On Friday Digital Manga Publishing launched their second Kickstarter – a crowd-souring website that takes monetary pledges towards a goal. While DMP’s first project was to fund Osamu Tezuka’s Swallowing the Earth back for a second printing, this time they’re collecting pledges to go towards licensing and publishing a new Tezuka title – Barbara.

“Wandering the packed tunnels of Shinjuku Station, famous author Yosuke Mikura makes a strange discovery: a seemingly homeless drunk woman who can quote French poetry. Her name is Barbara. He takes her home for a bath and a drink, and before long Barbara has made herself into Mikura’s shadow, saving him from egotistical delusions and jealous enemies. But just as Mikura is no saint, Barbara is no benevolent guardian angel, and Mikura grows obsessed with discovering her secrets, tangling with thugs, sadists, magical curses and mythical beings – all the while wondering whether he himself is still sane.”

In only two days the company has received pledges totalling more than the $6500 they were asking for. Their press release states that additional rewards (extras for those who pledge more than the $25 cost of the book) will be released throughout the month leading up to the date they’ll be closing the drive and collecting the money (February 13th).

While those who pledge $25+ in this drive have been guaranteed copies of the book once it’s complete – scheduled for sometime in July 2012 – Digital Manga’s Ben Applegate has stated that copies will also be printed and distributed to bookstores as well. I’m grateful for this as it allows me to keep supporting my local businesses and avoid the $20+ I’d very likely end up paying just for the shipping of a single book to Canada through their service (which I’ve now learned is considered overseas? Choose a better word, USPS!). It also means those new to Tezuka or manga, or those curious but not willing to buy blindly, can still have a chance to flip through and make an informed decision. There’s no word on what size this print run will be though and it’s questionable how available this title will be when they need to seek outside funding from consumers just to finance it initially.

The last time Digital Manga used a Kickstarter drive to fund their operations I was skeptical and even after the first’s success, I still am. I’m thrilled to see another older title get a shot at English publication, let there be no question of that. But that Digital Manga is again using a system like Kickstarter – typically used by individuals or small groups without financial backers or partners that companies have – still just doesn’t sit right with me. While I shared my initial thoughts back in November, this second project prompted elaboration as I continue to try and pinpoint what this kind of move means to me and other manga readers.

Note: The thoughts and opinions expressed in this editorial are based on Digital Manga’s use of Kickstarter and not other projects utilizing the website.

There is definitely excitement and enthusiasm from fans fueling this drive, but it also feels like driving the pledging frenzy is the underlying sense of guilt and worry. After all, if you don’t pledge, you may never see the book. If you don’t pledge, it means you don’t want the manga at all. If you don’t promote this book you’ve likely never read and this initiative you only have on a promise will deliver, there will be no book. If Digital Manga Publishing isn’t able to create and print this book it is your fault.

There’s a difference between empowering a consumer and passing off the responsibility to them.

It bothers me that DMP’s kickstarter expects a big blind buy by consumers. For some, this is okay. Maybe it’s faith of a creator’s previous work or simply artwork or a story that really strikes them. Ordering online is a blind buy in many respects already but usually previews, reviews and advertising play a large role in the decision to buy. For something like Barbara there’s certainly faith in Osamu Tezuka – his reputation, his previous works. But will you like this one? Do you have any way of knowing unless you’ve read it already via alternative means?

This is a pre-order process you cannot back out of. Typically with pre-orders you wouldn’t pay until your book is shipped or has arrived for you. You don’t give your money until you know you have a product in exchange. Kickstarter is designed to not have the pledges paid out until their goal is met, but even then the money is paid out on a promise. Digital Manga has even said in the case of Barbara, the title hasn’t even been licensed by them yet! That’s a tricky enough process to nail down in itself, let alone any production snags along the way. Pre-orders to me are about companies and retailers gauging the interest in a title and to stock accordingly. They’re a way for readers to feel confident they’ve secured themselves a copy and one they only pay out to when that confidence is rewarded come release-day, a security I don’t see this Kickstarter providing.

I believe a company holds the key responsibility for marketing, distributing and promoting their own product. It not only defines their role traditionally but also defines a great bulk of their purpose. Of course in this age of internet and social media, word of mouth is going to play a role but a company shouldn’t expect this to be the entire push process. It’s the companies’ job to determine interest, to fund their work and to put it out there. It’s readers responsibilities to then support it and the companies further responsibility to shoulder the results. This is what they use going forward – to know what to publish, what to decide against and how much to do. They have a vast library of previous titles at their disposal for example and financing. They’re a business and these are just some of the resources that further define them as such.

Companies traditionally take chances, put the work in, make a solid product and then give it to the customers, reaping the benefits of their hopeful successes. Digital Manga is watching as it’s consumers do the initial legwork, and then rewarding ‘us’ for our work – if we worked hard enough anyway.

What happens if the pledge numbers are reached (as they have been by this morning), and then the book doesn’t happen? License issues, printing problems, cut-backs, push-backs, cost fluctuations – who knows. Will everyone get their money back? What about those bonus rewards? Null, void? Is there any security you’ll be re-compensated if the promise isn’t met? I personally have faith Digital Manga will publish what they say they will eventually, but I’ve also been buying their books for almost a decade. Where’s the assurance for others? Kickstarter itself offers no assurance to individuals who pledge should a project owner for any reason not deliver. I wouldn’t expect them too either as the platform, not a partner. If this project hits the worst case scenario, where are we at?

Seeing so many pledgers in such a short period of time is promising. It’s great seeing eager fans come out and support the manga they want to see. Even so, the number of backers is still individually quite small – currently under 200. This makes the average pledge per person very high, much more than the same number of supporters would be giving to Digital Manga if they were buying the books off the shelf. We can assume this small pool of readers were buyers before but it makes me curious about past sales numbers. Actual numbers are usually a mystery with manga but with such little faith in a positive return for this work if done traditionally, it really makes me want to know how Tezuka’s works turned out previously for them. They seem to do well for Vertical, who pushes and promotes their works extensively, but what about Digital Manga? How did Swallowing the Earth do in its initial run?

It kills me that I feel so troubled over supporting manga in print, one of my greatest passions to see continue, but I can’t help but feel used. I feel like our love for manga is being taken for granted. Taken for granted we’ll do not only do the fund-raising but the marketing now as well. Not to mention the cheap crowd-sourcing already under way with Digital Manga Guild – it has its own barrel of pros and cons. This is different from community hyping – this is crowd-sourcing that lets a company sit safely on the sidelines while we shoulder the burden. It leaves those desperate to support left with nothing if others can’t or won’t step in to support something on blind faith. No one loses here but the reader, teased with a title they may never see…

I’m not entirely against a process like this. I do believe companies will need more consumer support to take risks on titles as the market continues to fluctuate. I love they say their backers may even get some input into things like the graphic design and access to extras like posters and t-shirts. I do believe, however, that a company like Digital Manga needs to still make the initial steps themselves. License a title. Ensure to us the product will actually be there first, in at least some capacity. Don’t tease us. Don’t make us shoulder the guilt that we can’t finance your company getting a title in the first place. If it’s an instance where it’s a multi-volume series and sales dip so much you can’t publish anymore, it’s alright. We understand. We’re sad but we know you at least tried. But right out the gate with a volume one or one-shot? That’s your train to get started. Get it for us and we will get on board.

Why not license and publish the book digitally first? Give us a way to preview it. Let us pay the digital amount to read the whole thing. If we want a print copy, go for print on demand or a system like Kickstarter. I think this where the method is appropriate. It shouldn’t be all or nothing. It’s allowing collectors a premium service, not denying them altogether if others aren’t able or willing to be as zealous.

I like that Digital Manga’s Kickstarter is working because I want to read this title. I will very likely buy a copy of this book when it’s released and available for me, when I’ve had a chance to flip through it, read reviews on it, learn about it, form my own opinion and then support it with an eager buy like I do all the other titles on my shelves. I still don’t feel this use of Kickstarter is the right way to go for publishing books like Digital Manga is, straight from the gate and with a license not evenly firmly in hand. It offers a great opportunity but at questionable cost. While for me as someone living ‘overseas’ , the almost 50% additional final shipping cost is painful enough, but I feel the price truly most harmful is the cost of faith in Digital Manga’s own independent abilities.

