Embracing Love aka Haru wo Daiteita by Youka Nitta

After reading and particpating in an interesting thread over on the Digital Manga Forums about issues regarding licensing this title, I thought I’d ask fujoshi at large. Would you like to see this re-licensed, re-translated and re-issued in English? If so, would you buy it? Would you buy even though there are 5 second hand volumes from Be Beautiful out there? Answer in the comment section please! (and get your friends to come answer too!) Publisher assumption seems to think this is an issue. So is it? Or would publishers find this to be a very in demand title?

Meet the Aggregators Part Four: AnimeA.net

AnimeA is a “hobby site” according to its owner, who during the first sight of the approaching Mangageddon, via the first news announcement about the manga anti-piracy coalition, initially took down their entire manga reading site for 24 hours, citing they were never sharing manga again. After about 24 hours, the owner decided to put it back up, and began removing licensed titles VERY slowly, providing a “is this licensed?” button for users to click if it was. Pressing the button seemed to do nothing; it certainly did not lock the manga from being read while staff verified the licensing status and removing it if it was. Scanlation teams discovering the site began asking for manga to be removed, just as they were doing with MangaFox, and after a bit of reported hassle, it began to disappear. Licensed manga was being steadily removed for about a fortnight, when suddenly, all activity on that front began to stall. So, were they or weren’t they going to remove the offending titles? The most recent stance came to light when a member asked to be allowed to upload a Tokyopop title, and was given a link to do so:

So, they have decided to STOP taking down licensed manga, and see if they get any C & D letters sent to them . BUT, having previously removed some titles, and promising to take down others, what exactly is left? Well, lots, both coalition members’ and otherwise. A quick glance at the current list of licensed titles up shows that the list is quite long actually, as I found so many without having to look very hard. For example:

Chi’s Sweet Home (Vertical)

Glass Sky (Digital Manga)

Black Jack (Vertical)

Yotsuba&! (Yen Press)

Love Control (Digital Manga)

Vampire Knight (Viz)

Bleach (Viz)

Beserk (Digital Manga)

Naruto (Viz)

Oh My God! (Deux)- not even a scanlation, but actual book scans of the Deux edition..

Don’t get me started on Tokyopop, like over at MangaFox, their entire catalogue just about is on there.

You get the picture. They are not even trying to hide the manga,instead seeming to hope that they just continue to catch all the OneManga refugees and those from MangaFox who left when the Big three came down. Motive most likely is profit driven, as they get revenue from ads, and being a top ranked Google site, get quite heavy traffic.

AnimeA is, as the name suggests, also an animé site, so they pirate not just manga, but animé as well. In fact, they have 17 pages of illegally streamed anime onsite , so seem to assume that if they haven’t been done for the animé, maybe the manga will slide too, despite their top Google ranking. Indeed, MangaFox is a sister site to not one, but two illegal manga stream sites, which have not been reprimanded by licensee holders, so they too, probably feel a bit invincible. It will be interesting to see if the coalition joins forces with the animé anti-piracy movement and go for legal action in the near future. In the meantime, many fans hope to see them receive C &D’s that they take seriously. For that to happen, all members of the coalition and unallied publishers need to send a notice. Press releases aren’t cutting it. Fans are counting on it, because we like being able to buy manga and anime, to support the mangaka and artists and hold it in our own hands, and for that publishers need more sales to pay for licensing and distribution. Something illegal freebie sites don’t provide.

And if you think these sites are like going to the library, here is why it is NOT.

UPDATE: AnimeA has taken the position that unless they personally receive a C and D from each individual publisher, listing each and every title they own rights to, the manga will stay up. Mangafox, in its forums, has stated the same.  Publishers may either register and post the request via the forums, or email using their contact forms (though MF’s does not appear to actually accomplish anything). Given past behaviour, I’d suggest doing both, so that manga fans using these sites can see the truth for their own eyes.

Makoto Tateno Week Kicks Off

Tateno sensei

Looking at my review shelf, I see I have a LOT of Tateno yet to cover on it, and to share some of the greatness that is Makoto Tateno, I decided to do Makoto Madness Week. I have already reviewed Happy Boys 1 and 2, How to Capture a Martini, Yellow Omnibus 1 and Angelic Runes. This week, I shall take a look at Blue Sheep Reverie 1 and 2, Steal Moon, Hate to Love You, Ka Shin Fu, Yellow Omnibus 2, Yellow Episode 2 vol 1, Hero Heel vol 1, How to Control a Sidecar, and Yokan: Premonition vol 1.

Toyama City, birthplace of Makoto Tateno

But just who is Makoto Tateno? I decided to find out. Well, it is pretty obvious she is a mangaka, But what about the rest? A quick look on the web doesn’t seem to reveal much unless you look beyond the surface of the information. Tateno sensei was born on 23^rd of March in Toyama City. Toyama city is the capitol of Toyama Prefecture, which is located along the Sea of Japan on the island of Honshu. It is not an overly large city, but it is not a small one either as these things go, having a population that is quoted at 420,804 or 338.85 persons per square kilometre.

Toyama has been of strategic regional importance since ancient times as this feudal fortification demonstrates.

This is in itself interesting, given the settings she typically uses in her manga. Knowing these acts, and viewing pictures of the area she was born and raised in, explains much about the realistic feel of the locations encountered in her stories. They have a distinctly urban feel, but usually lack the urban upward and outward sprawl of say Tokyo or Osaka. This is unsurprising, as the very best writers write from what they know, weaving fact with illusion to tell a well crafted story.

Mickey and Kazyua was her first series.

