, vanilla and the most normie stuff you can imagine.

It's kind of astounding how the demand of manga and anime has been high outside of Japan for decades (at least since the 70s), and still there's been a lack of interest for the Japanese publishers to do anything about it until like the past decade. I can't really think of a similar situation like this except of maybe black metal or something (of which the community wanted to gatekeep it).

 

[shoujocon]

MTL provides a far better translation than a lot of the guesslations of novice translators I've read over the years. You're overestimating how much these "mistakes" matter for the general reader. In my experience MTL usually only makes a couple of mistakes a chapter after having it proofread by someone who knows Japanese, and usually it's because of getting the kanji in handwriting wrong, or missing a pun or another meaning of a kanji. Things that definitely wouldn't ruin you enjoyment of reading the manga.

Though I guess you can whine about it as much as you want, because both AI/MTL assisted scanlations and official releases are the future, and there's really not a lot you can do about it. Not that you'd know most of them used MTL in the first place.

I never said that bad translators are good. Other thing is that there's no such as proofreading of MTL, you'd need to do a whole translation check and you really think MTL groups actually have someone who knows the language to do TLC??? People who actually know the language well enough don't go out of their way to MTL chapters in the first place. And if they don't they just blindly believe MTL whatever it gives them.

 

[Z4-Reader]

fun fact: crunchyroll used to be just like mangadex, but for anime.

I remember that too! I also remember kissanime back in its glory days!

 

[Z4-Reader]

And now you don’t have a bus and have to walk.
To me, scanlation is something I do to make something available to others that otherwise is not available, not because I want to pirate it and distribute for free.
It’s probably more correct to say that I do it despite it being piracy, not because of it being piracy.

Unfortunately not everyone has $15 to spend for a bus, let alone manga that they like or love.

If I have to deal with a crappy service for $15, then I might as well find a service that offers less for more benefit.

It’s not the quantity that’s the problem here. It’s quality that is the issue, and if I have to buy something that is sloppy I’m gonna walk, and also enjoy reading from a service that doesn’t require a subscription.

 

[Jpwong]

I never said that bad translators are good. Other thing is that there's no such as proofreading of MTL, you'd need to do a whole translation check and you really think MTL groups actually have someone who knows the language to do TLC??? People who actually know the language well enough don't go out of their way to MTL chapters in the first place. And if they don't they just blindly believe MTL whatever it gives them.

IMO proofreading MTL is essentially just going through making sure the character names all line up to whatever you've selected you're using and mostly making sure all the pronouns line up properly, maybe try to clean up some of the weird sentences. While it doesn't result in a good translation, people are willing to accept readable, especially on a lot of series where it's really just some crap combination of themes where people expect it to be garbage anyway.

 

[Pollimill]

The other thing that rankles me over this stuff, is that for a number of these publishers, it's just them being dicks because they have no intention of doing anything to release a fair bit of what is being fan translated. I would be a bit more sympathetic if they were making an effort to release outside of Japan because even if they are incorrect about piracy costing them money, they wouldn't be full of shit when they claim it's about concerns over monetary loses. Hell, in this day and age, it's probably pretty low cost for a publisher to make something like manga digitally available in multiple languages and likely a big reason why Shonen Jump's MangaPlus exists.

I feel bad for a number of Japanese authors and artists that have to deal with these clowns because it likely does mean a number of series that could succeed, assuming you don't leave their success solely to the Japan's manga reading demographics, will instead fail. It's just dumb and having paid enough attention to politics in the US and elsewhere, that a fair chunk of it comes down to racism, nationalism and gate keeping. I wouldn't be surprised if the Japanese publishing scene had a few high mucky mucks that would sooner see a series fail, than have its primary success be a result of foreign appeal.