AnimeNewsNetwork has some great writers who contribute to the site and their manga editorial are always daily reads for me. Jason Thompson’s House of 1000 Manga is always an extra treat – a weekly exploration and showcase of a specific manga title. This week the column had Shaenon Garrity as a guest writer and she contributes an article on CLAMP’s Chobits. It’s a fantastic read so I recommend checking it out!

Shaenon breaks down the series’ themes of sexuality, romance and relationship dynamics in a really concise and well-thought out manner. I don’t necessarily agree with all of the conclusions she makes but she backs up every observation and opinion in a way that really gets you thinking about the story.

Even the forum responses, often a minefield of painful commentary, are worth going through for the article. Shaenon herself also elaborates on some points she couldn’t go into via the article for spoiler reasons.

Digital Manga‘s newsletter came out yesterday and had an assortment of interesting news to share – some great, some neat and some that just left me scratching my head in confusion.

The company has licensed a new boys’ love title – Docchi mo Docchi by Nozomu Hiiragi. It’s a one-shot title about two men employed at the same company. Both are well known with the ladies and rivals at their jobs. When the two somehow end up in bed together, the big question becomes who’s meant to be on top?

Digital Manga also noted that they’ve acquired the license to the third volume of Dog x Cat. Neither title has a release date yet.

The newsletter also reminded readers of job listings posted on Digital Manga’s website. Those currently listed as new and ‘permanent’ there are: Manga-Comic Editor/ Production Associate, PHP Developer, Accountant,  Production Associate, Graphic Designer/Marketing Assistant and E-commerce Sales Associates.

The weird news of the week from Digital Manga though is that they’ve launched a Kickstarter program to fund a second-printing of Osamu Tezuka’s Swallowing the Earth. Kickstarter is a site where individuals or groups can start up a funding project where they look to the community to pledge money to support it. I’ve seen this work successfully for independent creators who don’t have the initial means to afford print runs but a company size of Digital Manga doing it?

“Fans are constantly asking us to reprint the book, but simply put, we’re a small company, this is an expensive book and we can’t afford to put up the cash to reprint it.”

They’re still publishing a fair number of books each month and that they want a second printing of this book seems to indicate it did well. So can they really not afford to print it themselves?

“We’re here because we believe Kickstarter can be a new way to fund niche manga titles in the United States. If this campaign is successful, you WILL see more, including premium editions of other older books and even new titles that would NEVER make it over to the U.S. without fan support.”

From a business point of view, I can see why this is a win-win situation for them. For one it has the perks of a print on demand, where they print specifically to match a number they know will be bought (or has already been paid for). With a set goal that supporters can see, it also shifts responsibility for whether or not the book gets printed at all to fans and, with different pledge tiers, can earn them a much higher pay-out per sale with enticing perks that they can dictate.

Different pledge amounts towards this project – with the goal being $3,950 – offer different bonuses to supporters. For example, a $30 pledge gets you a copy of the book and $10 towards purchasing digital copies on eManga. Pledging $45+ gets you the book and two extra hard-copy books of your choosing from a list they provide. The $250 tier – which could only be pledge by two (and has already sold) had some especially lengthy perks, including VIP access to all their future events. With DMP having recently acquired Yaoi-Con, this is a big deal for those who attend it.

The shift of responsibility is what seems the most odd to me. Again, it makes sense for them in some regards, but on the other hand I’m not sure what it really says for their professional appearance as a business. Can they not sustain themselves? Are they shoveling too much responsibility to fans when they should be solidifying their own operations? It chimes a lot with their Digital Manga Guild where fans are ‘hired’ to offer full production of manga titles the company then publishes digitally. Those who work on the projects are paid very little compared to standard rates, with the pay-out depending on how many copies the work sells. First Digital Manga expects their own consumers to provide the labour, and now even the money to print the books…?

Back on the other hand, fans do love feeling involved with the publishers of their books. The manga industry has a lot more connection with its consumers than most already, and making their fans feel even more connected by increasing shared responsibilities has the definite perk of making pledgers feel special and involved.

Personally, I know I’d be happy to have a similar opportunity for things such as their digital-only titles on eManga. I feel the same for the digital-only titles coming from SuBLime in 2012 as well. If I could pay a print-on-demand price to get a story I really like in print, I would do it. Still… the hope from a company that I and others would pay hundreds of dollars for that with some bonuses sprinkled on top feels like I’m being expected to financially bail them out. Should I feel guilty now that I can’t? It puts a lot of pressure and onus on the purchasing fan-base – which is relatively smaller for BL, comparatively - to keep them afloat as a whole. Isn’t that what the increasing prices we already pay per title is supposed to do? Isn’t it their job as a company to work within their means? How much is too much?

Maybe this is why they’re looking to hire an Accountant.

What do you think? Is this really a viable new way to do manga business? Does it make you have more or less faith in Digital Manga as a company? Would you pledge money like this to see book you want in print and in what way?

Manga Out Loud isn’t plugged nearly enough on my website – it’s definitely top of my giddy list when a new episode comes out. Ed Sizemore and Johanna bring on a whole bunch of fun and super-knowledgeable guests to discuss different manga titles and topics on the show, plus the two are a great podcast duo on their own. So go! Listen! Enjoy!

Ed and Johanna are also now the second crazy generous people to have me on-board for a podcast with this week’s Going Digital – a podcast where we all discussed different elements of digital manga: what’s out there, what we think of it and the pros and cons, among lots of other things. It was lots of fun and my thanks again to everyone there for having me. It’s a big bummer that my computer/internet wasn’t agreeing with me so unfortunately my sound quality is nearly inaudible at times. Witness listening however the power of a very patient group of podcasters! Once you’ve finished listening, Ed’s podcast post is worth visiting for the extensive show notes alone if you’d like to read more about digital manga and see lots of legal links to access it.

During the podcast I definitely took the pro-book over digital side (not that there were really sides, per say) and it was great hearing others thoughts on the benefits of digital access for them. It was also a big reminder how lucky I am to live in a city with a store like Strange Adventures and a dozen libraries. I’m sure I’ll embrace reading manga digitally more when/if I ever indulge in an iPad but I can’t see it ever taking the place of buying books. Would be neat for one-shots and longer test chapters though to determine buying new series less blindly. Time shall tell! If there’s one thing you can definitely say for digital manga, it’s that it still has lots of changes yet to come.

There’s a new ANNCast posted this week over at AnimeNewsNetwork where I joined host Zac Bertschy and Erica Friedman from Yuricon.com to discuss the recent Tokyopop shutdown.

We talk about Tokyopop’s shakier business decisions, Stu Levy’s (the company’s CEO) big role to play in its demise and public opinion as well as their Manga Pilot Program. It was a great conversation full of optimism and not-so-optimistic hard truths – I’m thankful I had the opportunity to participate and hope people enjoy the listen.

Tokyopop was the internet’s front-page news amidst the English manga-industry circle this week as news came that they’ve just recently laid off several staffers. Those given this very unfortunate and quite unexpected axe was Lillian Diaz-Pryzybl, Troy Lewter and Asako Suzuki – all three prominent editors of Tokyopop’s manga line-up.

Brigid Alverson (of MangaBlog.net) wrote a really well articulated article on the matter over at Robot6. She focuses heavily on company president Stu Levy and paints a pretty accurate, and unfortunately manic, picture of his management methods and a history of similarly poor timed lay-offs.

People losing their jobs is never good and as many have said, my sympathies go out to those who’ve lost them. This news also doesn’t paint an optimistic picture of the company itself. When I first read this, what immediately came to mind is that Tokyopop has now completely done away with their manga ‘face’ – the side of their company that really looked to me like it focused on the books as their primary focus. Stu Levy has never been about the manga to me – he’s always been the ‘face’ of the other stuff, all those little pet-projects and admittedly odd but flamboyant social projects he engages in for reasons I won’t dismiss but also won’t try to fathom understanding (ie: not intended to target consumers like me, such as their recent America’s Greatest Otaku reality show).

Though it doesn’t seem their manga line-up is taking any direct blows in terms of any more dropped titles (and in fact they still have a handful of new titles starting this year), it’s hard not to wonder what this really means. Are they going to be slimming things back we just haven’t heard it yet? Are those people remaining just getting really, really overworked? Are they hiring new freelancers on who they can pay less for the same work? Will the marketing disappear? Will the quality be affected? It seems hard to believe they could let-go such integral staff members and have things be business as usual.

