Forum - View topicManga Answerman - Why Isn't All My Favorite Manga Available Digitally?
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xchampion
 Posts: 370 Location: Idaho Falls, Idaho |
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You should probably mention some of the links like Fakku and Project H are NSFW.
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LegitPancake
 Posts: 1311 Location: Texas, USA |
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Vertical is another publisher that I would like more digital editions for their titles. They are publishing a light novel later this month titled The Dark Maidens, and it will be both in print and digital, which they don’t do very often. Still would like Yen Press to publish all their titles digitally, like Oregairu, but I think that’s on the Japanese publishers.
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Princess_Irene
ANN Associate Editor
 Posts: 2659 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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It's tangentially worth mentioning that French manga publishers have made some of their titles digitally available on Comixology and Amazon, generally for a limited amount of time. (They seem to stick around longer on Comixology.)
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FireChick
 Subscriber Posts: 2500 Location: United States |
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Oh! I wanted to know about this as well! I recently just got a Kindle for my PC, mostly because some books that I want to read but aren't in print are available digitally...and to preserve space on my ever expanding shelves. I did manage to find some manga that I've been dying to buy physical copies of but were out of print and costing a LOT of money. Unfortunately, one series I've been trying to find, Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time, isn't available digitally, and the series has been OOP for a while. Seriously, later volumes cost anywhere between $40-110! I am NOT paying that much for a small manga volume, much less many of them individually! I know Viz Media still has the license, and if they can put From Far Away and Please Save My Earth on Kindle, then I don't see why they can't put Haruka on there as well.
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myskaros
 Posts: 604 Location: J-Novel Club |
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Grammar Nazi time!
Why isn't all my (favorite) manga available (digitally)? (Why) isn't all (my manga) available? Is all not available? All is not available. All are not available. Why aren't all my favorite manga available digitally? Yeah, I'm slacking off at work. |
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katscradle
Posts: 469 |
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Naoko Takeuchi is another artist that doesn’t do digital. I wish I could have copies of Sailor Moon that way since I lost count how many editions I’ve bought over the years. I’m running out of space so I’ve got to be very particular about what I buy in print. But there is a new English edition coming out again.
I really like eBooks even for comics, though there are some exceptions. But, it’s hard with all the restrictions so my print volumes still vastly outnumber. The article didn’t take into account the platform content restrictions which can be difficult to navigate thanks to vague TOS. Some retailers reject certain titles digitally or pull them off their service without notice. So the digital version does exist the customer just may not be able to get it. I actually ditched my Kindle over how frustrating it was and the way Amazon treated creators and publishers. Plus some publishers seem to be bad about marketing. Some titles lack promotion. Even if things go well I sometimes never know until release that digital rights were licensed at all. It may only be sold by certain retailers, or delayed at a retailer because some problem crops up. Yet, publishers encourage people to pre-order early. Sales can go the same way. Things aren't worked out between everybody. I’ve lost access to titles I’ve bought digitally before too or, they’re spread across multiple apps so I forget. It’s also really sucks when a company gets digital rights but, doesn’t have a physical side at all. Then another publisher has to factor that into the equation when looking at if they want to try to license the title for print. And yes the piracy thing. It very disheartening that digital has next to no value for people in part because stuff is just uploaded nearly right away. So more than just a greater number of digital versions available I want it to be easier to buy them. If it is easier maybe more people will make purchases. Then maybe there will be more eBooks or print editions for people that want them. |
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Calico
Posts: 383 |
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I've been wondering about this question for a while, especially in cases where there's a difference between the English and Japanese side of things. Take Aya Kanno's Requiem of the Rose King. It's not available digitally in English despite being available digitally in Japan, so it's not one of those cases where the author just dislikes digital in general. I guess it's a case where the rights were sold separately? I don't know. What makes a series not worth getting the digital rights for?
Even if I'd rather go physical than digital, it's still reassuring to know that digital versions exist if a series ever goes out of print. |
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tojikomori
 Posts: 71 Location: Minnesota |
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Another factor: publishers also have to choose which digital distribution channels to invest in. I’m a Kobo user, and can buy volumes published by Viz, Yen Press, and some others, directly from the Kobo store, but not Seven Seas. Seven Seas produces digital manga for Nook and Kindle, but they don’t for Kobo. Kobo’s format support usually helps me out in these situations, but Kindle and Nook both use closed or proprietary DRM solutions.
I can imagine why a smaller publisher like Seven Seas might be reluctant to take on too many digital distribution channels, but effectively they don’t publish digital manga in a format that’s available to me. 
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13626 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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While the Japanese creators and publishers are fine with their manga being digitized, there could licensing laws in a foreign country that doesn't such distribution for that country.
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invalidname
 Contributor Posts: 2487 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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For the digital manga publisher cheat sheet, I’ve actually bought a couple things from eBook Renta (https://www.ebookrenta.com) recently and they’re OK. You can read your rentals or purchases on the web or with an iOS app (probably Android too, didn’t look). Mostly NSFW, and I haven’t looked to see if the originals are small publishers or just webcomics or what.
