Site Update - 14th of May 2025

[Shevar]

Can't blame them though, at this point uploading to MD means you accept that your release can and will be nuked without notice, and many simply chose not to risk :v

That can still happen with any and all websites that exist period. Hundreds of small scan groups get destroyed by the same stuff.. Thinking the grass is greener. Well. sometimes it's better for others to experience it themselves.

 

[hahanaho]

It's actually funny that there's not that much English natives translators really, they already know English as natives and it's just one language to learn for them. There's plenty of translators with English as their second language and Japanese as their third for example.

It’s probably stating the obvious. But a lot of “translators” and “scanlators” are in it for money. People who live in the US/Canada/UK/Ireland/Australia, probably have better options rather than doing illegal stuff like this.

 

[Manko-sensei]

Yeah, like all sarcasm aside not everyone has an acuity for languages, the time, or patience, all most of us know is ‘I want this thing and it’s hard to get legally and The Man won’t listen so fuck it we ball’.

But back to the resources: In 1970 when Wikipedia says fan translations first became ‘A Thing’ the first email was sent in 1971, online communities were still a few years off in 1975, and the first flatbed scanner for personal use was commercially available in like 1984 (hah.) but MTL apps were still years off. So like people were buying Japanese books, cracking the spines like your mom cracked your dad’s while she was making you, and using dictionaries and shit. Maybe talking to Japanese people, I dunno I wasn’t there.

In 2025 we literally have all the resources to get what we want legally we just lack a fundamental understanding of accountability and publishers have reinforced that by playing nice instead of meeting us where we live.

Like we all know this DMCA takedown is not going to stop the scans from being passed around and new ones being created, we’re just not interested in fixing the problem so we’re perpetuating it. 🤷🏻

Sadly it's not sarcasm but a social issue from a certain country, you can guess which one. I simply wanted to add some mockery though.

 

[hahanaho]

Sadly it's not sarcasm but a social issue from a certain country, you can guess which one. I simply wanted to add some mockery though.

Asimov is an arrogant douche.

 

[Angry_Panda]

Asimov is an arrogant douche.

Great mutton chops, though.

 

[Bok3tto]

Sadly it's not sarcasm but a social issue from a certain country, you can guess which one. I simply wanted to add some mockery though.

That piece is from 1980 before the advent of the internet as we know it and the 24hr news cycle. Might be comforting to think that it’s just America but it’s everywhere now—these forums are proof.

 

[hahanaho]

these forums are proof

Lmao, you're saying everyone here is a moron except for you? Oh, and except for people who agree with you of course.

 

[Bok3tto]

Lmao, you're saying everyone here is a moron except for you? Oh, and except for people who agree with you of course.

Nah, just self-aware and paying attention. Actually said ‘we’ as in ‘we’re entitled pieces of shit’ more than once. No worries if you don’t wanna scroll back through 58 pages of comments, but like just to say hope your serving of crow is tasty. 🤷🏻

 

[Bok3tto]

Oh, and except for people who agree with you of course.

BTW can’t stress enough how irrelevant this is. You don’t have to like that the DMCA takedown happened or that copyright laws exist but flaming someone for just pointing that out because like you’re bored and need a punching bag is just proving that anti-intellectualism thrives in these spaces. Like you’re literally saying ‘IT ME’.

 

[Eclipse01]

With a situation like this, it makes me wonder more about whether there is a way to export all of our data. I've tried looking into third-party tools a year or two ago, but I couldn't find one and haven't had the time to make one.

I'm obviously not asking for anything infringing, but even an official way to export library items and read chapters (with relevant metadata needed to find items from official sources) would be extremely useful!

I use MAL Sync and MangaUpdates to track what I am reading.

https://malsync.moe/

https://www.mangaupdates.com/

 

[AMIdrissi]

Asking an English native to learn a language other than theirs is already a tall order, let alone those who get dizzy by using words with more than two syllables. And if we're considering nowadays ones, even with more resources they're likely to do a poorer task.

The thing is that japanese especially with kanji has quite a steep learning curve, and yes this is coming from someone who speaks 3 languages, this is probably due to the fact japanese is very context dependent and has a god knows how many kanji characters (this is excluding the other other writing systems)

 

[dOmOlz]

I'm sure someone has answered my question in this thread already, but I don't want to search through 58 pages.

How can I export my follows in some way that isn't manually writing down the titles?

 

[HelperHand]

How can I export my follows in some way that isn't manually writing down the titles?

One of the easiest way is to use @Roler bookmarklet, there is also a Python script

 

[jetabyss13]

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.

go onto mangaupdates and find manga that you find interesting based on the single paragraph english translated description. then buy the manga from bookwalker (they accept foreign cards, it's usually $5 a volume, i would say based on series i'm into they average between 4 to 6 volumes if it's not a longrunning battle shounen, so roughly $20 to $30 for a whole series which... isn't bad. that's like the price of a movie ticket + theater food these days), screenshot each page, compile them into a .zip file, upload it on ichigoreader (or pay a scanlator but make sure they never upload it publicly or copyright CIA will Epstein them, it's for their own safety), then load it into mihon or tachiyomi sy via a local folder on your device (make sure to set 'split pages'), and read it in your own private leisure. idk for iOS

i guess that's the future?

i mean im kind of torn about it, yeah this way the original manga creator is indeed paid what they are owed (and you can preview pages on Bookwalker, tho not perfect cuz most of the previews are eaten up by table of contents and the cover)

but like this basically takes the soul out of reading manga online
no more scanlators having personalities or sharing manga with other people and talking about it, banter, etc. no more social aspect of it.
i guess the closest thing now is sharing an out of context screenshot on Reddit, Xitter or Bluesky lol...?
it feels quite lonely reading a niche series and you yourself only hold a translated version of it either thru AIslop or thru a private scanlator comm... also yeah even after years of better tech, MTL/AI translators still are pretty mid. :v
i'm the only one here who knows the true ending of Immortal Hounds ;w; and I have no one to chat about it with!