On top of that, it was announced just yesterday that Blizzard (the company who owns the popular Warcraft franchise), is severing ties with Tokyopop. For years Tokyopop has published graphic novels based on the Warcraft world and, to my knowledge, they’ve always been some of the more consistent sellers with a cross-appeal outside the regular manga readers. Blizzard has since stated this dissolvement isn’t due to the recent cutbacks and was decideded some time ago, which makes me think that this news actually is the opposite effect some will assume simply from the timing of this announcement – that Tokyopop’s lay-offs are in fact (in part) because of Blizzard’s disconnection and not the other way around. All that’s been specifically said so far for reasons is that Warcraft can’t commit in full to the project any longer, which seems fair enough considering the game itself is definitely their bread and butter. Why read it when you can play it? (Though that’s certainly never my personal philosophy!)

It seems safe to say the biggest factor of these Tokyopop cuts, past Stu Levy’s often fickle-seeming management style, is the recent bankruptcy of the American bookstore chain, Borders. It apparently owned Tokyopop a lot of money which it now can’t pay back. Having never been in a Borders before, I can’t say I’ve personally seen the effect, as the closest we have is our Indigo chain of bookstores here in Canada (Chapters and Coles bookstores to many of us). However the pricing has long since become so terrible on buying books from chain stores instead of independent shops here that I’ve long since gotten a disconnect from that kind of manga buying. Still, remembering how huge a part Chapters used to be in my manga-buying binges until the Canadian dollar shot up, I can definitely see how if Borders was that to thousands of readers across the United States, then the loss is pretty huge.

It’s a shame this has all happened, Borders closing creating such issues for so many readers and publishers. What’s even sadder about Tokyopop’s situation in particular is that the loss of these jobs, unfortunate enough in itself, are more additions to a teetering tower within Tokyopop’s industry that is proving from internet response that people’s faith in Tokyopop is shakier than their history.

Tokyopop for me is still a huge part of my manga-life – I’ve probably got more books from them than anyone else, their titles shaped my early manga-buying days. I loved their title choices, their presentation, their pricing and yes even the sheer quantity that meant a lot of mixed quality (but you can’t knock the chance to choose from them all!) – I owe them a lot for the books I’ve been able to enjoy over the years. But now with Lillian in particular gone (never had I felt more in-touch with TP than via their webinars), and the continued production of money-sucking events I don’t really understand, I really have to question if the Tokyopop I love is still even the Tokyopop that exists today.

Viz Media is starting the new year with a brand new website! And that is sadly where my enthusiasm ends.

I’d stated a short while back that I’d be continuing with my publisher website reviews, a longer than intended hiatus previously taken after several companies requested I wait. Viz Media’s website, or their old one at least, was my newest completed review, a rather frustrating irony in that so soon after I finished did this new site go up. But I digress, this is about the new site and naturally after finishing a review of their old site, and thoroughly going through my likes and dislikes of it to myself, I had presumptuously high hopes that I may see some of my complaints already addressed in this version when I saw it was live.

Alas… Viz Media, what were you thinking?

The change is definitely a big one, the white backgrounds and multi-column layout have been replaced with a more sparsely laid out grid and fancier Javascript based navigation and design. While the old site didn’t immediately scream ‘book publisher’, this new site makes it even less clear what they do and what kind of company they are. It looks like the beginnings of a store more than a publisher’s website with information of series difficult to find – or more accurately to say, completely non-existent.

The worst part, worth noting right off the bat, is that the majority of links clicked on lead to a maintenance page:

Page Under Maintenance

This page is currently undergoing maintenance. Please check back soon!

While one could argue invalidity in reviewing a website clearly labeled as undergoing maintenance, I’d refute that there’s no reason a site as unrefined and clearly unready to go was put live in the first place. Viz Media has put this out there as something they see fit for visitors and thusly as their chosen representation. Areas of the website that aren’t working include all informational pages on the series, Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, Contact, Jobs, Press Releases, FAQ… in fact, the only pages that are working seems to be the main page and the indexs of Manga, Anime and certain imprints.

All previous links to Viz Media’s website now lead to broken pages with no redirectors put in place. Search engines have become almost entirely obsolete in finding the website or information specific to anything they offer and it’s unfortunately guaranteed to cause a plummet in their page rankings making it even harder to find their site once (we assume) it does finally does get off the ground.

Graphically the pages are fairly openly laid out, mostly light on text with a scattering of gridded images. The black backgrounds make for a richer looking appearance than before but the exact same layout on every page is stagnant. Regrettably their use of large graphics, which animatedly shift between different pieces of artwork, is a distracting eyesore, engulfing the entirety of the screen but offering little substance. All links on the artwork leading to what we assume is information pertaining to them is either not yet functional or broken. The majority of the pages themselves also aren’t probably sized to different screen sizes and cause cut-offs on the right side with scrolling to dead space. The bottom of the site also has blank white space for an inch or so which looks more like a mistake in coding than an intended design element.

When you load it up, the main page of the website looks like this (with different images rotating in):

It promotes one series at a time with a single graphic, definitely a domineering feature when you load the page so it’s effective at marketing a single volume or DVD at any rate. Any further information on the site however, such as recent release information, requires users to scroll down to find it. There’s also nowhere on page that introduces Viz Media as what they are or what they provide – no ‘About’ Viz Media with the exception of short introductory paragraphs on the Anime and Manga specific pages.

Navigation on the top of the site has been reduced to three specific headers – Store, Products and Company. Though tidy it also imbues the notion this site has very little to offer. Hovering the mouse over each one yields a drop-down menu with more options including links to different site imprint pages. The coding is a little choppy on this and flickering happens easily when trying to use them (plus they crashed the page out twice when trying to use them via Safari on my iPhone).

Upon using the navigation links to go to a specific imprint page, you’re greeted with a two-option page banner – the first a graphic heavy promotion of key titles under Features (which again sport no working links) – and the second is the option to click Series Listing which prompts an inline frame that has a list of all the series published under that name. Currently none of the titles on the list are linked to anything and provide no information past the title.

At the bottom of every page there is a New Releases and a Coming Soon section which have click-through lists of just what the sub-sections would indicate. Information provided is thumbnails, title, volume number, release date, imprint, age rating and a Buy Now button leading to Viz Media’s own store – all of which are great to have. It’s too bad though that this information is pushed down at the bottom of each page, and with no links leading to be in-depth information such as a synopsis or prior volume information, there’s a serious hampering of their effectiveness. Navigation of it also isn’t entirely clear, requiring button clicking at the bottom to move from Next or Previous which then utilizes an animated scroll screen to view more titles.

The top of the site has a large easy to find search feature and the results of which are the most promising of this new design. Typing in ‘Bleach’, as an example, returns a long page of thumbnails for all existing volumes of the manga, DVDs from the anime and the art books. It loads fast and is very thorough and tidy. Unfortunately the links either lead to the Viz Store or to another Page Not Found site.

Past missing the information itself, the site also lacks any reference to their submission policies and no more blog on the front page, adding to the Under Maintenance contact page to make this is a completely cut-off site communicatively with consumers. Thankfully all of Viz Media’s previous imprint specific websites such as ShojoBeat.com and ShonenSunday.com remain intact and provide the information their hub website now lacks.

All formalities aside, this is a rather big stinker of a website. The navigation is poor, the graphics and needless animations distracting (and really hurt my eyes I must admit) and the lack of information is mind-boggling. What’s worse though is why Viz Media would put such an unfinished website up in the first place – was the idea of starting the New Year with a new website more important than ensuring the quality of the site itself? This website may be framework for something better, but as it is it has no place live to their customers, providing little more than dead ends, broken links and a veritable style over substance approach to marketing.

My diagnosis – bad site. My recommendation (and hope) is that Viz Media puts the old site back up and offers this new one as a beta for preview purposes only in the meantime. They should get user feedback on the new look and keep adding new content and working out the bugs until it’s fully ready for the public.

Don’t get me wrong, this can be a good site but right now it definitely isn’t.

