"The more you preach [piracy], the more Japanese artists lose faith in the foreign market."

[ninjadork]

I don't make enough money to buy all the manga I want to read. If there was a reliable service (like, Mangadex-level reliable) that didn't have its head shoved up its ass on the topics of new submissions, pay methods, and legal bullshit, I'd use that in a heartbeat and never come here again (sorry not sorry, I love you guys, etc etc etc). But every manga service I know of does indeed have its head up its ass on one or more of those topics, and none of them have more than 2/3 the manga I want to read.

I feel for manga authors: I really do. But until the publishers (and to be fair, some select manga authors) stop being elitist dickbags, they aren't offering a service worth the money they're demanding.

As it currently stands, scanlators do a great deal of work for far less than publishers charge for the same work. Legally, they have a right to the time and effort they put in, especially when the publisher doesn't translate into the language the scanlator is using. If publishers, authors, and their supporters don't like the idea of independent scanlators doing a job they can't or won't do, then the proper thing for them to do is put their ego back in their collective ass where it belongs and figure out ways to offer better services.

 

[Tamerlane]

Piracy is just another aspect of supply and demand and economics.

It forces businesses to try and supply a better service than otherwise. If you don't have the option to seek alternative channels for goods and services, the market suffers as certain businesses gain a monoply.

For instance, on the gaming front, Steam pretty much killed piracy as it allows you to access your shit from any computer at any point permanently, with your files and save data permanently backed-up, your achievements and friends setup, and everything that would be difficult to both tie to anything other than an account, which the pirates just can't offer. (Consistently having dedicated servers, for starters)

Western outlets don't provide these same features, or will remove and censor parts of anime and manga, or completely localize sections that will reframe their meaning for another audience. Therefore, the businesses must adapt and compete with piracy just as they would any other business, which only benefits the consumer.

Plus, there's the fact that you will always have deadweight loss as soon as you charge any amount of money for anything, which will inhibit the spread of information about certain goods and services because you will limit the amount of consumers you have. Basic economics.

 

[ribbitribbitsaga]

I'd rather cut the middleman out and pay the 10 bucks to the mangaka tbh. I don't understand the frustration from them when they know they don't get the 10 dollars whole. As others have mentioned there would be amazing titles collecting dust if it wasn't for piracy. I believe the ones who can't manipulate the piracy crowd into spending money are the ones complaining and most likely are chained down into a contract where they must sell x amount of manga to get a game/anime/figures.

 

[yukiwa]

I buy when I can, but without scanlations, I never would've even HEARD of most of these series. 90% of what I buy on amazon.co.jp is from Lovely Strange Dark scans and hitting Mangadex's beloved Random button, then refreshing. Especially since I like old stuff that tends not to get official releases. I do buy, everything that doesn't go to food, goes to books. I have hundreds of Kindle titles in my amazon jp account... People need to keep in mind that Japanese is a VERY hard language to learn. I ran through basic French in a few DAYS... Japanese? After over a decade, I'm still struggling. Most of the time I download the pirated scan and then buy the amazon.co.jp Kindle version, then dump both into Calibre and tag accordingly to keep track of them. (KANA TITLE [ENG/JP] KANJI TITLE BY AUTHORKANA AUTHORKANJI, tagged by scanlator and genre.) Some officially released titles aren't even available digitally... I would've LOVED Inuyasha got nostalgia, but they never English kindled it, and I have a small house already full of books... I downloaded the scans and spent a month's income buying the JP Kindle. Can't read a word of it. Don't care. Sensei gets her money to write more manga with giant immortal pet cats (there's some backstory to this.........) Piracy wouldn't be such a problem if getting stuff legally wasn't so difficult! Rumiko Takahashi is the most accomplished manga writer of ALL TIME- and even her stuff, is difficult to obtain. I still haven't found a legal release of her "With Cat" pet comedy, EVEN IN JAPANESE. I'd click buy in a heartbeat if I could. These young "everything is digital" twitter stars need to understand, that it isn't that clearcut. My grail manga is the obscure Viehmannin no Uta *sequel*, but it isn't even on kindle jp, and books are 50 dollars... I hardly have food money. No way I can swing it. The older stuff is difficult to buy. I love Ginyoubi no Otogibanashi, but it's unlikely to EVER see an official translation; I own it in fancy print, Kindle jp, and who knows what else... But if they released it officially in English, I'd buy it again IN A HEARTBEAT. The problem for obscure stuff is that you really CAN'T buy it officially in English.