In 1986, Tateno made her début with Japanese publisher Hakusensha with her shoujo one shot offering “ Yurarete Tamago Boys” followed by the series Mickey and Kazuya, which was serialised in the publisher’s Hana to Yume magazine. She continued working in the shoujo field under contract until striking out freelance on her own, with a strong desire to write BL. A look at the publication dates for her BL titles show that 2001 was her break out year in this genre, with Koyoi wa Kimi to Chi no Kiss o being picked up by publisher Shinshokan for their Dear+ magazine and now licensed to Doki Doki as the upcoming title A Bloody Kiss Tonight, scheduled for an early November street date. Also writing under the pen name of Shinjuku Tango for her doujinshi titles, she has remained a highly popular and prolific writer with over 90 titles and 30+ series under her belt.

Japanese cover for Bloody Kiss Tonight, her 2001 BL break out title now due out in early November 2010 under Digital Manga's Doki Doki imprint.

Most of here in the West are perhaps more familiar with her BL works, which have been licensed here in the West, though with Happy Boys,  Angelic Runes, King of Cards,  and Red Angel, we are beginning to see some of her shoujo works trickle out though they are not yet as popular with Western manga fans. While the genres may differ, the one thing they all have in common is not only Tateno’s lovely signature art, but her wit. Tateno’s dry wit is a subtle presence in all her works, lightening up heavier pieces without resorting to buffoonery or chibi panels. If the character is foolish in his decisions, she allows us to see this as part of his character and general actions, without pratfall type jokes to make it obvious. It is said that one is always heavily influenced by those whose works e most admire, so just who does she credit for this? In an interview with Graphic Novel Reporter, she cited tow major influences: Go Nagai, specifically with Cutie Honey which featured the first female protagonist in a shonen manga, and the legendary Osamu Tezuka, whose works are still finding their way into new licenses in the West ( MW, Black Jack, Swallowing the Earth). Fans of Tateno’s would do well to check these out, or else miss out on some truly fantastic classic manga that resonates with today.

Osamu Tezuka is named as one of her major manga influences. Read him and find out why.

As for the current debacle with scanlator sites, believe it or not, Graphic Novel Reporter asked her this at the 2009 Yaoi Con, which pre-dated the coming of Mangageddon:

How do you feel about fan translations of your stories being distributed via the Internet without the books having been officially licensed in America?
Buy books. Buy, buy, buy. [Smiles]
So there you have it. Makoto Tateno, her influences, some reviews past and forthcoming of her works, and her request to please buy, and not read or do scanlations. Just get yourself to a book retailer already, there is some good stuff to be read, again and again.

And One Goes Down

Today online otakudom has been buzzing with the news: top Google ranked online manga piracy reading site One manga, with its sister site, 1000manga, are biting the dust. The official post reads:

“It pains me to announce that this is the last week of manga reading on One Manga (!!). Manga publishers have recently changed their stance on manga scanlations and made it clear that they no longer approve of it. We have decided to abide by their wishes, and remove all manga content (regardless of licensing status) from the site. The removal of content will happen gradually (so you can at least finish some of the outstanding reading you have), but we expect all content to be gone by early next week (RIP OM July ’10). So what next? We’re not really sure at this point, but we have some ideas we would like to try out. Until then, the One Manga forums will remain active and we encourage all of you to continue using them. OMF has developed into a great community and it would be a shame to see that disappear. Regardless of whether you stay with us or not, on behalf of the One Manga team, I would like to thank you all for your unwavering support over the years. Through the ups and downs you have stuck with us, and that is what kept us going. As a certain Porky was fond of saying… That’s all folks! Time for me to go lay down and let this all sink in. - Zabi

And for some of you who were wondering, yes, 1000Manga will have its manga removed as well.

Also like to slip in my own thanks to all of you people here too for all the overwhelming support you have given us. We honestly never thought we’d get this far when the site opened up. But hopefully we’ll be able to figure something out for the site’s future so this may not goodbye just yet.

This comes after mounting legal pressure from manga publishers and fans who wished to see an end to the rampant piracy facilitated by aggregator sites such as this, which generate profit by means of ad revenue, yet pay nothing to the creators of their stolen content.

Amusingly, one of the busiest forums talking about the demise happens to be OneManga’s rival, MangaFox, which is still carrying on business as usual, and indeed, has been happily uploading even more stolen manga, including those they previously locked, all day long. AnimeA is also slow to react, still taking the stance, “We don’t have licensed manga, oh wait, we are taking it down still,” but no further titles seem to have come for a couple of weeks at least. With Mangatoshokan having previously announcing its withdrawal due to the mounting pressure, it seems like the manga coalition’s efforts are deadly serious. This begs the question whether or not MangaFox and AnimeA are going to buckle, or wait for a knock on the door.

UPDATE:  MangaFox suddenly took down the Viz titles they had placed back up. No statement has been made regarding this decision, but it is safe to assume it is related to the legal issues and OneManga’s demise.

Meet the Aggregators Part Three: The Up-loaders and Audience

Aggregator sites certainly would not exist without the scanlations and direct book scans that get uploaded to the site, nor would they have a reason to if there was not an audience. You have two types of audiences found on these sites: the passive and the active.

The passive sort is the person who happens on by and simply reads. They may or may not intend to ever buy a volume of manga. In fact, this group is split into three sorts, the ones who read unlicensed manga and then buy it if it becomes licensed, the sort who reads licensed and unlicensed manga and excuses their behaviour saying they see it as a free preview before buying, and the person who just plain reads it because it is there and they have no intention of ever wandering cash in hand to a place it is sold.