This past week Square Enix officially opened it’s online manga store. You can check out their press release for all the nitty-gritty details and of course visit their website yourself to have a surf around. In short, the company is offering volumes of the manga they hold the rights to through their site for a set price. The volumes, once purchased, are available to be read via a browser based reader on their site, a very similar set-up to Digital Manga’s eManga website.

Square Enix’s site has been in the works for a while and it offers up unique possibilities for North American manga readers with its selection of manga from different publishers, currently Viz Media and Yen Press. Unfortunately it’s launch has left some readers cold and I can’t help but look at it as an embodiment of many elements I think are what have been holding digital manga back. This isn’t meant to be anything against Square Enix specifically but browsing through their site got my brain going on the concept itself. It’s got some good things going for it but has some big scare-away first impressions for consumers.

For many in the same boat as I, the “can only be purchased by U.S. residents” is the big kicker and end-all right there but I’ll go forward looking at this as a more broad look at digital manga. WhileI share my thoughts under the cut, I’m interested in knowing what our readers here think of digital manga – yay or nay, why and how? What are you looking for in the format, price and content of digital manga?

Format

Square Enix’s website utilizes an online reader to view their manga, very similar to the readers utilized by Viz Media, Tokyopop, Digital Manga and Yen Plus. Their players works well, it loads quickly and the pages turn smoothly – it even has a snazzy page-turn effect by ‘grabbing’ the corner of the pages. It’s not anything that makes the reading experience any easier but it’s a nice visual touch.

The reader has a few small glitches, namely clicking certain places on the player result in a big Square Enix logo instead of your manga page. Sometimes the pages would also load up blank but this could be a momentary server glitch over the player itself so it’s a fairly small quip regardless. The largest downside to the player itself is the use of Flash, which means you can’t read it on many mobile devices. This is a huge issue for those who like digital for its mobility, something Yen Press was able to get around by presenting Yen Plus using javascript. There’s also the pesky need to download something to make the reader play properly for some which won’t go over well with everyone, such as rightfully concerned folks about what clutters up their computer installation-wise.

Right of Ownership

This is for many the biggest issue of them all when it comes to digital content- when paying to buy something digitally, do you really own it? For sites like Square Enix’s, when you pay for a volume of manga you’re not paying to own it,  you’re paying to have access to it (as quoted from SE: “a license to view”).

“You do not have any property rights in the Manga; instead you have a terminable, revocable license.” – Square Enix’s Term of Use

Sure it saves on needing to buy a special device to play it or have the space to store it, but it also means you’re restricted to reading what you’ve paid for only when you have access to the site itself (and thus internet access). And what if the site goes down for technical issues? What if the site completely shuts down someday? What is the extent that this purchase price entails?

Recently issues have arisen with Amazon and their KINDLE device that really drive home the issue of ‘ownership’ and just what kind of rights we have with digital content we’ve paid for. If you buy a paper book, it’s yours – you put it in your bag, take it home, read it and put it on your shelf. It’s yours to keep, sell, donate or lend how you please. Recent claimed acts by Amazon (I personally can’t confirm this happened) have shown that despite downloading onto your own system, presumably then ‘owning’ it, Amazon reserves the right to take it back. At their discretion, it was said they were deleting eBooks off consumers devices after they’d been paid for. I don’t know about you, but that’s a pretty scary thought to me and hardly the relationship between consumer and seller that I’ve come to appreciate.

Paying for something on a subscription basis, which generally comes with a pre-established time period, is one thing perhaps but when you’re buying to own a volume, has digital found a way to truly offer the security and dependability many buyers are looking for?

“SQUARE ENIX reserves the right to discontinue all or part of the Service at any time with or without prior notice to you, at which time the User Agreement will be terminated for all affected users.”

Content

Content is something that really stood out to me with Square Enix’s site in particular. The offerings of books from both Yen Press and Viz Media was nice but it’s hard to get excited about volumes that have already been available in English in print from these companies for a long time, and are still easily available today. Full Metal Alchemist, Soul Eater, Record of a Fallen Vampire… Is there still a big audience for these books?

On one hand you have those who’ve already bought and read the original books – what reason would they have to purchase these from Square Enix’s site? The restriction of being able to read them only on the site means they don’t have any more accessibility then before as an eReader addition could offer, and from what I can see it doesn’t offer anything new such as extras that the original license holder could offer making such a repurchase worth it. It’s really disappointing to see no ‘new’ titles offered to really show their ability to offer more than we’ve already got.

Looking at this from the perspective of new readers, the original books are still available for them to purchase or borrow – so what benefit does this online store offer to them in terms of purchasing complete volumes? The site does thankfully offer free previews of the volumes but even then they seem more useful for those considering purchase of the books. This is especially easy to presume when taking into consideration the price of the volumes…

Price

Square Enix is currently selling their digital volume access at $5.99 per, this being the “special introductory price”. It leads one to wonder what the regular price will be per volume. Even simply looking at this special price, it’s pretty darn steep. $5.99 for the right to view a manga volume through their website, when for only a couple dollars more you could own the physical copy?

I see these prices and I feel confused as to what Square Enix feels the value is to the customer to warrant these prices (when comparing to what we currently pay for print editions). At least when buying the book copies from publishers, I understand the costs of licensing, translating, adapting, lettering, printing and then distribution, all while trying to keep the costs as low as possible for buyers. In this instance with the digital copies, the adaptation and lettering has been done already and I can only assume they don’t have much else in the way of licensing fees as they themselves own the original series, though I don’t fully understand if Viz Media or Yen Press receive compensation for these versions.

Unfortunately for both Square Enix and buyers like myself, I simply don’t see the benefit of these digital volumes past a quick fix online, and frankly we all know the big looming shadow word that’ve long been the easy quick fixes. A $5.99 price-tag is not about to inspire many to seek alternative means of getting their manga, especially when it just seems to scream cash-grab with little innovation to support it. Where’s the new content? Out of print content? The totally-worthwhile convenience?

“The prices for each license will be set forth on the Service website and may change without advance notice.”

This line from their ToS doesn’t invoke the most faith either, even if a fairly common thing to hear for any such sites. It’s worrisome more so if Square Enix ever tries a subscription route, I never like those uncertainties when my manga or money is involved!

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Square Enix’s manga store is another jumping into the fray to see what works, but I think they may be starting with expectations too high for what they’re offering. Online manga should be aiming to offer readers what scanlations are always touted as providing in their purest intentions – manga the reader can’t get in their language or in print at all. Until sites start offering this, and at prices comparable to the value manga readers are used to paying for a fully-owned, physical copy, I don’t think digital manga will be fully embraced just yet.

Reading manga digitally in general has yet to win me over, and with my overwhelming preference for reading on paper I doubt it ever will completely (my eyes see enough screen time as it is!), but I still look forward to the day when manga is widely available in a format that works for consumers and creators alike. Digital manga is clearly that future whether paper purists like me like it or not, and the past two years has been full of new ventures offering just such a thing as publishers experiment with formats and distributions, such as the launch of Viz Media’s SigIKKI and Shonen Sunday, Yen Plus going fully digital and Digital Manga’s fledgling DM Guild, to name a few.

Whether it’s offering manga for free reading online to promote book sales as Viz Media is doing, offering chapter previews of each volume as Tokyopop is doing or simply offering manga to buy cheap-ish through devices such as the iPad, be it as a new reader or an owner of the paper book, there’re some initiatives that seem to be working well for their audience. Still, companies are really in a position of throwing the proverbial spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks, and while it’s bound to make a good-sized mess at first (or maybe a slight dull thud for Square Enix), it’s still good to see them going at it.

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Vaguely unrelated fun note: Check out Square Enix’s ‘Submission Guidelines‘. Honesty is the best policy!

Reading manga online isn’t for everyone. Looking at any screen for hours can make your head hurt and your eyeballs fell like they’ve been dipped in bleach. Luckily, I was designed in a lab specifically to avoid those symptoms. I love reading manga online. I love that I control the vertical and the horizontal, that I can sharpen a single image to crystal clarity. I love that no trees were killed in order for me to enjoy a particular volume. I love that I can read the many works of Makoto Tateno and not worry about where in my tiny house I’ll fit them.

But while I like reading manga on my computer screen, that doesn’t mean I give every manga company that posts their wares online a pass. In fact, because I enjoy it so much, I want to see it done right. For the most part there’s not a big difference between publishers’ online manga viewers. It’s a pretty basic concept: it’s manga, and it’s online. This article is to point out the tiny details that differentiate them, the little things that either makes reading manga online a pleasure or a pain.

