Forum - View topicNEWS: Report: Japan Bought 331% More Books on Phones in 2006
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Vantos
 Posts: 102 |
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I'm skeptical of the e-book format. It feels like a cruel joke --- a book that requires batteries and an expensive device to read. Sure, physical books, in their own way, require batteries too (at night), but at least you could read for part of the day without them. E-books need them all the time.
Also, the publisher can impose too many restrictions on individual works, and formats can change in a few years, making books distributed now unreadable in 10 years. Plus, what if the device breaks? There go all my books --- and because of piracy worries, the publisher certainly won't let me make backup copies, which means I have to purchase them all over again. Then there's the possibility of format wars. Like I said, a cruel joke. Call me a traditionalist dinosaur, but I don't like this "e-book" thing at all. I'm sticking with my physical books and my physical manga. I don't want reading to become another activity that requires a person to be at the whim of some electronic device and some foolish licensing permission scheme. |
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aluria
 Posts: 367 Location: New Westminster, B.C., Canada |
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While I'm all for technology, I'd have to agree with Vantos, e-books are just wrong. How are you suppose to appreciate the artwork on a cellphone screen?
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roujin
 Posts: 139 |
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Don't the cellphones in Japan have much bigger screens than the ones in America? That might explain why this sort of thing has caught on more over there.
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Vantos
Posts: 102 |
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But it's not resolution that bugs me, it's expensive reading devices, DRM, and obsolescence. There's no value added, in my opinion. Sure, it saves space and paper, but I want to be able to give away books I no longer want so somebody else can enjoy them, rather than delete them. If this e-manga thing becomes a habit, importing can also be harder. Can you say "region lockout" for manga? While printed Japanese manga already have region lockout (the Japanese language), it is not the same as being totally unable to purchase such a book. |
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tasogarenootome
 Posts: 593 |
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All sound like valid concerns, but I don't think you have to worry. The market for these ebooks/manga seem too different in Japan than in the west. Their cellphones seem to be a higher standard than ours. Hell, I got a 1yen cell phone with my AU plan that took pics with far better resolution than my 90 dollar Verizon one does now. Look at works such as the Deep Love novels that actually debuted on cell phones. The market there is better set for this sort of thing, but it'd be hard for me to buy the idea of a total switchover to digital manga and books. Though the concern of how quickly software and hardware can become obsolete and what that would mean for certain formats does worry me. And I think there will always be people who read better in bound print than on a sceen. |
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BlaqNumbr9
 Posts: 155 Location: Bowing before the Master... |
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Have any US manga companies begun using this technology? If so, which ones?
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kokuryu
 Posts: 915 |
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Many many years ago I though "this is a neat idea", but now many many years later, after using eBooks, I hate them with a passion. Give me a physical book any day. You need to use a full blown computer to read them properly - the smaller devices are just too small or too clunky, and you cant see all the graphics at all, only little pieces of them at a time.
There was a great concept device once shown that had a nice flexible membrane screen and easy to use forward/back/chapter skip buttons on it that I thought would have been the ultimate eBook reader - but it never got made. Until they make an electronic item similar to an actual book in general feel, handling and ability, eBooks are not for me. As for storage, since SD cards have sorta become the defacto standard, I could easily see having a box with 10,000 SD cards in there, each with an eBook, or 10,000 on them. |
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KAtchan15
 Posts: 460 Location: NYC |
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Unless you have a sidekick or a phone that has a big screen, you can't really read manga through your phone.
It'd be really cool to read Mayu Shinjo's works through my cell phone though. |
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hagakure|returns
Posts: 407 |
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This is the reason why actual physical manga sale has gone down in recent years. People used to read manga in the train while going to work or school all the time. Now a days, people on the train rather read manga off their cell phone, it's more convenient and I'm sure it's very cheap as well.
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