MangaFox put many leading Viz titles, including this one, back up last week with added chapter updates due to reader demands

Type 1 is fairly harmless, usually just happy to read works that may never ever see licensing, especially true of doublethink works. Type 2 is a bit more sinister however. As a preview? Publisher websites have sample chapters up for that purpose. Books in general you buy on spec, you don’t get to simply read the entire volume in advance to see if you like it, unless your library stocks it. This group actually seem to be reassuring themselves that they have valid reason for their act of book theft.:”I should not have to pay for something I might not like”. The same excuse is used by those who pirate movies and TV series, including animé. It doesn’t stand up, any more than the excuse “I read it here first until I can a. get money to buy because my family is poor and can barely feed ourselves,  b. my town/country doesn’t have bookshops near me that sell manga,  c. I am under-age and not allowed to buy it to read legally “…and on and on. Imagine walking into a restaurant and deciding to walk into the kitchen, help yourself to a meal, and walk out once full, on the off chance that you fancied having some , but was unsure if you would like it, but hey, you MIGHT come back and be a real customer later. Type three is admittedly the worst, but at least they are honest about their motives. They just read it because they CAN.

Many readers use these sites to read only unlicensed manga and manwha, such as Hwang Mi Ri's " A Love in 100 Days"

Amusingly enough, however, a look on the aggregator forums show that Type 3 has their very own subset: the too dim to look in a book store type. Yes, seriously, there are actual conversations posted by teens who have been caught by surprise at the long list of titles being removed from sites such as MangaFox, AnimeA, and now Mangatoshokan after a cease and desist order from the likes of Viz Media. Not shock at how much pirated material was out there, but, wait for it…”Wow, a lot of stuff suddenly got licensed!” Hello?! The lights are on , but nobody is obviously home, as anyone who actually BUYS manga would know many of the titles have been licensed for YEARS. These kids “like” manga, but let’s face it, they are not on the otaku wavelength as 1. they don’t look to buy it 2. Obviously don’t follow manga/animé news to keep informed 3. never been to a con, or they would have seen the licensed editions, and so on. One REALLY wants to introduce these kids to the mazing concept or a BOOKSTORE where you look for stuff you might like to read, and then… BUY IT! Not that ignorance is any excuse for not checking FIRST before involving yourself in an activity.

AnimeA has left up licensed titles, such as Viz' Wedding Peach, for their audience to read at will without copyright holder consent

Okay, that is the readers. But what about the uploaders, the active audience? Occasionally you get a scanlation team doing the actual uploading, but usually they are either volunteer staff pulled from the readership pool or everyday readers. They often have the mistaken idea that they won’t be held liable for the shared out manga as the sites themselves deal with lawyers when they get the cease and desist. WRONG. Let’s look at our good friend MangaFox . Recently I mentioned that the removal of licensed (and unlicensed) manga came to a halt after a Noez staffer decided to update and reopen for viewing some of the Viz titles that drew in the greatest percentage of MF’s overall customer base: Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, and since then, Skip Beat!. Volunteer staffers have also since then taken to publicly telling scanlation teams that MF will take the heat, and not them, if a legal complaint comes in ( despite this). That is true enough. If MangaFox is served with a legal warrant, they WILL have to face the music for HOSTING the manga. BUT here is the thing, UPLOADERS are also liable as they placed the content there to begin with. So, say you are Poene, one of MangaFox’s QCer’s, and you get a manga upload request from the prolific upload member cy.fLaire . Poene creates the file space for the requested manga, and cy.fLaire uploads it (so far 1482 files) So if MangaFox gets taken to court, servers seized, and the lawyers look at how to best recoup damages. MangaFox will indeed face fines for hosting it, but Poene created the place for the uploaded copy that then was recreated 15,000 times in a single month by various people opening it for a free read, thanks to cy.fLaire. So, Poene and cy.fLaire share legal culpability for the actual sharing of that particular manga. When it comes to seeking monetary reparations on revenue loss, the individuals responsible for the particular stolen titles are the ones who must pay. So, Poene and cy.fLaire and their ilk are the ones who will face being asked to pay Viz and the gang for those 15,000 copies. 15,000 of just ONE manga title, when they have done this literally for HUNDREDS of titles. Not a nice thought, especially given that international authorities co-operate in matters of copyright enforcements.

Poene and cy.fLaire are responsible for personally uploading 18 chapters of this licensed manga. Just one of hundreds of titles they have shared via MangaFox and other communities.

The current lull in the storm may have given the top sites a false sense of security, leading them to the reckless actions of re-issuing these manga and continuing their piracy, but with Mangatoshokan being a much lower Google ranked site now getting the legal letters (thanks goes to a reader for this tip), it seems obvious that the publishers are serious, getting all thirty ducks lined up in a row for shooting like fish in a barrel. All AnimeA, MangaFox,OneManga, and the others are doing is adding fuel to the approaching fire storm. I suspect the publisher’s lit match is not all that far behind, and the ones who get burned won’t just be the website owners.  Oh, and as an FYI, quoting the fair use law on  uploaded scan reading pages is not a legal defense (go to the very bottom of the page to see it, and I have to say,with much hilarity, it is on ALL the manga reading pages). It simply doesn’t apply at all in these cases. I suggest they all put on their fire proof suits and speak to professional legal counsel BEFORE they get served, as it is not a matter of if, but when.

Meet the Aggregators Part Two- AnimeA, OneManga, and an Update on the Fox

With the threat of Mangageddon hanging over scanlation aggregation sites, you’d think by now they’d get the message: remove your titles that are owned by licensees in the US and those that are copyrighted by the Japanese publishers within the highly publicised coalition. The results have been mixed however, as previously reported.