One of the biggest advantage online manga has to its pulp and paper counterparts is the ability to be easily magnified. In theory, a manga page could be enlarged to the point where it stretched far beyond your screen. Not that I think that level of magnification is needed, but the technology is there, as compared to a physical book where if you want to see a panel enlarged you either bring it closer to your face or get a magnifying glass. So naturally you would think that every company would take advantage of this and give the reader and option to enlarge the pages.

Some do and some don’t. Tokyopop’s sample pages come in two sizes: tiny and all right. Meanwhile at Digital Manga’s site emanga.com and Viz’s site you have a variety of sizes you can make the pages. But for me, it’s not enough merely to be able to magnify the pages, I want it to stay that way until I’m done. Digital Manga has the right idea. When I’m reading something and I enlarge a page, I know the next page will be the same size. On Viz’s viewer each new page reverts back to its original. I find this too small for me, so I magnify it, read the page, and then turn the page and mutter angrily when I see that the pages have gone back to being small again. Sure it’s a little thing, but having to do it page after page after page…after awhile I start reading the manga through a red mist of anger.

One other thing Viz could add is clickable pages, so that when the reader clicked on the manga the pages turned. This is a simple thing that webcomics have done for ages (and something both the Tokyopop and Digital Manga’s manga viewers employ). I mean sure, there are clearly labelled buttons saying ‘next’ and ‘previous,’ but I want buttons and clickable pages!

Maybe I sound lazy, wanting to be able to turn the page with a simple click on the screen instead of a button. But I’m not so lazy that I would use Tokyopop’s timed page setting, where a timer automatically turns the page for you. Really? Are there really people who can’t bother to click a button and turn the page themselves? There are several settings you can pick. If you want to take a whole 45 seconds to luxuriate in a page of “Red Hot Chilli Samurai,” that power is available to you. On the other hand, if you are tightly pressed for time, there is the 3-seconds per page setting. I remember reading somewhere that it takes the average manga reader about 3.5 seconds to read a page of manga (if you also remember reading this random fact, please post where so I can credit them and give this article some air of extra respectability). Even if 3.5 seconds is the average time it takes someone to read a page, the three second manga just seems way too frantic. You’re trying to read a sample chapter of “Return to Labyrinth” but the pages keep turning before you can finish them and suddenly the kettle is boiling but you can’t turn it off or else you’ll miss six pages and your phone rings and it’s your mom and yes mom, I saw you e-mailed me some job postings, no I haven’t looked at them yet and Ahhhhhhhh!, the manga preview is already over.

Basically it’s a useless feature. The only use I can see for it is if you are involved in some kind of competitive manga reading league where speed is key. In that case, this feature would make the perfect training tool. Or maybe if you timed your life to the second (“Let’s see, fifteen minutes for breakfast, followed by a ten minute run, and oh, I have a one minute block between my shower and catching the bus. I could use that to read a chapter of Gakuen Alice, but only if I use the three second setting.”) The rest of us can just set the timer to manual and turn the page ourselves.

One edge both Tokyopop and Viz have over Digital Manga is splash pages. DMP only shows one page at a time, which means that splash pages get broken up. Tokyopop always shows two pages at a time no matter what, so splash pages are always intact. Viz will show one or two pages at a time depending on what size the pages are, but they generally makes sure to keep splash pages intact. This is an especially important point concerning their action series. One reason the climax at the end of Maoh: Juvenile Remix works so well is because the manga-ka knows how to rock a splash page. Cutting the layouts up into individual pages would just ruin the flow.

Even though they halve the splash pages, I do think Digital Manga Publishing has the best manga viewer out of the three I talk about here. Their layout is simple but effective, and there’re lots of little flourishes that you get to know after using it for awhile (like the ability to bookmark pages, an element I haven’t seen elsewhere). And even though I complain about some minor quirks from each company, in general I’m just happy to see more companies putting stuff online. It’s not just limited to the three I talked about here either. Seven Seas has entire volumes on their site, while Yen Press is pushing forward with its online magazine. It’s an exciting time to have genetically modified optic nerves made for staring at computer screens.

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Looking for online manga to read? Check out the links on the sidebar! All legal, professionally translated, creator-endorsed and updated frequently.

The recent press release regarding the manga coalition, which saw a slew of companies finally banding together to battle the evil that is manga aggregator sites, was met with the excepted amount of drama, assumption and protest. While the number of fans cheering the decision and understanding the positive implications of it came out in healthy force, the nay-sayers remained as always the prevalently loudest.

With the resulting week or so of virtual fandom butt-hurt across various forums and sites, I was finally compelled to finish my rough manifesto of why so many of those arguments are completely nutso. Some are sympathizable, many are wildly shared and all have been corrected a hundred times long before I decided to step into the ring of legality and logic. But, to try and take the edge off that voice in my head that constantly screams ‘do they even know what the heck they’re talking about?!’, I’ve conglomerated my brain-responses to hundreds of people’s emotionally-charged internet responses into one post of fairly-frank, honest and thus likely offensive-to-those-who-take-it-all-as-personally responses to those statements you never meant to be taken as a question.

And here we go…

“It’s not available in my language!”

If all you want is to be able to read the manga in your language (which is completely understandable), then wouldn’t you use scanlations only after owning the original Japanese version? If not, then news flash, you’re not reading the scanlation for the translation – you’re reading it for the manga itself because it’s free, not because it happens to be in your language. Can’t afford to buy the original Japanese version? Then skip ahead to the “I can’t afford it!” panel. But let’s give you the benefit of the doubt, what if you have the original book and can’t understand it or you’re looking for it out of curiousity and it’s not licensed to be released where you are?

Solution (Part One): Finding Japanese manga isn’t as tricky as one may think, nor as expensive. Not as easy as finding English translated manga, sure, but it’s out there and there’s a lot of it. Manga is predominantly sold on the cheap in Japan, especially for older series, and your real issue is the shipping itself if coming directly from Japan. Looking for cheaper alternatives? There are a few Kinokunyia bookstores scattered around the states with it in healthy-stock or check out English-language sites such as Akadot Retail or JList for Japanese manga with more localized shipping options. You can even ask your local comic book retailer as they have distribution abilities to get you some original-language titles as well. And don’t forget sites like eBay (note: always be careful shopping online with sites like eBay though!) and places like conventions, which can often have little treasure troves of books in a variety of languages.

Solution (Part Two): Supporting the stories you want to see published in your language is the tried and true way to take steps towards making it happen. Publishers want to license what you want to buy – happy customers are buying customers after all and the days of blind-bulk licensing is behind us as the market leveled out from its initial surge. Publishers are always asking what readers want licensed and those who request the most feverently are often the most rewarded (look at Digital Manga’s recent boys’ love license announcements for example). Already series out by a creator you’d like to see more from? Buy it, love it, share it! The best way to get more is to show you want what they’ve already gotten for you.

“I can’t afford it!”

…Then you don’t get it. Life lesson time – this is how the world works. Want a car? Want a PS3? Can’t afford them? Then you don’t get them. But you can save for them! And manga at $8.99 a full book? Not exactly a huge investment. Manga is a business. The creators and those who publish it need to make a living – they have families, homes, food and health to pay for same as you. You say you need your money for other stuff (and yes, food and living very important), well so they do.

Solution: There’re lots of ways to read manga for free that’s legal and completely supportive of the creators. Companies are doing all they can without bankrupting themselves and artists right now to give readers what they want and they know free stuff is one of them. Viz Media’s Shonen Sunday and SigIkki websites offer lots of series to read including some simultaneously with Japanese releases. Digital Manga’s emanga.com website offers free previews of it series which it sells for pennies a chapter and it’s the same for NetComics. Not to mention a few new projects on the horizon we’ll be hearing about shortly.

Not enough? Try out your local library. Don’t have the titles you want? Ask them! Libraries want books that they know people want to read but they’ll never know if people don’t tell them. Don’t wait for the maybe-day they’ll get the books you want, suggest and ask, you may be surprised how many (and how quickly) your requests are put into motion!

