Forum - View topicManga Answerman - Why Are American Manga Publishers So Coy About Licenses?
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CatSword
 Posts: 1489 |
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This is a good rule of thumb when it comes to any licensing, rather it be manga, anime, LNs, VNs, or broadcasting on Toonami. Chances are, they've thought about the title you're bringing up, and are either looking at it or under some weird circumstance were unable to get it. Don't waste your con question.
I like Seven Seas' surveys w/title requests. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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I'm also certain the publishers are under NDAs, especially with popular works, in which case they absolutely are not allowed to say whether they got something or not. Non-disclosure agreements are one of those things that, at least based on my own experiences, everyone seems to understand except big fans. (NDAs do sometimes get excessive, like what happened within Midway's creative staff in the 90's, but they exist for a reason.)
And there's the simple fact that the manga publishers would like to tell fans of their acquisition of anticipated releases and are just as excited to announce them as the fans are to hear about them. When they are allowed to do so, they will. |
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Razor/Edge
Posts: 607 |
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I'd still like to ask Seven Seas what happened to Angel Beats: Heaven's Door. It's bizarre how they stopped publishing the first volume and have put every other volume on indefinite hiatus. Something really weird happened there. I was really looking forward to buying this manga.
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chronos02
Posts: 272 |
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This is a general policy that applies not only to this industry, but many others as well, and it's not simply because they want to avoid a "fallthrough" or to get annoyed by fans, and it has to do with how products are marketed. A new (in this case) licence needs to be managed from beginning to end, from the announcement to the finalization of publication in order to maximize the amount of positive (or rather, intended) exposure by following very specific plans that were drafted months in advance (generally, and it's usually a pattern used in other works). There's also a possibility of NDAs floating around while the deals are being negotiated, and they're not lifted until the product is about to get launched/announced following the scheduled plan.
Still, what they want to avoid is an unintended exposure of information that will set a specific feeling onto the potential buyers's minds, what can be summed up as the "first meeting", which, as you all know, has a lot of weight when meeting someone for the first time, and will bias your behavior towards that person in the future, and might cause you to not care or care too much about said individual; this applies to products as well, how the new product is presented is very important, and they want to avoid an uncontrolled announcement which would bias those potential buyers based on how it was announced/revealed. Alas, I don't think this applies to all the companies out there, and I believe the manga licencing industry to be rather small, so it's likely the main reasons for these companies lies in the NDAs and being annoyed by overly excited fans. A sad reality I must say. |
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Hiroki not Takuya
 Posts: 2687 |
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Thank you Ms. Aoki for the clear insight on this subject. Now, if only there was a FAQ page here or somewhere where this could be put because I have seen this come up in various parts in Answerman several times before but not in the whole.
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belvadeer
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Bottom line: Manga publishers can't confirm anything because ultimately nothing is set in stone.
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13626 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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A possible way around NDSAs until a license has been given an official announcement is giving hint through certain wording on social media.
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I_Drive_DSM
 Posts: 217 |
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One factor that could also be considered is manga publishing in the United States has changed drastically in even the last decade and there’s a lot more bridges you have to have covered with any particular IP.
When TokyoPop imploded, it acknowledged that one really big problem they had was they were quick to secure print licenses for most of their IPs but not digital printed (eBook) rights. Sans piracy, most online printed manga from publishers was still in infancy regardless since many were concerned that work placed directly online could easily be distributed and disseminated for free. Subsequently TokyoPop then had to go into a mad scramble to attempt to secure those sort of rights, but efforts with Japanese publishers were not quick enough (one could also argue on-going fan-translation and piracy being an issue, but many series still survive today despite being large disseminated online). My assumption is that with most of the large American publishers now having many official online outlets through readers and apps to provide manga rights have become a bit more dynamic than “we are wanting to print x volume in x amount for x amount of time.” Most I’m guessing also trying to go after both dynamics for the IP or ensure it’s secured under an umbrella of some sort. |
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Twage
Posts: 366 Location: North Bergen, NJ |
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The article explains exactly why this is a bad idea. |
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Exkajer
Posts: 1 |
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Breaking news from Poland. One of the publishers, Waneko, announced new series: they licensed Akatsuki no Yona. Everyone was happy... until today. They just said on their fanpage that something went wrong according to the license and... they deleted all posts with the announcement. Currently they say "we wil try to solve the problems with the license". Yeah. Ok. So, sometimes bad things happen.
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 10033 Location: Virginia |
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My question is why are publishers so blasted coy about admitting or announcing that they have discontinued a title? That a new volume hasn't shown up for six months is often the only notice you get that the series is dropped in mid stream. I can understand that continuing a money losing title may not be feasible, but some honesty to the fans that have been supporting the title would be nice.
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