Tokyopop's titles, incl this OEL are still up on MangaFox

For example, top Google ranked manga reading site MangaFox first responded to the news breaking by , well, ignoring it. Their official stance has been, “until we get a personal notification to cease and desist, it stays up.”. Scanlation groups however, re-evaluated their web presence, and began to take action. Some closed up shop, but not before having aggregator sites such as MangaFox remove their efforts. Others circled the wagons and checked their perimeters, making sure that their efforts were not shared outside their circles, and asking MangaFox and other sites to take down their scanlations. Some of these groups have been around for awhile, and are quite prolific, so while MangaFox complies with scanlators who makes such requests via their dedicated forum thread, it is nonetheless a painful blow to delete these as it takes away as much manga and manwha from their catalogue as if a mainstream publisher had their goods removed.

DMP's works came work down, including this one

Which, indeed, is also happening. Viz and Vertical sent cease and desists directly it seems, and titles vanished overnight. MangaFox however, requires a specific list of titles that need removing, as they don’t have a search by publisher facility. So if the title is not specifically requested for removal, it gets missed until brought to their attention. Nor do the publishers and scanlators who request removals go on the DENIED UPLOAD list to prevent works being uploaded in future, unless they as for that directly either. This has led to things such as Vertical’s MW being recently uploaded (now removed after a nudge), and the continued availability of Vertical’s new license, Chi’s Sweet Home.

Nor does sending a cease and desist by post nor by email to the provided email address on the CONTACT US portion of these websites guarantee removal. Before the formal coalition announcement, I had an email conversation with Aurora Publishing’s Mikako Ogata. She was displeased to discover their properties were up on MangaFox and that she was contacting them on the matter, requesting removal. Likewise, Digital Manga Publishing had a conversation with fans on their company forums saying they had been trying to speak to scanlation sites large and small to get them to remove the titles, and in early June an insider confirmed they had emailed Noez a cease and desist. Having these facts in hand, I was curious as to why Aurora and DMP’s works were still up. As a MangaFox former staffer had said that the Noez company was a sham, I wondered if the emails actually went anywhere. I poked about, and one conscientious young volunteer staffer that I spoke to was motivated and contacted Aurora to enquire. Getting their response on the matter, the titles came down immediately. Though today, inexplicably, Jacky from Noez put the locked Viz titles Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece back up along with chapter update apiece. Not exactly trust inspiring in the face of the “negotiations” Noez claim they are trying with the publishers. No one trusts a thief, especially when they show they really can’t keep their hands out your pockets.

Aurora Publishing's catalogue also finally saw removal

The Digital Manga issue was not so cleanly resolved however. Getting a frosty reception from the Noez administrators after the Aurora incident, the volunteer ended up merely passing along DMP’s contact information to a Noez senior staffer, who sat on it. Speaking to another volunteer staffer, I learned that Noez had indeed received the email from DMP, but had chosen to ignore it. Having lost the titles that had pulled in the Google rankings thanks to the Viz action, MangaFox had decided to put the mature titles back n, including yaoi. DMP publish a lot of yaoi, and are not part of any coalition with clout, so they probably felt safe to do so. However, what Noez thinks in private, and the public face they will show are apparently two different things. Noez are very concerned with maintaining face to their readership, so when the DMP request was passed along on their dedicated forum thread, they gracefully bit the bullet. Digital Manga’s catalogue came down immediately and were put on the DENIED UPLOAD list.

AnimeA and OneManga however take a completely different attitude. When news of the coalition first broke, AnimeA took all their manga offline with a notice they were no longer offering manga. This lasted only 24 hours or less however, and the site owner returned the manga with the request that licensed titles be reported so he could remove them. It has been a few week now, so how does the site look? Well, despite a list being provided two weeks ago of both of licensed boy’s love titles and other manga by forum users, a listing of Digital Manga properties being sent via PM with the links provided to their official book listings, and users hitting the YES THIS LICENSED button on every title they come across that is, only a small fraction have actually been removed. In fact, all activity on the front seems to have ceased over a week ago. Scanlation group chatter via Twitter indicates they have the same experience, despite direct contact with AnimeA admin, their efforts remain up on site.

Licensed manga such as this DMP title remain up at AnimeA

Having exchanged a PM with one of the AnimeA forum mods, I was interested to discover that top Google ranked scanlation and streaming manga site is ran as a hobby by a single person who works a normal day job. And, it is only this guy who has the ability to go in and remove the titles. His forum mods can only moderate posts on the forum, and he has no other helpers to help clean the manga and animé titles off site when requested to do so. This seems madness. Surely it would have been better to leave the manga portion offline until all licensed titles had been cleaned off, and to not give access to assistance is also head scratching given the size of the database. As the site owner only deals with the site when he has spare time from his job and personal life, his hobby not being of great overwhelming importance. In this case, however, it should be. With the threat of imminent legal action, he is a sitting duck, and if he is imprisoned for piracy, his job and current personal life will be pretty moot points.

