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ikillchicken
Joined: 12 Feb 2007
Posts: 7272
Location: Vancouver
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 2:57 am
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Kohii wrote: | I'm pretty sure they'll be in English
Quote: | Japanese Publishers Launch N. American Manga Portal |
They wouldn't launch a North American manga portal for people to read it in, say... french! |
North American =/= American. Canada does actually have a large French speaking population and Mexico is predominately Spanish speaking.
I agree that this will presumably be available in English, English being the most common language spoken in North America, but scoffing at the mere possibility of other languages is more than a little ignorant.
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demonspawn0809
Joined: 22 Aug 2009
Posts: 1
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 2:58 am
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Jaymie wrote: | And now Scanlators have lost all of their justification. They may still use the "SCANLATIONS ARE FAST ZOMG" excuse, but it sounds like a lot of unlicensed Japanese series will be available at our fingertips in the near future.
I wonder if it will be English-language? If not... |
Not really, there will always be unlicensed manga out there :/
In fact there excuse is mainly a lack of availability/licensing. You can't steal a market when it doesn't exist.
But I hope they don't just pick the "Popular" manga's as there are quite a few out there that aren't very popular but still have extremely good stories and characters.
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Jure
Joined: 11 Jun 2009
Posts: 50
Location: Croatia
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 3:00 am
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tenebrusmke79 wrote: | Highly unlikely. It says North American Manga portal. The publishers would have to do an international type manga portal if you want to read them. |
Sailor S wrote: | I don't see why it would be. It's a North American portal. That pretty much sums up the distribution region. That's not to say that they won't open portals elsewhere, but the particular one they're referring to here I would have to figure is only available to the North American market. |
Well... shit.
Thanks for clearing it up guys. Even if they do open portals elsweres I am pretty sure it would take them many years to finally reach where I am. Back to buying overpriced paperbacks that are even more expensive because of shipping and sometimes damaged because of customs.
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Lady Multi
Joined: 11 Dec 2004
Posts: 675
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 3:18 am
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Oh? They have my attention; lets see how it goes. I still want my printed copies, though; I like to stare at the book as staring too long at a screen will hurt meh eyes.
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Emerje
Joined: 10 Aug 2002
Posts: 7390
Location: Maine
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 3:31 am
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Really excited about this. Definitely sounds like a service I'll be willing to pay for. Just hope they use a flat rate and not a per-volume/per-chapter price. Looking forward to more details!
Jaymie wrote: | And now Scanlators have lost all of their justification. They may still use the "SCANLATIONS ARE FAST ZOMG" excuse, but it sounds like a lot of unlicensed Japanese series will be available at our fingertips in the near future. |
They'll also have the "This is a North American website so we're catering to people outside of North America with out scans, but we won't actually stop anyone from adding to our hits" excuse. We already see that excuse used with Crunchyroll by fansubbers. We also see the argument that Crunchyroll doesn't license titles so it's OK to distribute fansubs of their title, an argument I'm sure we'll see used here as well no matter how weak.
Kohii wrote: | Wow. Very interesting. I wonder how this will affect English publishers. Less licenses for them, probably? |
Unless they plan on publishing as well it shouldn't effect them. If anything it might make for a good gage for publishers to pick their next titles. It's not like CR titles don't get licensed by Sentai and FUNi. Not to mention not everyone likes to read on their computers.
Jure wrote: | Um... I am not really a fan of digital manga but I still want to know if this is going to be available outside North America? |
Even though this is going to be a NA website don't get your hopes down. Crunchyroll (boy are they a convenient example) is a North American website, but they frequently make their videos available to different parts of the world.
Emerje
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Sunday Silence
Joined: 22 Jun 2010
Posts: 2047
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 3:34 am
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I'm gonna hold reservation until I see a complete list of what they are gonna offer, what the price is, and if it's gonna be laced with enough DRM bull that it'll make the FBI look like the creepy looking kid that would stalk a girl in high school.
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Tenchi
Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 4503
Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer.
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 4:01 am
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As a manga-on-paper-reader, I have no intention of using it, but, just so long as it doesn't affect the chances of any given title being printed in English, this portal is a positive thing.
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Kohii
Joined: 12 Nov 2010
Posts: 428
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 4:55 am
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ikillchicken wrote: |
North American =/= American. Canada does actually have a large French speaking population and Mexico is predominately Spanish speaking.