And don’t forget the financial survival tactic of sharing with friends. Whether it’s borrowing a copy of their book(s), pooling your money for a new copy of Shonen Jump to share, going splits on a new volume of manga you both love or combining orders to get that free shipping on RightStuf, your good friends can quickly become your manga reading and collecting best friends!

Also buying manga makes manga cheaper (an important fact I was reminded of by @ABCBTom), and I don’t just mean the buy x get x sort of deals us collectors love to hate (poor bookshelf space!). The more people buy the books, the cheaper the books will become. Shonen Jump titles such as Naruto and Bleach are perfect examples, consistently cheaper than more niche titles such as Viz Signature, Dark Horse’s books or boys’ love. Why? Because they sell more and consistently. It’s a simple matter of affordability – the more books a company gets printed, the less they’re charged by the printer (the power of bulk buying!), but they can’t buy a lot if they won’t sell a lot. So the more people buy, the cheaper books will become – now that’s a great reward!

“But I need to know what happens now!”

You don’t (patience is a virtue) but we’ll pretend you do. And yeah, spoilers suck but even if we had just the books to go on as they were released, there’d still be spoilers. It’s an unfortunate fact of pop-culture life (and we boo on you spoiler-people!).

Solution: Utilize the simul-posting already available, let companies know which series you’d like to have simul-posted. Buy the books as soon as they come out if you can, show the demand is there to have it now! If you put off until an entire series is done in book form, not only do you deprive the companies of the money they need to finish printing it but also don’t do much to show you want it OMG-now.

Viz Media is already doing the simul-posting with Rumiko Takahashi’s Rin-Ne series and that’s just the start. More of this is coming but it’s a long process getting the okay from the Japanese creators and companies, many of whom are uncomfortable putting anything online because of the theft that already exists. Hard to blame them for worrying it could only make things worse. Do whatever you can to promote what’s happening now and embrace that which comes, the manga-world is changing and we’ll all need to adapt along with it to get us all where we want to be including down the road to simultaneous releases.

“Well it’s not like I’m paying the scanlators for it!”

Maybe not directly but do you know how much money scanlation aggregator sites make off the ads on their pages that you visit? A lot and I mean a lot. Judging from recent numbers (Not-so-fun-fact: A certain big manga aggregator sites is one of the most visited in the world), it’d likely be safe to say that they’re making more money off of you than even the creators themselves – in many cases stealing not only from creators and publishers, but even scanlators themselves. The thieves of thieves certainly aren’t Robin Hoods, that’s for sure.

Solution: The manga companies are already tackling the biggest issue head-on – taking down the sites that are making money off of these illegal scanlations; making money off of you, whether it comes directly from your wallet or not. Help them! Stop being a tool to these individuals out to use you and the work you love for their own gain; they are not manga fans looking to share, they are profiteers looking to gain money for your time directly at the manga creators’ expense. If you’re reading scanlations, at least stick to the little guys who are actually sharing lesser-known works to select crowds and not mass-sharing pages for proceeds.

“Scanlations are free advertising!”

It’s true, scanlations are fantastic advertising. They’re what many publishers use to gauge good licenses and popularity; they are what drums up real excitement for books when they’re licensed. Scanlations are strong tools for marketing that come free for publishers and creators. However, the benefit of promoting content to a group who by all majority-proven isn’t interested in actually paying for content, you have to see how the benefit falls flat. It’s like playing a trailer before a movie that you’re already watching (and worse one you’ve stolen as with scanlations) – what is it going to accomplish? For those who actually purchase the books when they’re published in their language are the only real audience to these advertising benefits but, as covered in the next point, scanlations aren’t advertising to the millions of others – they’re just illicit alternatives to the real deal.

Solution: How can scanlations really be decent advertising? Many scanlators claim they’re in it for the love of the medium and supporting the companies and creators past distributing their work without permission could go a long way. How about ads for companies on their websites? Heavy promotion to actually buy the book before and after it’s licensed? Scanlators should also set-up reading online instead of offering downloads, keeping the reading more regulated and the sharing minimal. Scanlators should work with companies, not as vigilantes or shadowy figures and the same goes for readers as well.

“Well I pay for the books after I read the scanlations!”

And that makes you awesome. Really, it does. Unfortunately you are the minority – the extreme minority. When you see a book has sold maybe a couple hundred hard copies but the illegal versions online have been downloaded over 2 million times, it becomes pretty evident who’s not doing what. If everyone bought the books after they read them illegally then WOW – what an industry we would have. And, if publishers knew their readers had this kind of morality, then you can bet that free legal distribution would already be light years ahead of where it is now. Heck, going back to the point about buying the Japanese editions, if everyone who read scanlations was doing this when English books weren’t licensed then scanlations wouldn’t be an issue at all because they would just be translation-share, not book theft.

Solution: Promote these decisions and acts of goodness! Share your books with friends, get excited – you own the book, its proudly, prettily and legally yours. You’re doing something that makes the actual creator happy and helps see to it that more of their books end up on bookshelves as well. Someday you’ll be able to skip the illegal copy step altogether as companies gain further permissions to offer digital copies themselves (Fun-fact: Being allowed to post series a company has licensed online is a whole other contract, cost and set of permissions from the Japanese creators. This is one of the main reasons you don’t see it being done more yet), but in the meantime, if you’re buying the books then keep being a damn proud minority.

“Scanlators work really hard on what they do and don’t get paid for it!”

Yes, in many cases true. But… what does that change? It’s admirable, sure, there’s some talented folk out there but it doesn’t change the fact that they’re doing something illegal. They are stealing from the creators. If they were only doing what they did to practice their skills, have a translated copy for themselves that’d be fine. In many cases the original scanlator has bought the original so them making a version in their language for themself, no problem! But it doesn’t end there – they distribute and they distribute to thousands, if not millions, of readers who will now have no need to go out and buy the copy for themselves. Hard work does not make something okay. I’m sure robbing a bank isn’t easy but we don’t cheer them on (you know, as a fun but still poignantly similar example).

Solution: Scanlators should put their powers of skill towards the forces of good. Apply for jobs to work with actual companies, create your own work and promote something you own. Digital Manga is also working towards the launch of a service that’s looking to bring aboard experienced scanlators in a way that’ll see everyone involved get paid for their work while still offering fans the stories they want to read. Exciting stuff in the works!

“But official translations are wrong! I like scanlations better!”

Translators who create scanlations are no different than those who translate professional (past of course professionals being paid for it, doing it legally and having potentially more education). Translations, especially when going from a language from Japanese, is very a tricky and subjective art form. Like any art form, it will also be viewed by different people in different ways who want different things. Some prefer a literal translation over smooth dialogue, others want a clean reading experience that keeps true to the original but doesn’t need to stick word for word (something that in many instances simply isn’t possible).

More often than not what readers see as ‘incorrect’ translating on behalf of licensing companies, is because it differs from the scanlation they read first. People have a tendency to take what they see/read/hear first as fact, with anything following it being an argument or alternative. In translation, this is simply not the case. Just because you read the scanlation first, doesn’t mean it’s the right or accurate version. That isn’t to say all legally translated work is perfect but the same can most definitely be said for scanlations as well. (Fun fact: Manga-ka and Japanese license holders have more input in translation than most may think – often times changes in things such as names is a different request from the original owners of the story, not the English companies)

Solution: Learn to read Japanese. Not as easy as we’d like sure, but you can’t go proclaiming which translation is ‘right’ when you yourself can’t understand the original. Simple solution is fundamentally simple?

“This is just publishers wanting money! What about what the creators want?!”

Eye-opener: the creators don’t want you stealing their stuff either. Why does this seem like a such prevalent thought among anti-anti-piracy people? You’re sucking away their livelihood, disrespecting their work and not showing love so much as you’re using their stories like disposal worth-nothings. Talk about depressing for them! When publishers make moves to protect their copyrights, it’s as much to the creators benefit as theirs. And for money? Yeah, sure, publishers need money so they can pay everyone who made the work. Paying the creator, and then paying the company which is then split among the workers who helped bring the manga to buyers’ hands.

Solution: A lot of people’s misconceptions about creator’s rights, opinions, and perhaps what makes it so easy for people to outright steal from the creators they claim to respect, is likely due to a lack of human-face the creators have. Not many creators come across the sea and the bulk of reader ‘interaction’ with them is the author notes in books. While occasionally they refer to the English-speaking crowd (for example), they’re still really just a one-way street of communication. Translated communication via publishers from creators could help give a real face to these theft issues and offer a whole new side of manga-enjoyment for fans. It’d be a big eye-opener for a lot of the dangerously entitled fans out there who don’t realize how many manga creators don’t even want any more of their works released in English because of the disrespect shown with scanlations.