Then there is OneManga’s attitude to it all. They removed all of Digital Manga’s goods as well as Aurora’s, but that seems to be more because of the mature and explicit manga ban Google Ad Sense handed out than the cease and desist requests. Viz’ request has been blatantly ignored, with Bleach and Naruto happily flying at the top of their most read list. They do seem to have SOME concern though that their top Google ranking may cost them in the coalition stakes, but have come up with a not so novel way of trying to duck and cover for that: making a secondary site! Yes, OneManga has become a fraternal twin, and the much lower Google ranked sibling’s name is 1000Manga. They seem to think that the fact that 1000Manga doesn’t appear in the Google top 30 is the cure to their troubles should OneManga be forcibly closed down, seemingly unaware that people other than their supporters do read site forums, and that they are not talked about just on their own. I did not have to even dig to find 1000manga; one scanlation fan upset at MangaFox’s take down of titles linked to the site on MangaFox’s own forums before getting the smack down and the post removed. And if I found it, I guarantee that coalition members and other publishers will too and the arrogant defiance displayed by this site’s existence will not be a source of mirth.

With all these differing attitudes in mind, I wonder what the next step will be? Publishers going on the forums directly with their cease and desists to publicly prod their prey? Or a simple bang on the door as warrants are served?

Bleach and other Viz titles remain up at OneManga

Mangageddon- Meet the Scanlators

While researching my article on aggregator sites, I came into contact via Twitter and various forums several members of scanlation groups who had something to say on the matter of the current Mangageddon. Now scanlators are nothing new, but what began in the 1970′s as a few otaku who shared work in small circles blossomed thanks to the internet into groups small and large with members across the globe. Scanlators come in two flavours.

The first type is the fan who scanlate only unlicensed works, often choosing obscure titles or unknown mangaka, in a desire to publicise their works. They
don’t share outside of their circle knowingly, and voluntarily desist when a work becomes licensed, or if asked to by the copyright holder. They often buy the manga they are going to scanlate, or get scans directly from someone who has. While this remains piracy, it does not, at the moment, seem to be the current focus of the publishers working together against scanlation sites.

One such popular Boy’s Love scanlation group agreed to a Q and A to introduce themselves, and their thoughts, on the current events facing the manga world in regards to the action against
scanlation.

1. What got you into scanlating, and what are the motivations and goals of your group?

What got me personally into scanlating was computer graphics work and being a art major for most of my young adult life. I loved American comics but when I stumbled upon Japanese manga, it opened my eyes to an entirely new world that was pretty much uncensored and more fantastic than American comics (different). When I became the head of the group, my main goal was to continue the original intent of the founders to push out [un]known mangaka as much as possible in the most artistic and accurate way possible and we do this out of respect no matter how others might view it.

2. You scanlate some explicit stuff. How does your group go about verifying the
age of members who join to read the works?

Well, we don’t ask for ID or anything but we do ask them upfront before they even get to work on anything, you would be surprised how honest people are when you don’t TELL them the age they should be. We turn away anyone under 18 years of age. I just had to turn away an awesome editor who was only 14 the other day. Believe me, I could use the help!

3. Many works that are unlicensed in English are licensed in other languages, such as German and French. I believe your group only do scanlations into English, but how do you handle people who wish to use your scans to translate into other languages?

We normally turn these requests away because its not like there is just one or two groups in varying languages out there. There is probably quite a few of each and it becomes a hassle to keep track of who is using what. Right now we only work with about two other language groups for scan donation exchange. It’s a great way to make friends though don’t get me wrong, its just a lot of work.

4. How do you source the manga you scanlate? Once you have found a manga and begin to scanlate it, how do you source your scan material?

If you mean how do we hand out the work, we normally will look over the manga and see what kind of genre it is [silly, fun, serious, smut] and choose a translator who fits or enjoys that type of manga, then the translation is proofed and then passed along to an editor and then we go through a two quality control [QC] stages where revisions are made and then the manga chapter is released.

5.What do they think about the current Mangageddon crisis with the aggregators?

Tite Kubo, mangaka (Bleach)

I don’t condone sites that take our work and get paid off of it. Because they are getting doubly paid by both the mangaka’s sweat and our sweat. And they did nothing to earn that money. If we don’t get paid, why should they? So I think it’s the right thing to do. But as a scanlator who can only focus on providing joy to the non-Japanese speaking masses, I don’t see myself as a “criminal or scum or slime or the lowest of the low” as we are known to be depicted by some because if I am working on unlicensed work that people apparently don’t seem to care enough about to publish and I DID purchase it with my own money or received from a generous scanner from their manga collections, then I should be able to express this intent. The day something reasonable comes along that makes me perk up and want to join a group like DMP [although I think they are living in la-la land currently with their ideas towards yaoi scanlators], I will be all for it or just stop scanlating.

6. Your group has a no share outside the group policy, yet I believe your efforts were recently found on a few aggregator sites, such as AnimeA and MangaFox. Uploads on these sites are done by users who read manga on site. How did your group feel about this, and what happens to embers who are found sharing the manga on sites like this?

We felt scammed and we felt highly agitated because if our work is up there, it indicates our approval and it could lead to some high-brow thinking we are making money off of our non-profit scanlation efforts and that’s just unacceptable.
We don’t know who uploads these items to these types of websites so it’s a needle in a haystack – they are definitely members of that community not ours.

7. Would you work with a publisher on a co-operative basis such as the one DMP suggested if actual projects and terms were laid out on the table openly, and you saw a title or mangaka you were interested in?

Like I say above, I would but it would have to be realistic pay wise. Lots of people still find the yaoi genre “icky” and they are infantile in their opinions on what homosexual love is which is just that: LOVE. DMP would be hard pressed to find sufficient titles that would titillate the ever evolving interest of the female mind when it comes to yaoi manga and still remain mainstream to their other readers. Sure there is loyal fan base but we are still a rare breed indeed.