I agree that this will presumably be available in English, English being the most common language spoken in North America, but scoffing at the mere possibility of other languages is more than a little ignorant. |
I chose "french" as a random language. I could've just easily said "romanian". I do admit that I didn't think of the french-speaking population in Canada. My mistake
Also
Emerje wrote: | Unless they plan on publishing as well it shouldn't effect them. If anything it might make for a good gage for publishers to pick their next titles. It's not like CR titles don't get licensed by Sentai and FUNi. Not to mention not everyone likes to read on their computers. |
Hadn't thought of that. And now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense. I love reading my manga on paper. I buy a lot of manga every year, too. This will help me decide which mangas are worth buying.
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loka
Joined: 05 Nov 2006
Posts: 373
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 5:09 am
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demonspawn0809 wrote: | But I hope they don't just pick the "Popular" manga's as there are quite a few out there that aren't very popular but still have extremely good stories and characters. |
I fear this as well. They would have to put an unlikely amount of manpower behind translating their catalogs. If they cherry-pick the titles, expect bemusement of the scanlation readers.
If they will only be translating chapters that the company publishes moving forward, I can see everything getting the treatment. But then, people will still need scanlations to even get started/interested in a series.
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Melanchthon
Joined: 02 Oct 2010
Posts: 550
Location: Northwest from Here
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 5:15 am
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This is the best news I've heard all day. Albeit, it is three AM, but still. I really, really hope that this works out, since if it does, I might be finally able to get some of the more obscure mangas I want without resorting to drastic steps like translating the damn thing myself. (I wouldn't trust scanalators to translate themselves out of a paper bag).
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NormalMar
Joined: 14 Mar 2010
Posts: 6
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 5:58 am
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This news has me excited. I can't wait to hear more about it.
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Divineking
Joined: 03 Jul 2010
Posts: 1296
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 6:56 am
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Umm...yay?
This is AWESOME!!! Now I'll be counting down the days till' March. I don't care how much it'll cost(there'll likely be a fee), I'll gladly pay it.
I wonder if Shuesha will include some of the manga not running in North America yet like Medaka Box or Enigma. That'd be cool, and an interesting way to gauge if they should be released here.
Also I wouldn't worry about those not in North America. I'm pretty sure they'll expand it over time if it does well enough.
Guess it's time to spread the word!!
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Rij
Joined: 24 Jun 2009
Posts: 27
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 7:03 am
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Viz's (free) online reading sites are global. Amazon sells kindle e-books both globally and locally, no idea what the percentages are. FUNImation is region-locked. Crunchyroll has both region-locked and more widely available licenses. YENpress magazine is available globally. As far as I'm aware eManga is globally available.
So basically it's more likely for the portal to be globally available, or at least available in most first world countries. They'd be needlessly limiting their potential customer base if it wasn't. France is a huge market for manga, Germany's market is sizeable too. Not to mention that Britain is pretty much part of the same market area as USA as far as manga is concerned. There's no specifically British manga publishers as there are book publishers.
But maybe I'm just indulging in wishful thinking. I'm in Finland and will be so out of luck if this is indeed strictly a North American portal.
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asimpson2006
Joined: 13 May 2008
Posts: 3151
Location: USA
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 7:46 am
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This interests me greatly. I would like to see more stuff get an online release, though I do some concern about how paying to use the site will work. I hope it's a monthly flat rate, but I guess we will find out soon enough.
This is the second best news all day, with the first being today the first day I get full pay checks again in almost 5 months.
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Cutiebunny
Joined: 18 Apr 2010
Posts: 1766
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 7:57 am
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Scanlation sites aren't going anywhere.
I'm assuming that this site will charge to read manga. Even if the charge were $.01 per year, people will not pay. The concept of getting stuff for free with the current generation is so prevalent that asking for money for goods or services doesn't work.
(Or, in the case of iTunes, won't let you BUY a Japanese song because you're not living in that region. Sorry, but my personal gripe of the day. I want to give the company my money and they don't want it....)
It hasn't worked from Crunchyroll, who, if they were really making a serious profit, would have reported that by now.
Additionally, unless this site can put up new chapters within 24-48 hours of their initial release in Japan (which scanlation sites typically do with most popular titles), then, the need for scanlation sites will still exist.
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