Site Update - 14th of May 2025

[AnonymousContributor]

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.

I think that the Japanese publishers are scum. The few DMCA'd shit that has official translations somehow can end up being regionlocked or fucking volume only which is evil. Then they might DMCA shit with NO intent to actually release an official.

 

[kingone198]

？！！！

 

[tudos4]

F**k. Do the publishers understand this doesn't help or profit anyone except maybe less reputable aggregator sites? Because I know where I will be reading any of my series that got taken down and is not on their services or by buying their books, it is on the aggregator website that I first used to read manga before switching to Batoto and then Mangadex.

Now if they actually offered me a superior or nearly the same experience as Mangadex? I might be willing to shelve a few bucks a month for that. In truth I had done so in the past.
You see I live in a rather small European country known as Croatia. Back at the start of the century the local major publisher/bookstore chain begun releasing something that even online sites could not get me, a local translation of Negima! as well as a few other manga.
And I brought said local translation of Negima because it not only allowed me to read it in my own damn language but also came with background and lore entries that didn't exist online. But then the local publisher begun to go under and it all ended with the only volume that I didn't manage to get, 19, because of their local shops closing doors. I literally paid 4/5 Euros for each of the previous 18 volumes (so about 85 to 90 Euros or around 130 Dollars in total given the exchange rate back then) of the local translation and if the publishing had countiued in any way I would have probably bought the whole work.

But it didn't continue publishing, so I finished reading series on an advertisement filled aggregator site. Of course it is not the Japanese publisher's fault the local publisher went down, but this is a example from my own life that adds to what everyone has been saying, give us superior service at a fair price and many of us will go for it. But with the lack of ether we turn to sites like Mangadex. And if they go after reputable or user friendlier places like it? We turn to places that directly profit from fan translations because that becomes, for a lot of us, our only option.

Oh, we live close, im in one of your neighbors

 

[tudos4]

？！！！

How can we help you?

 

[Turbotune]

Well, how about we focus on the manga, manhwa, manhua that are not DMCA'd yet?

May be a good chance for us to branch out and find some hidden gems other than those massively popular ones?

I personally think Mangadex is not that easy to use, by the way. The biggest reason I use this site at the moment is actually because its design and interactive features are the most pleasing to my eyes than any other ones at the moment.

 

[Mangamoz]

I have already pretty much moved back to the previous "dirtier seas" I used to use.

Only official manga service I pay for is mangaplus cause its the most to offer for the cost, and I can share it with my family.

 

[Bok3tto]

Hmmmm wonder if this is why all the stuff got pulled. Orange (not the animation studio the damn company pushing AI for translation) is the worst: https://x.com/mangaalerts/status/1927766220222128525?s=61

 

[Bok3tto]

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).

Sometimes it’s another, third thing like our author didn’t have any interest in licensing because the story was too niche, like they literally tweeted about how they didn’t think anyone else would even read it. Might be Japanese publishers don’t feel confident would sell—which is, like, fair since we’re literally on a pirating site talking about this. 😂

 

[bondejeger]

Hmmmm wonder if this is why all the stuff got pulled. Orange (not the animation studio the damn company pushing AI for translation) is the worst: https://x.com/mangaalerts/status/1927766220222128525?s=61

I have written several times about this, in this thread even. The big publishers have invested a lot of money in Orange/Emaqi, and my suspicion is that they're going to flood the market with AI/MTL assisted official releases soon. Reason they've been taking this long since Kakao started colluding together with them in August was probably to prepare for this. It's basically the same situation like when shuiesha mainly took down batoto to prepare for manga plus 7 years ago. History doesn't repeat but it rhymes.

 

[z99]

Lets say I want to support a manga that has no official translation. My options are:

1. Buy volumes of a manga I cannot read, just as a shelf decoration.
2. Buy digitial copies of a manga I again, cannot read and now don't even own, just a license to read some chapters.
3. Buy merchandise from the manga, incurring currency differences, taxes, japan shipping expenses, etc.
4. Track down the artist/author's socials and donate directly (if they even have a donation page, or even socials)

It's hard to put aside the pure inconvenience and lack of value you get out of supporting the authors through these means. It's much different from other forms of piracy where purchasing the product is worthwhile. If you pirate a steam game, you dont get support, multiplayer services, updates, etc. Pirating a scanlation has zero downsides, but having a untranlated copy you legally own has zero upsides.