BL Mangaka Makoto Tateno

8. What do you say to fans who say they want file shared manga, both scanlation efforts as well as scanned uploads of copyrighted English language, to continue large scale because they can’t afford to buy all the manga they want, don’t like some of the translations they see, etc.?

I say grow up and get a damn job, then. All of us who volunteer and do this work for them to enjoy have real lives, families, and JOBS. We know what it takes to make it all work and apparently anyone who can’t take the five minutes to just go to the source for a free download or purchase a $3 manga tanko on sale causes me to lose brain cells.

9. What titles are you looking forward to publishers releasing this year in English, and intend to buy as a must have?

Maiden Rose, Underground Hotel, and a few others. To be honest, I edit so much it can leave little room for reading but when I take a break on go on a all-out manga buying spree ^^ I am still waiting for more volumes of the The Summit…its holdbacks like this one that makes me very upset at the publishers punishing us when they cannot keep on track licensed titles they say they are going to publish. Also Man of Tango pre-orders have disappeared, that was another I was looking forward to this year.
10. Anything else you would like to say?
Just thank you so much for staying on top of all of this news wise for us out there. Its hard enough being in the middle of it!

While operational practices of groups like this may raise eyebrows and cause dismay in many quarters, the distress levels to the publishing world and fans is nothing compared to when they come across works by the second type of scanlator. This is the fan who feels they are owed a quicker turnaround than English language publishers are providing for a licensed series, or misguidedly think they are providing a public service. Often, they believe people will will go out in droves and buy the licensed work while their freebie exists in the wild, usually happily shared with permission on aggregator sites like MangaFox, AnimeA, OneManga, and others.

Take for example, the scanlation group Harudaki. Vertical recently acquired the license for Chi’s Sweet Home, the cute tale of an abandoned kitten finding its happily ever home with a family, and the adventures they share.

Unlike groups such as I previously mentioned, Harudaki is of the second sort; they acknowledge freely the title is licensed, but continue scanlating and uploading chapters to the web, including outlets such
as MangaFox, wher today they uploaded yet another chapter. Nor is it a case that the group merely REALLY REALLY REALLY lemon squeezy loves this one manga, and simply can’t wait to see what happens next, as looking at their recent entries, one can see they have advertised they will be picking up Viewfinder and knowingly scanlate other licensed titles in current print production, such as Kitty Media’s Crimson Spell , and DramaQueen’s Audition.

Other groups do the same thing, though they can have the mistaken idea that if a title has been licensed, it only holds for volumes announced for publication and near release, say, volumes 1 and 2, so they will take down those links, but continue scanlating the rest of the series. One recent case that I came across Digital Manga’s own forums , and that is still continuing with an update during the past week , is the continued scanlation and distribution of their property Maiden Rose . This is not as objectionable though as the persons who knowingly scan actual printed editions of translated into English manga and light novels and upload them wholesale onto sites such as MangaFox and Manga Reader who do not police this sort of thing at all. For popular manga such as Junjou Romantica, the turnaround from Japanese to English is not that long, and aggregator sites will host scanlated recent chapters nestled next to actual book scans from the publisher.

Scanlation is a many headed hydra that the publishing industry will have to reckon with.

With its many faces, from the relatively benign to the outright bootlegger of already translated and published licensed material, it is obvious the source of the aggregator sites material is many, and all with different goals. How they deal with each remains to be seen, but it is fairly obvious that the solution will not be a one size fits all.

Meet the Aggregators part 1- MangaFox

Manga fans offering to share manga to read online for free? How sweet of them! Aside from the part whereby the creators and publisher’s don’t get their money for all their hard work that is. Aside from that though, just who are these people? Well, let’s look at Mangafox. Let’s take a peek from the bottom up.

At the bottom, we have the readership. These people not only can read the manga, but upload it. A few may be actual scanlators, but by and large they are folks who leech manga from scanlation groups with strict sharing policies, and upload it up onto sites like Mangafox without permission. Often these same users will scan actual English language editions, and upload them entire, complete with the publisher’s copyright notice. The current trend is that scanlation groups, spurred on perhaps by the recent crackdown towards scanlation aggregator sites, are requesting their manga scanlations removed and for their groups works to be placed on a banned list. This is not foolproof however, as OEL (original English language manga) is on the banned list, no matter the origin, yet, Tokyopop’s OEL Vampire Kisses was requested, added, and uploaded, with the latest update within the past week.

Requested

http://forums.mangafox.com/showthread.php?t=132976&highlight=vampire+kisses

Uploaded

http://www.mangafox.com/manga/vampire_kisses/

No doubt this is to help generate ever more income; why remove it when it is ranks as the 18^th most read manga on the site, with over 202,000 readers a month?

In addition, Sunday, MangaFox put back up the mature genre (one wonders if anything gave them a prod?!). This was done without prior notice to the volunteers who run the site, and seems to have been done hurriedly, as it literally restored ALL previously supposedly removed manga, including works removed at scanlator requests well over two years ago. Volunteers scrambled to re-take those down as angry scanlators returned asking for their releases to be removed. It should be noted that the mature manga still carries an 18+ warning, but the only age verification required is a simple registration that allows you to enter whatever birth date you please to get past the censoring. No surprise then, that the forums flooded with readers thanking MF, many admitting their underageness and gushing how they could now read their sexually explicit materials online, as they were too young buy it in stores, or could otherwise not access it due to age restrictions in place at other reading outlets. It seems that Mangafox are interested more in reading numbers than international child safety laws. Additionally, their forum announcement by Noez staffer Firefly-Lynn tells readers that they do this for the fans, at the cost of losing Google ads, yet Google ads are clearly running across the site. Seems like they are posturing, as they certainly have not resigned themselves from the Google Adsense program and removed the banners that are generating their income.