“But charging money for manga is just mean! Companies don’t care about my feelings at all! We’re being punished!”

(Note: Yes, this is actually a repeated argument.) Feeling ‘bad’ about having something you stole taken away isn’t a reason, a justification or anything that people should have to read you trying to use as a reason to keep getting what you want when you want it for nothing in return. Sorry folks, in this instance you’re just being whiny. And punished? No, by having something taken away that you never should’ve been stealing in the first place does not mean you’re being punished. You just feel like you are – because that’s really what this all comes down to is how people are feeling, which often gets in the way of those logical brain thoughts. And while we can understand your emotions run wild, the cursing, repetition and ‘well you’re wrong because it doesn’t make sense because I feel bad and that’s bad’ logic does not fly.

Solution: Grow up? Maturity-speaking of course. I know needing to spend money on stuff you want can be icky and sometimes you won’t be able to afford what you want. That’s part of life. Earning the money to get the things you want is also a part of life. If you want manga, games, whatever then earn it. Just wanting makes you selfish, not entitled. And companies do care about your feelings. I mean, really, how much good is it going to do a company to do ‘everything you hate’? Sometimes they need to make hard choices and sometimes you’re not going to like it but the ball is always in the consumer’s court. Buy, promote, suggest – they change based on what you, their hopeful consumer, does or doesn’t do. They want you to be happy, they want to provide you with the things that make you happy, they want you to be their happy customer – but you know what? Happiness is a two way street. You give and you get. So give! Then get! And remember that publishers have the original creator and their workers to support, not just your wanton hands.

Going to go actively avoid forums and give my brain a rest now (and then read some manga – naturally!)

Image above copyright to Seimu Yoshizaki/Viz Media from “Kingyo Used Books“

“Working together, the membership of the coalition will actively seek legal remedies to this intellectual property theft against those sites that fail to voluntarily cease their illegal appropriation of this material.”

Along with a list of Japanese license-holders, North American manga publishers Viz Media, Yen Press, Vertical and Tokyopop are also all on the list showing a crackdown on piracy that many had hoped (and some expected) was coming.

So what does this mean for the manga scanlation world? In some ways a lot, and in others probably not so much. While the specifics of this coalition isn’t addressed in much detail in the press release, it seems safe to say that Viz, Yen Press and Tokyopop aren’t likely to call out the big guns over things like individual scanlation groups unless they’re outright violating licenses they hold. The large aggregator sites that make money off of posting full series (many of which fully available in English) on the other hand, are something that’s been a huge eyesore in the entire industry and medium for ages, offending companies, fans and scanlators alike as they dropkick any percieved notion of nobility square in the proverbial balls.

Firstly and foremost, scanlations are illegal – flat out, no exceptions. Whether you do it “out of love” or not, scanlations are theft and they directly and negatively impact the creators and the companies. Unfortunately, it remains a moot point to argue that companies don’t rely on them when it comes to deciding on what to license and the resulting fanfare. While even scanlations of series not yet licensed in English is still harmful, it’s long been overlooked as a necessary evil of sorts, one that accepts a language limitation of readers wishing to read a manga in their own language. When this barrier no longer exists however, then you’ve officially tossed all kind-given reasoning to the wind.

This is thus where the biggest issue lies – people who read manga for free that’s fully available to them in their own language (for sake of this article, English will be the predominant example). If the majority of people who thought ‘hey that series was neat’ went to Amazon (or other such online retail site or physical store) first instead of the thousands who go to Google and type in a generic ‘such-and-such-a-series-volume-1-for-free’, then we’d be looking at a whole different manga industry. Most of this falls to a morale stand on the reader’s part, an unfortunate cycle of habit many have gotten themselves into for whatever their reason. Lots of alternative means out there but it’s high time those legal means stopped being the alternatives.

Aggregrators, in the manga sense, are large websites that offer up hundreds of series to read via their site. This regardless of creator permission (which is never), scanlator permission (which is half-never) and regardless of if the series has been published in English (in fact often intentionally so they can thrive off the official publicity and interest). They then slater their websites with ads to rake in the money from visitors and send out Google ads to look more legit and draw in more hopefully-unsuspecting readers. These are the sites need to be taken down so badly that it’s rather sickening to know they’ve thrived this long.

Will the tear-down of these sites be the result of this coalition? It looks like the companies are planning to be civil about it, this despite the fact these sites have been giving them the finger for so many years. Admirably patient perhaps but a polite ‘please stop’ seems like it’ll definitely fall on deaf ears. While promising in itself to see such big manga giants working together for a common goal in this big pool of common interest, where they go from here is the real thing to keep an eye on – it’ll be a huge victory if they can take down these sites but perhaps a little naive to think it’ll happen overnight.

Personally, I say “amazing!” to this – it’s a promising start. If companies want manga readers to stick up for their work (you know, beyond the obvious that you should already be supporting what you care about without being prodded) then they need to show they’re willing to stand up for themselves.

As for the ‘little guys’, the scanlation groups who offer scans and translations of series not yet licensed and don’t charge money for them and don’t feed them like greed-soaked fillets to aggregator sites – keep on truckin’. I don’t personally agree with what you do, but I know what you do is needed with the way things are now and most of you do do it out of love and wanting to share a fun story and read what people think of it. But be nice, follow your own code of yester-year – if a company licenses something, don’t cuss and kick up a fuss. They’re in the right – it’s good news. Politely take down your scans and direct your readers to the legal editions and give yourself a pat on the back for likely helping see it happen.

This is a big manga playground and if everyone plays nice, we’ll have happy recesses forever – everyone just needs to learn how to share the space. Getting there one less bully at a time for now at least!

I recently shared my brief take on the recent manga company news in a post I titled ‘A Little Less Spring in Manga’s Step This Season’. Well, news sadly hasn’t gotten any better since then and that step has officially landed in a pile of shit (excuse the language). To no surprise, the situation stinks.

Via a brief and to-the-point announcement, DC Comics announced that as of July 2010, CMX Manga would no longer be publishing any new titles. The fate of its currently running series remains up in the air and no real reason was given short of the familiar catch-all answer of economic issue.

“Over the course of the last six years, CMX has brought a diverse list of titles to America and we value the books and creators that we helped introduce to a new audience. Given the challenges that manga is facing in the American marketplace, we have decided that CMX will cease publishing new titles as of July 1, 2010. “ (via AnimeNewsNetwork)

This comes as a shocker for sure, and as naturally distressing news not only as a loss of the series they possessed, but as a depressing loss of jobs for many and another rattle of the industry-stability cage.

But should this have surprised us as much as it did? Were there signs this was coming? It got me doing a lot of thinking about where CMX stood in my own life as a manga consumer. Has it really only been six years?

CMX is one of the companies that I always remember being there. Even though I’ve been reading and collecting manga for over ten years, it feels odd recalling a time when CMX wasn’t around. They never had a huge presence but I always knew they were there. When CMX books first started being released, they were also easier to come across then they’d ever prove to be over their next half-decade of life. Local independent stores seemed keen to bring in titles from the new company as the manga market boomed, and with DC as the backer CMX was a manga publisher able to momentarily sneak into the sight of comic retailers in a way that other companies could not.

I indulged in a number of their earlier series, most notably Land of the Blindfold, Monster Collection, Sword of the Dark Ones and Tenryu the Dragon Cycle. At the time I enjoyed these series but CMX quickly become synonymous with unpleasant production values in my mind. The paper quality was nice but the stiffness of the books was horrible and the cover designs suffered from too much consistency, the art lost in a blank canvas of white space and awkward layouts. A friend of mine was collecting Testarotho at the time (another series I predominantly liked reading) and it served as the gateway manga during CMX’s transition to a new publishing style including a visual makeover and new binding (did bug us having a series completely switch appearance mid-way though). While I was happy CMX was changing to a more eye-catching and pleasing format, their presence in the shops I visited quickly began to dwindle and no titles I caught wind of via news on the internet sounded interesting enough to seek out via the process of special order. Having only just become old enough to get a credit card, the ease of online order was still premature for me. The Tenjo Tenge censorship debacle had always exploded into fan-outrage just a short while earlier and, though originally working off an understandable base for complaint, sadly snowballed into a lifelong grudge of fan-entitlement and excuse-to-avoid-buying that haunted the company until the very end.