 

[RonBWL]

go onto mangaupdates and find manga that you find interesting based on the single paragraph english translated description. then buy the manga from bookwalker (they accept foreign cards, it's usually $5 a volume, i would say based on series i'm into they average between 4 to 6 volumes if it's not a longrunning battle shounen, so roughly $20 to $30 for a whole series which... isn't bad. that's like the price of a movie ticket + theater food these days), screenshot each page, compile them into a .zip file, upload it on ichigoreader (or pay a scanlator but make sure they never upload it publicly or copyright CIA will Epstein them, it's for their own safety), then load it into mihon or tachiyomi sy via a local folder on your device (make sure to set 'split pages'), and read it in your own private leisure. idk for iOS

i guess that's the future?

i mean im kind of torn about it, yeah this way the original manga creator is indeed paid what they are owed (and you can preview pages on Bookwalker, tho not perfect cuz most of the previews are eaten up by table of contents and the cover)

but like this basically takes the soul out of reading manga online
no more scanlators having personalities or sharing manga with other people and talking about it, banter, etc. no more social aspect of it.
i guess the closest thing now is sharing an out of context screenshot on Reddit, Xitter or Bluesky lol...?
it feels quite lonely reading a niche series and you yourself only hold a translated version of it either thru AIslop or thru a private scanlator comm... also yeah even after years of better tech, MTL/AI translators still are pretty mid. :v
i'm the only one here who knows the true ending of Immortal Hounds ;w; and I have no one to chat about it with!

Most likely so, which goes back to my original point - the publishers get no more money than what they already got, instead they may get even less since less people are aware of new books, leading to even lower sale and more books will get axed in the future.

 

[bondejeger]

Most likely so, which goes back to my original point - the publishers get no more money than what they already got, instead they may get even less since less people are aware of new books, leading to even lower sale and more books will get axed in the future.

The thing is that your view on this is biased because that interpretation is convenient to you. The industry obviously doesn't look at it the same way. To them your arguments are just flimsy excuses, fallacious justification, and apologism for piracy. Which, if we're being honest, is completely fair of them to think.

Like I've written before, I make scanlations despite it being piracy because of passion for manga, not because of it being piracy. There's just no other way to do it. But I still buy a lot of stuff to support manga, especially the stuff I've worked on. But I'm not really being apolegetic or defensive about scanlation, since I know that it's illegal and piracy. There's just no other way to read most untranslated manga as of yet. Maybe when AI reader tools like cotrans and ichigoreader are good enough to translate manga properly, scanlations will be obsolete and unnecessary, but we're not quite there yet.

 

[Eclipse01]

I'm sure someone has answered my question in this thread already, but I don't want to search through 58 pages.

How can I export my follows in some way that isn't manually writing down the titles?

I use MAL Sync and MangaUpdates to track what I am reading.

https://malsync.moe/

https://www.mangaupdates.com/

 

[jetabyss13]

Most likely so, which goes back to my original point - the publishers get no more money than what they already got, instead they may get even less since less people are aware of new books, leading to even lower sale and more books will get axed in the future.

at least the very niche manga I will read, I'm confident no one can discover them and shit up the 'fandom' (aka it's just me and like a few dozen Japanese readers scattered across the island :v)
ah yes, no one can ruin the Deathscythe Cutie fandom! BECAUSE THERE IS NONE, MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

 

[RonBWL]

The thing is that your view on this is biased because that interpretation is convenient to you. The industry obviously doesn't look at it the same way. To them your arguments are just flimsy excuses, fallacious justification, and apologism for piracy. Which, if we're being honest, is completely fair of them to think.

Like I've written before, I make scanlations despite it being piracy because of passion for manga, not because of it being piracy. There's just no other way to do it. But I still buy a lot of stuff to support manga, especially the stuff I've worked on. But I'm not really being apolegetic or defensive about scanlation, since I know that it's illegal and piracy. There's just no other way to read most untranslated manga as of yet. Maybe when AI reader tools like cotrans and ichigoreader are good enough to translate manga properly, scanlations will be obsolete and unnecessary, but we're not quite there yet.

Trust me, I've lived long enough to be past the point of "apologetic" in any way shape or form - what I'm saying is just realistically what's happening, and people are free to accept and deny it all they want. It already happened with the gaming scene, movies are feeling the wraith, and comic/manga is next on the chopping block. There's no way around it.

 

[Sprocket]

I noticed there's an option to 'show unavailable chapters' now, is that new?