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NEWS: Viz Media: Shonen Jump Alpha to Move to Simultaneous Model 'Very Soon'

I agree that would be awesome, but I think there are a few reasons that isn't the case. One is the difference between American and Japanese ideas on what's ok for kids. SJA is trying to market to people besides the major anime and manga nerds. I think they'd have a hard time putting in series like beelzebub, Assasin's classroom, and Gintama without pissing somebody off a lot unfortunately. Not to mention series like those can be notoriously hard to pretty much impossible to translate without losing the meaning entirely. Fans like me might be willing to just read translator notes and such, but most people would probably be turned off by it.

Is Shounen Jump Alpha just a small subset of the Weekly Jump mag, or is it a selection across Shueisha publications? Like, say, anything from Jump Square (any chance of TLR-D?)

Also, do they censor? I'm interested now, but I'm definitely worried about that.

But people constantly pirate manga, which throws a wrench into the whole supply and demand thing. Because of the nature of the piracy and the fact that Viz needs permission from japanese publishers to get anything done, Viz literally can't give us translations as fast and cost free as scanlators do. Aside from being official, creating jobs, and helping support the mangaka, the only thing Viz really has to offer over scanlators is the quality of the images and translations, but even this is offset by higher quality translations being released before the manga is even available in Japan

Also, do they censor? I'm interested now, but I'm definitely worried about that.

agila61 wrote:

But people constantly pirate manga, which throws a wrench into the whole supply and demand thing. Because of the nature of the piracy and the fact that Viz needs permission from japanese publishers to get anything done, Viz literally can't give us translations as fast and cost free as scanlators do. Aside from being official, creating jobs, and helping support the mangaka, the only thing Viz really has to offer over scanlators is the quality of the images and translations, but even this is offset by higher quality translations being released before the manga is even available in Japan

I suppose, but maybe they should try focusing on a different market that scanlators can't readily provide for, like those people who do want to physically own books. It might be a more niche consumer base, but it's one without fear of competition from pirates.

configspace wrote:

Also, do they censor? I'm interested now, but I'm definitely worried about that.

Yeah, they censor some of their manga.

This ought to be a huge deal. The instant gratification issue was by far the big challenge facing manga publishing. Viz has addressed that at a rock-bottom price (again: 54 cents an issue) and has been adding titles all year long on top of that. It's magnificent progress and, I hope, a sign of the good business SJ Alpha has been so far.

That sounds like demand and demand mechanics. There's no recognition of cost and other supply constraints in evidence there.

Aaronrules380 wrote:

But people constantly pirate manga, which throws a wrench into the whole supply and demand thing. Because of the nature of the piracy and the fact that Viz needs permission from japanese publishers to get anything done, Viz literally can't give us translations as fast and cost free as scanlators do. Aside from being official, creating jobs, and helping support the mangaka, the only thing Viz really has to offer over scanlators is the quality of the images and translations, but even this is offset by higher quality translations being released before the manga is even available in Japan

I suppose, but maybe they should try focusing on a different market that scanlators can't readily provide for, like those people who do want to physically own books. It might be a more niche consumer base, but it's one without fear of competition from pirates.

This ought to be a huge deal. The instant gratification issue was by far the big challenge facing manga publishing. Viz has addressed that at a rock-bottom price (again: 54 cents an issue) and has been adding titles all year long on top of that. It's magnificent progress and, I hope, a sign of the good business SJ Alpha has been so far.

TitanXL wrote:

configspace wrote: Also, do they censor? I'm interested now, but I'm definitely worried about that. Yeah, they censor some of their manga.

Alpha itself doesn't censor anything though. Though that would be obvious given the amount of time it would take to do that

Well sadly this doesn't completely solve the instant gratification issue since the scans are a week ahead of the actual release of the magazine in Japan.

It's a good thing and I hope it works for them, but there is still one major problem: Scanlations of many jump series, especially the big ones Alpha shows, are released and read almost a week earlier than they actually come out in Japan. And I highly doubt shueisha will be ok with viz releasing the chapters before they become available in Japan

I see. Then I presume Viz is probably carefully choosing titles for SJ Alpha that won't require censoring

Viz has been censoring Naruto for years. Airbrushing blood, adding towels/steam to cover up nekkid body parts, obscuring panels (Konohamaru's Sexy Boy on Boy Jutsu), editing Naruto flipping the bird, and editing a pivotal scene in 36 because of underage smoking, etc, etc. Strangely, the scene in volume 36 that got edited is UNedited in the databook release.

I'm pretty sure the scanlations are released AFTER the chapters are out in Japan. How else would they even get scanlations without
a physical copy?

In any case I think it goes without saying that Viz has got permission from Sheuisha to do the simulcast.