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NEWS: Japan's Kodansha Reports Its Largest Annual Loss Ever

vashfanatic wrote:

Um, these losses are in Japan, not the United States; scanlation and fansubbing had nothing to do with this, advertising sales in Japan did. Good lord, people, read the article before you get on your soap boxes!! Also, while this isn't good news, they're not losing money yet, just making a substantial chunk less. We're in a global recession, it's going to happen.

You're an idiot, what happens to the industry in Japan affects the industry in the U.S. If they're not making money, they can't bring it over here. And if they can't bring it over here, we can't buy it.

"If it tanks here, there's no industry in Japan," Greg Ayres.

He's right, and if people don't buy stuff, nobody can make stuff!

Then for them it's a scanlation problem. Be easy to find just the raw upload in Japanese, some may even be in print ready PDF format. So yeah pirating contributed to this.

Hate to be blunt but honestly, it seems like there's jack **** they can do about that.

Any idiot with a scanner and the knowledge of an uploading site can get a manga onto the web. The only solution is much more fierce cracking down on uploading/translation groups... One that is a dramatic contrast to how fansubs, since they don't seem to be as dramatic and a hot topic as they used to be, aren't as widespread and easy to get running as say a scanner group...

I honestly don't care though, I've read very little in terms of scanalations, except for World Embryo and that was until it's licensing last year.

However, I'm becoming increasingly frustrated as I have YET TO SEE A SINGLE PUBLISHED VOLUME FROM DARK HORSE.

Quit denying me my Daisuke Moriyama genius creativity and published volume 1 already you bastards.

Kodansha doesn't do anime, they do manga, so that's not an issue for them. GONZO, I.G., Bones, yes, but not Kodansha; you can't just turn off a text translation.

Then for them it's a scanlation problem. Be easy to find just the raw upload in Japanese, some may even be in print ready PDF format. So yeah pirating contributed to this.

Um, these losses are in Japan, not the United States; scanlation and fansubbing had nothing to do with this, advertising sales in Japan did. Good lord, people, read the article before you get on your soap boxes!!

Also, while this isn't good news, they're not losing money yet, just making a substantial chunk less. We're in a global recession, it's going to happen.

Didn't even make it one post without someone saying it...

How do you people connect advertising revenue with fansubs? How can you even connect Japanese domestic print media sales falling with scanlations? Really, you guys don't have any logic beside "Sales down? Must be fansubs fault!"

Kodansha is a major publisher in Japan. They handle infinitely more things than just anime and comics too.

Yay, another fansubber bashing thread. Not.

Now let's be realistic here. Japan's economy as a whole is having a real rough time financially right now, and people are cutting down on the extras, like, guess what? DVDs, magazines and such. Not everything is because of fansubs.

I'd just like to point out tho those who jumped on " OH NOES FANSUBZ " that Kodansha does manga and not anime.

mglittlerobin wrote:

vashfanatic wrote: Um, these losses are in Japan, not the United States; scanlation and fansubbing had nothing to do with this, advertising sales in Japan did. Good lord, people, read the article before you get on your soap boxes!! Also, while this isn't good news, they're not losing money yet, just making a substantial chunk less. We're in a global recession, it's going to happen. You're an idiot, what happens to the industry in Japan affects the industry in the U.S. If they're not making money, they can't bring it over here. And if they can't bring it over here, we can't buy it. "If it tanks here, there's no industry in Japan," Greg Ayres. He's right, and if people don't buy stuff, nobody can make stuff!

Or perhaps you could go back and read the article. Kodansha's sales losses stemmed from drying-up sources of domestic advertising revenue and drops in domestic sales, neither of which has the slightest thing to do with someone illegally translating a manga online for people half a planet away to read. This literally has nothing at all to do with the American anime or manga industries, so Greg Ayres's quote doesn't apply here.

Seriously, it's getting almost impossible to read the Talkback forum anymore without my blood pressure spiking, since every single friggin' thread seems to lead off with someone making some incredibly nebulous connection to fansubs. Give it a collective rest.

So fansubbing losses didn't exist the whole time but just hit all at once this year.... yeah.... right.

And what exactly is the word about "greed"? There are very few fansubbers who charge anything at all. Those who do I'll agree should be stopped, but then you don't see communities or people supporting that. I don't know why the industry doesn't do more against the bootleggers and those who charge since money is more obviously lost there.

I loved the lack of hesitation from users to jump and begin attacking the fansubs. Hey, whatever is cool to hate, you gotta hate, right? Let's not develop opinions after all, those are dangerous.

I mean, isn't it... common knowledge most anime's and such make their money back from merchandising? Yes, not buying the DVD's, manga and whatnot can hurt, but it's helpful to buy OTHER stuff too...

That's why you see MORE than just DVD's and manga at conventions after all, that's a meager half/third/fourth/fifth of the marketing.

Still, Kodansha's doing that bad? What are they having problems with then? Maybe not only are there economic problems affecting everyone, but it's also perhaps, just bad results from productions they've put out recently.

And when people don't even want to buy the legitimate licensed medias, what makes you think they'll even bother with anime & manga related merchandises?

DomFortress wrote:

And when people don't even want to buy the legitimate licensed medias, what makes you think they'll even bother with anime & manga related merchandises?

Simple, people can't pirate most of that kind of merchandise.

flawful wrote:

DomFortress wrote: And when people don't even want to buy the legitimate licensed medias, what makes you think they'll even bother with anime & manga related merchandises? Simple, people can't pirate most of that kind of merchandise.

And that's what this is all about, isn't it? Until intellectual property gets transferred onto a media platform that can't be easily duplicated, the anime & manga industry will be sitting ducks, while the internet anime piracy community disregard all forms of legal actions against them.

Now that it's settled, anyone who makes another claim that fansubs are the cause, you will be verbally violated by myself and others.