So, just who are the staff overseeing all this? A visit to the forums reveals it is all ran by volunteers, and if you follow the links, you get a lengthy list of the staff, volunteers and otherwise. Most have “retired”. I spoke to two staffers, 1 now retired, and the other still active, and got a clear picture of the current state of how Mangafox is ran. Mangafox recruit volunteers from their readership base. Most are young, several still in high school. In fact, the quality control team includes high school students, which raises an eyebrow. Firstly, they are young and being given mature manga, including sexually explicit containing materials, to deal with. These are materials that it would be illegal for them to go buy, never mind help distribute. Secondly, they are not experienced in business and do not have a responsible adult on hand to oversee any liabilities. These volunteers are the one who authorise a manga’s upload, facilitating the readers to add the files. Occasionally, they do the upload themselves. They seem completely aware of the legal position this puts them in personally in regards to international anti-piracy laws.

In fact, one former stafer tells me that parent company Noez only appears once in a great while, without notice, usually to fix an issue with the site, such as a crash. However, Noez staff are the ONLY ones who can actually completely remove a manga once uploaded to the site. Volunteer admin can lock it, but purging must be done by Noez staff only, following an April Fool’s prank by volunteer staff. Volunteers can hide it, and flag it, but Noez have to remove it. But just who are Noez? Chatter on Mangafox says they are a China based company, thanks to the website that the former staffer alleges is fake, Noez Works , which shows “Jacky and Brandon” as being located in Zhejiang, China. It looks like manga is not the only thing they are trying to hide , such as the fact being that their servers are actually located in the US.

click here to view full size

Following on the DNS report’s information about the domain registration, I found that apparently Mangafox was not  actually (only) in China either. It not only has the two servers that are located in the United States, but the domain is registered to an American company also known as Noez Works, with offices at 1133 Broadway, New York, sharing a suite that when Googled, yields the information that it is used by a large variety of internet marketing firms, including Noez’ anime related business AnimeEden (which gives this address as the place to send membership fees (including carefully concealed cash as a method of payment). The contact information is given as one Jacky Yung, with a NYC telephone number. This may well be merely the US office of a China based company, but with business operations, including server activity, on US soil, this probably puts Mangafox on the line in regards to US anti-piracy actions. American publishers won’t have to rely on international law enforcement to shut down operations, with the servers literally within grasp of US authorities. With the worldwide ire from manga publishers, scanlator groups, and fans who support the industry legitimately, all that remains to be seen is how long will it be before the servers fall silent and the money from the pirated manga and anime starts channelling back towards its rightful recipients? I don’t know, but I can tell you that I don’t think it would be smart to follow the investment opportunity the NoezWorks company page is asking people to partake in any time soon.

UPDATE Scanlators who requested their projects removed are up in arms over Mangafox’s offhand disregard in how they handle removals. One scanlator group was surprised to begin receiving requests for information on a series’ licensing, when it is NOT yet licensed for English language distribution. Further investigation revealed that Mangafox was once more merely hiding the series, and that they could be accessed easily enough despite  the manga titles’ homepages having a message up saying it had been removed because of licensing, further fanning the flames. Fans and scanlators are  upset, asking for accurate information to be posted as to reason for removal, and for the removal to be complete, as the information provided  leads to fruitless searching for volumes to purchase, which do not exist, with the scanlators facing fan ire over it, not to mention canny readers finding how to read the hidden files.

Shell Game Manga

Earlier this month the otaku world was roiling with the news about a new Japanese and American manga publisher coalition dedicated to stopping mass illegal distribution of their copyrighted properties. Shortly after the news broke, participants Tokyopop and Viz Media began tweeting and issuing press statements on their own about it, sending out a frenzy amongst the manga reading populace. Then earlier this week, manga began to disappear from several of the large aggregator sites, such as MangaFox and AnimeA. Or did it?

This seems a bit familiar doesn’t it? A mere month before this latest “crisis”, there was another “take down the manga” “emergency” that sent MangaFox and One Manga, amongst others, into a tizzy. While these sites are free to the reader, they generate millions of dollars a year in profits by making use of Google Adsense. A manga and animé blogger happened to notice that several titles being shared broke the TOS for Google Adsense, tipped them off about it, and then blogged about it. The issue? Google Adsense does not permit sites with mature material, nor with materials that may be considered pornography by local community standards, to participate in the Google Adsense program. So anything not strictly PG-13 simply had to go. Off went the yaoi, the mature seinen and josei stuff with any gore, nudity, depictions of illegal activity, etc., the yuri, shotacon, lolicon, and anything that was mislabelled as such by the article and  that Google decided to name specifically for removal. Or so it appeared.

A visit to MangaFox’s community forums will reassure the Google “police” that yaoi is indeed not permitted, to the weeping and wailing of a thousand fan girls (and boys). But a trip through one’s bookmarked manga or a title search will reveal differently. If you know the title, or had one bookmarked, unless it had shota, it just may be there for you to read. Pull up just one yaoi title, and behold the yaoi and mature tags are there, clickable. Click the yaoi tag and 14 pages of still available graphically explicit, and occasionally licensed, titles will appear. Why? Perhaps this gem from the MangaFox forums will explain, but hurry, they have it in the Incinerator area where the evidence will disappear soon. So why would they take such a risk? Well, yaoi and yuri are popular genres, and popular genres with popular titles means lots and lots and lots of readers. Readers who generate that ad revenue. One title, the licensed yaoi title Junjo Romantica, actually ranks in MangaFox’s top 30 most read titles across the site, pulling in at number 27 this month. This translates into site stats of 15,776 monthly views or reads, which are unique. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this means they get a nice return ad revenue wise with stats like this.