Ed: I would buy Mutsumi Hagiiwa's GROCERY LIST if they translated it. If any of you official publishers lurk... Maybe consider her work for release? It's a CRIME that people in the West don't know of her. Her art's even cuter than Sailor Moon! Image Search: Mutsumi Hagiiwa. Fairy Tale of Silver Days (Ginyoubi no Otogibanashi) and Pearl Garden are her best in my opinion, but EVERYTHING she does is happy and cute.

 

[Flynski]

I'll usually go out of my way and buy the volumes of the manga i enjoy, if i liked it but didnt super love it ill buy the newest one from amazon.jp. If i loved it ill buy the full collection 1click buy. So obviously i do both. No physical copies as that seems tedious nowadays.

 

[Begoneclowns]

I think when the author comes to ask you to stop, you respect that.

This is beyond sadness ;;;

 

[eng1]

Do the authors even make any money on foreign sales? From what I have heard in many cases, the foreign publisher pays per volume, so regardless of sales it probably wouldnt matter other than the publisher licensing more.

Of course deals vary, korean for example seem to be more commission based.

To be honest, I think people would be more willing to buy stuff if it clearly labeled x% goes to the author and/or artist.

Generally, most authors dont care too much about free translations and even welcome it, when no paid one exists. The ones who complain tend to be the jp publishers.

It is also important to note that jp stuff in foreign markets are mandated by the JP government as it garners more sympathy towards japan.

Of course that isnt to say people should be threatening authors and demanding free stuff either.

A lot of people are willing to pay for the content, even those that pirate. But for that they need a crunchyroll where 90% of manga are translated realtime

 

[Holo]

It's a service issue.

Until there exists a service that offers at least 90% of all available titles for a reasonable price (5 USD /month), with new chapters available almost immediately after release in Japan, piracy will exist.

 

[vongdong]

I'd have no problems buying, i just wished official english translations came out faster. For example, i want to buy act-age and the first pgysical english volume isn't even out whilst there's 11 in japan...

 

[Sugioh]

It absolutely is a service issue. If something akin to steam existed for manga, you can bet I'd be all over that without even thinking.

Netflix and Steam both vastly reduced piracy for a time, until the market started getting fragmented again. What do both have in common? Reasonable pricing and dead easy access to content. When the markets started getting fragmented again due to greed and access issues, suddenly piracy was on the rise again. You don't have to be an economic genius to understand the relationship there.

 

[JenniferHer]

A lot of pirate manga and it will surely continue to be done
Hentai

 

[Cyberbeing]

For context, the tweet is implicitly referring to people being upset by the mass takedowns by Fakku publisher Irodori which releases uncensored h-doujins in English. It's likely similar to the past when people were upset about everything published by Wani being DCMA. So while the subject on piracy is similar, the artist isn't directly referring to the commercial manga linked in the OP, but rather losing faith in the foreign market for officially translated english h-doujins which is a bit different.

 

[potatofood]

No doubt piracy is stealing, but is Souryuu accusing pirates of stealing from a market that isn't being well-served?

Yes, the US isn't really well-served when it comes to Japanese raws, I wish that we could get shipping from official retailers instead of third parties, since that would increase my trust and willingness to buy the Japanese raws. Ebooks are an interesting compromise but not everything gets an ebook, especially doujinshis and usually the ebook release is delayed a bit compared to the physical copy. As for the piracy, it's still piracy/stealing whether or not the market is well-served or not so...

Do you have any examples of official manga translations that were so obviously inferior to fan efforts?

Not off the top of my head, no. I don't understand why this is such a sticking point for some people, but I guess fan translations that have been worked with care by passionate people could be better than someone who's doing it just because it's their job to. Also, even if it's bad, you don't have to read it.

Has anyone really decided as to even go that far in wanting to do to learn Japanese more like so?

Not 100% sure what you meant but I picked up bits of Japanese from anime first and checked out some starter guides/bought a kanji dictionary, then took a dive into the deep end when I started scanlating.

How many of you actually spend real money on manga, whether imported or local?

I buy ebooks of Japanese raws since forwarding is too much for me. However, I support official english releases by buying them wherever I can (usually it's Barnes & Noble). I've spent quite a lot of money on manga, both Japanese and English.

Do you agree that only people who pay can be considered "true fans"? Does paying for it increase your satisfaction or enjoyment?

No, but I can see where the author is trying to go. Personally, I'd drop 5-6 dollars for a 30ish page doujinshi anytime for a series I enjoy, though idk if it increases my "satisfaction". Also, I would think that the author would appreciate it a lot more if you actually bought their work instead of reading it for free. Sure, we all aren't super fluent in Japanese, but you could just buy the raws and read the fan scans. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion.