If you aren't donating directly, 2-3x of your costs are not going to the rights holder, but to fees and taxes from importing JP products. Many Japanese platforms won't even let you purchase digital goods without proving that you're from/in japan either through VPN or address.

The only way I see allowing for scanlations while supporting the artists, is for the rights holders to run a platform where fan translations coexist alongside official translations. I'm pretty sure Webtoon does this? Not to say that their platform is any good otherwise, restricting chapters to the mobile app.

 

[BestBoy]

took down batoto

Pretty sure batoto went down because grumpy got tired of running it.

 

[RonBWL]

Lets say I want to support a manga that has no official translation. My options are:

1. Buy volumes of a manga I cannot read, just as a shelf decoration.
2. Buy digitial copies of a manga I again, cannot read and now don't even own, just a license to read some chapters.
3. Buy merchandise from the manga, incurring currency differences, taxes, japan shipping expenses, etc.
4. Track down the artist/author's socials and donate directly (if they even have a donation page, or even socials)

It's hard to put aside the pure inconvenience and lack of value you get out of supporting the authors through these means. It's much different from other forms of piracy where purchasing the product is worthwhile. If you pirate a steam game, you dont get support, multiplayer services, updates, etc. Pirating a scanlation has zero downsides, but having a untranlated copy you legally own has zero upsides.

If you aren't donating directly, 2-3x of your costs are not going to the rights holder, but to fees and taxes from importing JP products. Many Japanese platforms won't even let you purchase digital goods without proving that you're from/in japan either through VPN or address.

The only way I see allowing for scanlations while supporting the artists, is for the rights holders to run a platform where fan translations coexist alongside official translations. I'm pretty sure Webtoon does this? Not to say that their platform is any good otherwise, restricting chapters to the mobile app.

Let's be real. Barring the big and popular titles which already gained a huge fanbase and likely have official translation in the first place, the majority of manga/manhua/manhwa aren't accessible to us global readers OUTSIDE of fan translation. Even if you come across a few raw panel on FB/X, chances are you can never find the original manga unless someone was kind enough to leave the sauce in the comment.

I've always been arguing this - piracy in manga is pretty much a mandatory "try before you buy" that, unlike with video games, there are no such thing as demo or trial version (Again, coming back to the fact that the majority of the manga never had official translation). If readers can't find the series interesting enough, there is no good reason support it.

Again, China figured this out waaaaaaaaaay before Japan & Korea. If they find a series popular with fan thanks to scanlation, they simply reach out and cut a deal with the original group, get a high-quality translation for cheap, and reap all of the benefit of official translation. Everyone wins.

 

[hahanaho]

Well, how about we focus on the manga, manhwa, manhua that are not DMCA'd yet?

May be a good chance for us to branch out and find some hidden gems other than those massively popular ones?

Focus how? You guys can always reply to my question here:

https://forums.mangadex.org/threads...nlated-mangas-that-havent-been-dmcad.2277279/

But I think some people are hesitant to share their favorites that survived the purge. Who knows, it may instead attract a DMCA. From what I can tell, they still keep removing titles, right?

 

[Sprocket]

And another group I was following the work of has left MD even though they weren't hit with a DMCA... 😞

(Your Deer Friends for anyone wondering)

 

[temaccgdx]

It's been two weeks since the dmca, is there any comment from the mangadex team? I've seen some brief q&a somewhere but can't find it anymore in announcement list, were there any extensive comments on the future of the site or maybe some general idea on what kind of manga got taken down and what didn't? Just wanna have a good overview of the damage done

 

[Angry_Panda]

I've seen some brief q&a somewhere but can't find it anymore in announcement list

Here.

 

[temaccgdx]

Here.

Yeah, this one. I think it's pretty vague and inconclusive.

 

[Manko-sensei]

Yeah, this one. I think it's pretty vague and inconclusive.

Someone will make an anime adaptation with lots of "bam!" and "go go go go..." so it becomes a hit on the Internet and Kadokawa will come back wanting to collaborate so we can enjoy our mangos for almost free.

 

[Kaldrak]

Morally though, crap like this is why nobody wants to use Crunchyroll or any official site nowadays.

Eh, speak for yourself. My eight bucks a month lets me watch stuff on Crunchy. It's just like any other streaming service.

 

[JVick]

Someone will make an anime adaptation with lots of "bam!" and "go go go go..." so it becomes a hit on the Internet and Kadokawa will come back wanting to collaborate so we can enjoy our mangos for almost free.

Don't make it too much manga-like or they'll get DMCA too.