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kasumicc
Posts: 26 |
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Seven Seas' titles seem to suffer a lot with lack of digital distribution. It frustrates me that the English versions of both Angel Beats! Heaven's Door and Tales of Zestiria are print-only, even though AH is actually digitally available in Japan. When I asked Bookwalker about it, they implied that there's not much they can do; had they been available in a different platform, Bookwalker could push for them. Since they're not available anywhere, Bookwalker, being a distribution platform, really can't do much about it. You would think that because of being owned by Kadokawa, they would have more control on distribution of Kadokawa properties.
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7584 Location: Wales |
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IIRC the Angel Beats one was available in the Comic Walker (or similar) app, but they only published a small amount of it. It’s not available on Bookwalker (outside Japan) even in Japanese.
—edit— Still there on the site. Three whole chapters! https://comic-walker.com/contents/detail/KDCW_AM08000003020000_68/ |
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Mr. sickVisionz
 Posts: 2175 |
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I'd wager that in the US side of things 1. Selling a digital copy may bring in less money than selling a physical copy so a company might just prefer to get another physical license for another series rather than put those funds into a less profitable license of a series (the digital one) they've already licensed physically. 2. If #1 is true, there could be fear over what % of physical buyers will transition to a less profitable digital version of the series. Do they just love physical books and will buy these releases no matter what... or did they buy this because it was the only format and they'll switch to a cheaper format if given the opportunity? 3. Cost of acquiring digital rights vs digital sales expectations might not make sense for some titles. 4. Worries that manga has become something you steal for free off the web and there may not be a sizable fanbase that would pay for a digital version that really wasn't any different/better than what the bootleggers are offering.[/list] |
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Fluwm
 Posts: 1061 |
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I’ve actually reached out to some specific publishers about specific titles, and the general response (from the English-language publishers) has been to the effect of, “digital publishing rights are typically sold separately, we’ve tried to get then, were still trying, but Japanese Publisher X just doesn’t see the digital market as important or worthwhile.”
They often say the Japanese publisher doesn’t really understand digital distribution or the ebook market (not surprising given the reputation Japanese companies have for being deeply conservative), and sometimes the case is simply misunderstanding what, exactly, the digital marketplace is. Kadokawa, for example, refuses to sell the digital publication rights for Gundam The Origin to their English publisher because they see the digital market primarily as a means to advertise print media. They distribute the first few volumes of a series on their free ComicWalker mobile app to allow users to try their stuff out, to read for free, to encourage them to go out to the local bookstore and buy hard copies for the rest. And I don’t know, maybe that’s a valid approach for Japan. But it certainly is not for the rest of the world. |
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SHD
Posts: 1759 |
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I read manga in Japanese and fortunately nowadays most of what I'm reading is available digitally even in my region (even though in incredibly annoying proprietary formats that can be ready only on proprietary software... which is why even though I buy the books I usually end up downloading the pirated version anyway, or rip the book myself). So I don't now about print (well, I do, and I have a whole another rant about the Japanese digital manga market, but that is not relevant right now), but it's incredibly frustrating how Japan just does. not. get. digital. when it comes to music and video. Physical media is still the way to go over there, and publishers not only do nothing to encourage moving to digital, they actually keep encouraging people to buy the physical media, with songs released digitally often weeks or months after the physical release, CDs sold with perks and extras that do not carry over to the digital release, etc. And it's incredibly frustrating for someone living abroad - I WANT to buy the content! I WANT to pay for the extra tracks and whatnot! But they're not selling it to me, unless I buy the CD which I won't, partly because I have no space to put them and no way to get rid of them (ebay is more hassle than it's worth), and partly because the shipping/handling fees are insane, at least to my region. There's a single that came out a while ago that I wanted to buy - buying the CD would get me one song and a booklet with an extra very short story (like, 600 characters or so). It would also cost me over 3500 yen, shipping and handling included. 3500 yen for one song and a cute extra. Even if I was a bigger fan of this franchise there's no good excuse for spending so much on so little. So I'm left buying the digital release of the song, months later, without any of the perks that come with the physical release. Hell, some CDs come with drama tracks that are never made available digitally to entice people to keep buying the physical release. Except again, I refuse to pay over double of what is already a premium price for a damn CD only to look at it once, rip the tracks so I can listen to them on my phone, and never look at it again. So I sigh, buy the digital version, and hope that someone pirates the drama tracks. At least, this is what I'd been doing until a week or so ago, when the only service that actually sold me digital Japanese music (considering I'm not in Japan and don't have a debit card issued in Japan, I'm locked out of buying digitally from Amazon/mora/etc.) stopped selling me a bunch of the type of content I usually bought (seiyuu and 2.5D idol stuff) because I'm in the wrong region. And this is the point when I throw up my hands and give up, because here I am, I want to give you my money, and you're not letting me. Yes, I know I could try circumventing the region lock with gift cards and whatnot (even if I can buy the songs I don't know if Amazon would allow me to download them), but considering what I already have to put up with to be able to just buy the damn music, I seriously don't feel that it's worth the effort. I already can't buy the drama tracks; I can't buy the short stories. As much as I want to support the artists, I'm not going to jump through any more hoops to be able to pay for something they clearly don't want me to buy. Seriously, publishers keep whining about piracy and how making something available digitally is opening up to piracy... well, they're just about to lose someone who pays for digital and would have been happy to pay even more for extra content had they made it available digitally. |
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