 

[Maru_1]

Honestly, as I was once a Chinese manhua trash, I used to try to read legally. I still do, on this app called WebComics which legally licenses manhua such as the Naive Mr.Lu. But the translation are so bad and sometimes the panels aren’t even translated or even blank. That’s why I ports these manga. The official translation is not worth the money.

 

[Holo]

Stealing or theft: "A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it."

Piracy might be many things, but it's not stealing. You haven't permanently deprived anyone of anything.

 

[AlexMCS]

One might argue that a digital copy of something has almost as much value as a physical one, due to the intellectual property contained in said copy.
So, from that PoV, yes, piracy is stealing, since you are permanently depriving someone (the production/distribution chain, but mainly, the author) from the value of the IP imbued in that copy, if they opted not to distribute it freely.

 

[DarkFlame]

To the author's "real" fans... dude just sounds like a prick obsessed with making money but I get where he is coming from. Making manga is definitely labor intensive and hard work should be paid for adequately in compensation, but not understanding the work due to language barriers is not something to be offended by as an author. If anything, the author's work is getting more widespread attention and the very few or large amount of people who purchase the work in the original language to support the author (even though they may not understand the original language) is something that sounds more like a true fan.

The author, Souryu, is a great artist and storyteller but his post about piracy discredits the non-Japanese speakers/readers who enjoy his works and help support him by gaining more popularity. If I really enjoyed the work, I would most certainly purchase the product but buying a JP version throws me off because I doubt I would ever look back at the JP version when I could read the English scanlated version. If the author was so against piracy, he should just set up a patreon/kofi/paypal/ or other equivalent service that allows people to donate/pay for their service. He would see firsthand that there are people abroad that would help him in continuing his works.

For the most part, most manga is made in Japan and a very small portion of manga actually get scanlated. It makes no sense to discredit piracy when less obscure or more popular works are being given the attention they deserve. It makes no sense to me why complains are made about piracy when there are people who discover the works only because they were pirated and then decide to support the author. I can say more, but that's enough of my ranting for now.

 

[Says]

I don't have enough money to eat the whole month, of course if I had money I would buy the english or my language version, but when there is none, what can I do about it ? Read it online for free thanks to the scan team.
I'm aware that scanlation is not legal, but team usually translate until the title get an official release in their language then droped it.
Guess I'm a pirate not by choice but because I can't do anything about it right now :x
(Sorry if my phrasing is a bit weird)

 

[semicharmed]

It most definitely is a service issue but I honestly don't see a steam like service for manga, just because well, there's so much of it. The closest thing that I've seen are publisher centric manga apps that host most of their manga from their different magazines i.e. Manga Plus/Shounen Jump+ (Shueisha), Mangamo (ComicSmart), Kodansha (they don't have an app but they have tons of digitals and on their english site), and technically Line etc. I would love to have more of these come to the west like MangaPark (not the aggre lol, the Hakusensha one) and Manga Mee (Shueisha's female demographic counterpart to Shounen Jump+)

I'm at a stage where I don't mind using different apps or platforms to read manga from idk maybe it's just acceptance, I buy both digital and physical both in English and Japanese. When mangarock went rip a lot of the reason why people preferred it was bc you can read everything in one place, but for me I honestly haven't minded reading from multiple places in a long time.

Do you have any examples of official manga translations that were so obviously inferior to fan efforts?

Viz's Akatsuki no Yona comes to mind. Not in the sense that it was inferior but as preference goes there were things that I just liked better from the scans especially with the inner monologues and dialogues. However with Viz's shounen jump titles I much prefer there version than the scan again because of monologues and dialogues. I think english publishers definitely have gotten better over the years and the bad rep they got was purely because in the early days they'd had to localize everything because Japanese culture was fairly new to the west but nowadays people know what honorifics are and what an onigiri is.

Has anyone really decided as to even go that far in wanting to do to learn Japanese more like so?

I'm sure there plenty are, I started doing self-study around 2 years ago. I'm not quite there yet but I can read some young age shounen/shoujo magazines. It takes a lot of determination to do so and people who got in to it bc of manga/anime give up and that's fine and they shouldn't need to.

How many of you actually spend real money on manga, whether imported or local?

As I mentioned, I buy both digital and physical. Both Japanese and English. I don't have any Japanese physicals though, because they're such a pain to import and buying from English publishers hopefully increase them to get more licensing for more titles. I don't buy everything just things that I really really like that I would like to keep.

Do you agree that only people who pay can be considered "true fans"? Does paying for it increase your satisfaction or enjoyment?

Of course not, but authors would appreciate you if you did every now and then. Buying is definitely a satisfaction for me especially for physicals because I can "see" it, if that makes sense.