It also doesn’t take a genius to realise just why a coalition got formed, with stats like this repeated over and over across more than thirty aggregator sites, and for hundreds of titles. Say ten percent of those 15,776 readers go out and buy what they read for free. That would be 1,577 copies. Now say it was not available online, so 20% more people went and bought it, who otherwise would have read it for free. That’s another 3,014 copies, and is a rather conservative estimate, and for just one title, counting stats for only one site. Copies that would finance the publishers so that they could publish more books, pay for new licenses, and so that the mangaka could buy food and pay their rent. True, loads of fans are screaming that there is a recession on. Most of them are students, with a large majority seemingly in middle and high school. Without jobs of their own, they depend on family for pocket money, which during a recession is not so freely available. Many of these kids have been hit by the sub-prime financial crisis, and can’t see the bigger picture beyond their family’s personal finances, often because their friends and a few other family members have also been hit by it. Yes, the sub-prime fiasco caused a recession, but it was one that closed a lot of banks that had made bad financial decisions, and the individuals and businesses who could not pay what they had borrowed. A look at any reputable news source will show that economic recovery has been steady, with the businesses and individuals who already had sound financial standing doing well.

These people cut back on their outgoings, true, as they DID and still DO, feel the pinch, as the recession is not quite over. No more expense account lunches at high end restaurants, folks. And less going to the cinema and more buying DVDS and watching film channels at home. Other at home entertainment has been booming too. Amazon has seen an increase in sales in books and music, so why has the manga industry in particular seen a 30% drop over a three year period? Some is no doubt due to the recession, but the biggest source of customer haemorrhage has been the birth of the aggregator sites during this time.

Aggregators cause a lot of problems for publishers. Many argue that they are not customers because manga is not easily sourced in their home town or even within their country. This is actually a problem compounded by aggregator sites. The demand for the goods is there, but instead of it being made at points of sale so that distribution occurs, the readers are running off to read for free. One young fan in the USA says his home town has a book store that simply does not stock animé and manga, yet his local high school has a thriving animé and manga club. One has to ponder that if this is so, why the club does not approach said local book store or other retail selling outlet that stocks books, and ask them to get it in. One customer is not compelling, but a large group of steady customers is. The same can be said of anywhere, as long as what you want to read is legal where you live. And let’s not forget Amazon and Barnes and Noble, Forbidden Planet, and other secure online retailers who stock nearly every title currently in print by American manga publishers, large and small.

Nor are print copies the only option. Many bemoan the fact that manga publishers don’t do digital distribution, for download or to read online. True, some like Viz mainly offer online samples, but others such as Netcomics and Digital Manga Publishing offer an online reading service for many of their popular titles, in a variety of genres. As for downloadable content, DMP and Yaoi Press are two who offer Kindle and/or pdf editions of their books, which can be read on e-readers or the PC, I phone, or Blackberry using free applications. Other titles can be downloaded via the X box legally, and DMP offer vampire Hunter D via the PSP, which as more manga becoming available. The cost of renting the titles online is extremely inexpensive, and buying the official downloadable book is cheaper than a paper copy as well, with the added benefit that the online reading sites are open to international users, and the downloadable books usually are as well. Crying one doesn’t have a card, is under-age to buy what they want, or don’t have the money for something is no excuse to steal. No one will die without manga, but the manga industry WILL die without customers. No money, no manga. Quite literally, as without pay, mangaka have no reason to pursue their profession, as they have to meet living expenses too, nor can publishing staff and book store staff receive payment for services. Using an aggregator site to read licensed manga is like going to the store, getting a tank of petrol, and driving off without paying for it because you want to hang out at the mall and don’t have the money to pay for the gas. It’s theft, pure and simple, and not a victimless crime, nor one you can blame somebody else for. It’s a crime that the aggregators perpetuate because people come to participate and they rake in millions they don’t have to pay out to staff (they use volunteers), publishers, mangaka, or to the scanlators and up-loaders.

Given all this, it is no surprise then that supposedly removed manga is actually still there, s after all, content=revenue for these folks. MangaFox is not alone in trying the shell game, either. AnimeA have game on as well. Visit their site, click on a manga title they have supposedly removed, (all Viz so far, just like MangaFox) and up comes a message that it is licensed and you have to buy it. But if you have a page bookmarked, or come via a search engine, and click on a listed  numbered chapter of (name of removed manga), guess what? Yes, it is there, just hidden and inaccessible from the main page in an attempt to appear compliant. In fact, AnimeA also have up a plea to users of the site to help them identify licensed titles. You do so by clicking “yes this is licensed” or “no, it is not licensed”. Guess what? Reported titles are still up. One major scanlator group leader mentioned that she emailed the site several days ago notifying them of titles they had to remove, and not only did not receive a reply, but the manga is till there. A look at the forums and a chat with other manga fans show this is not an isolated incident. I myself three days ago reported well over 80 titles, and they are still up. I tried the email thing as well. I also got no response. It begs the question as to how serious they are about removing manga they are not supposed to have. One thing is for certain. What appears to be gone, may or may not be, but what is going to happen next about it?

UPDATE: After this spread across the blogosphere , ANIMEA  removed access to the previously hidden Viz titles. However, licensed titles from Digital Manga, Tokyopop and others remain up, though this admin post seems to indicate at last, they are coming down forever. Hopefully.