The trend of diminishing presence continued over the next five years for CMX. Their titles become those little surprise discoveries you’d make at conventions and were those books occasionally slid between other companies’ releases on comic store shelves, often doomed to remain there as the staple-series that were just always there (sadly because no one was buying them). It didn’t help that CMX itself never seemed to stand out much as the internet began to bubble with publisher interaction and information, ever present but generally silent. Around this time, mid-2008, I really began to follow manga blogs and enjoyed the interaction and opinions they offered with other fans. A few choice CMX titles were repeated, most notably Emma and From Erocia With Love, and it wasn’t without notice to me that CMX, though not with anything that screamed ‘you must buy me!’ to my own tastes, did impress by offering something really different from others at the time as big title fever hit the continent with best-selling-effect.

In more at-home observation, there’s been a shift in the content of Canada’s big chain bookstores , Indigo (or their branch better known to me, Chapters) in recent years. Comic books had never been a big part of their selection and here, unlike many other venues, manga actually paved the way for American-mainstream graphic novel publications. First manga sections begun to spring up and then they exploded in size and scale – walls and walls of manga in some places, always with a shelf or two of Marvel and independent graphic novels next to them. But over the last couple of years, DC had begun to filter its way in and in a big way. Today DC comics have their own walls, stocked full of trade paperbacks and hardcover editions. They still sit next to the manga section, now about equal in size as stores scale back on their manga selection. But where in all this was CMX? Nowhere to be found, unfortunately.

DC always seemed keen on holding the lease on CMX and keeping them back at a distant from consumers, even at the manga forefront. Not putting the books in bookstores and only allowing it a sliver of its own publicity, it was a sit-back-and-watch effort. In retrospect CMX was put in a very restricted position – left to be found only by the faithful who sought it out but doomed to obscurity to everyone else. It was a vicious cycle where only those who were already fans of the imprint would in turn continue to actively seek it out, the problem being the lack of effort to create these fans in the first place. What resulted was DC comics ultimately seeing CMX has an imprint not worth the effort in keeping because though it had faithful readers, it simply never gained enough.

Suddenly we come to today where CMX, which had unfortunately never made enough of a ripple in the manga-sphere to even raise the question of its stability, announcing it’s closure in a mere two months. Ironically, consumers had finally gotten the frank and decisive answer they’d been looking for from a company after numerous recent burns from those who faded into bankruptcy with so many unconfirmed statuses. On the other hand, the lack of sign or precursor to foreshadow the decision tripled the shock of the blow.

What perhaps stings the most though is the timing – what are the odds? Just in recent memory it was first Aurora Publishing, the end of print-edition Yen Plus, then Go!Comi and then the Viz layoffs. With the shaking state of the English manga industry flooding the web, is it any wonder though that the executives of DC must’ve seen this as the perfect time to make such a seemingly sudden decision? The perfect smokescreen! Blending into the proverbial crowd, they were less likely to face the scrutiny of why with so many other companies offering a pre-proven answer.

So where do we stand now? One manga publisher less and perhaps most distressingly, one who we had in honesty taken for granted would always be there. Seems little wonder the lacking cause for concern though with CMX having only just updated its website with a number of new titles, solicitations up until 2011 appearing on Amazon and a recent string of new titles that have seen renewed push in both coverage and fanfare.

I know I personally recently took a big dive into CMX’s library which made this announcement all the more ironic. After enjoying a couple new titles, I asked for recommendations of more CMX to explore. Thanks to fellow readers, the library, an amazing sale at local comic store Strange Adventures and the lovely folks at CMX itself, I found myself going from having in my possession 5 CMX titles to over 30 in a little under two weeks. And I read them all, and with only a few exceptions, I loved them. So many series I’d be missing out on! And wonderful production values as well, from the lettering to the covers to the smooth reading experience.

Alas I realized, for Kuriousity had been sorely missing out as well – fellow reviewer Andre and I took the task upon ourselves to bring more CMX titles to light on the site. Recent reviews have included The World I Create, Genghis Khan, The Battle of Genryu, Oh! My Brother, and the absolutely terrifying in an entertaining sort of way, Gon. These were only the tip of the iceberg of the titles I’ve found – I’m enraptured with Key to the Kingdom, in love with King of Cards, amused by Deka Kyoshi! and curious about The Lizard Prince. You Higuri’s old-school series Seimaden has been appeasing my inner boys’ love fangirl and Diamond Girl gave me a reason to crave baseball. Just to name a few.

There still remain so many unanswered questions in regards to the timing of this move on DC’s part. Why and why now? The perfect camouflage? A conglomeration of background circumstances? Or simply a harsh budgetary move on the eve of the fiscal year’s end? Whatever the reason, the loss is great – CMX may not have stood in the spotlight but its individual titles gave off a shine of their own with a level of charm and risk that catered well to an audience often missed even by the most forward of publishers. Whether it was that very risk that saw the imprint’s end or CMX’s restricted ability to ever to evolve past its role as simply DC’s manga-shot-in-the-dark, it’s a true loss to the manga shelves across the English-reading world. It’s a shame that CMX proved in so many ways to be that thing you never truly realize you’ve got until it’s gone, even with six years under its belt.

Now you’ll have to excuse me, I have a really long shopping list of CMX titles to put together for Anime North next week.

Last week Yen Press announced on their website the future of their monthly manga anthology , Yen Plus – their upcoming July 2010 release will be the last issue that Yen Plus sees in print. The magazine, which has seen serialized chapters of some of Yen Press’s most popular titles including Soul Eater and Maximum Ride, has been in print for two years.

Yen Press does plan to continue the magazine online however, the details of which still pending. It’s too little surprise, however, that this comes at the displeasure of many readers of the magazine.

Looking at the upsides of this decision, the magazine going digital allows it to be available to a broader audience many of whom may not have been able to receive it in print. It also makes getting the magazine both on-time and simultaneously with other readers a controllable possibility. There’s also the possibility, one could hope, that this will allow some new content that they weren’t able to include when also dealing with the costs of printing.

But the question many have been wondering – will these now-magazine readers pay for this future-online edition? The overwhelming response from fans after even the quickest look at forums, blogs and even Yen Press’s own website seems to be no. (Read more for whats, whys and what-ifs under the cut)

It comes to the basic concept – what will this online edition offer readers that they aren’t already able to get elsewhere? Yen Press’s collected editions already offer the physical copy of the books while, sad as it is, illegal scanlation sites already offer the chapters digitally for no cost for those who want to read them on the computer. Even on the legal side of things, Viz Media currently offers a number of their series serialized online to read legally absolutely free with the books following soon after.

So where then would an online based Yen Press fit into manga readers’ lives?

Unfortunately supporting artists and creators isn’t enough motivation for readers to put their money into purchasing manga. Sure it’s a good thing but just not quite enough when it’s the only direct benefit to consumers. It offers little of the instant gratification that comes from holding and owning a physical copy of something – a direct exchange of their money.

So much is going digital and manga is little exception, but with illegal copies of nearly every series fans are looking for already readily available online, manga being printed in hard-copy proves it’s most immediate benefit as a purchase. Back in a rough 2008-editorial, Anime vs. Manga In the Market, this was one of the main reasons I cited for manga’s continued growing success at the time – something that I believe is no different now (alas we can’t say the same for manga’s success rate which seems semi-stable but certainly not growing).

Readers have already shown that it’s difficult enough to get them to pay for the content, so where does it stand that they’ll pay for the content without the packaging that they already had before?

Now I’m a reader who didn’t purchase Yen Plus when it was running in print, and as it stands right now, I will not be a reader who pays for the online version either (that in truth because I find reading manga on the computer screen to be a wholly unpleasant experience in itself).

For me when it came to Yen Plus, the chapter-size instalments were just teasers for the series contained within and I certainly didn’t need a teaser of the same things every month. The print editions of Yen Plus were too costly to justify a monthly expense of an item expendable in the short term – this because I’d be spending money on the purchase of the graphic novel editions eventually anyway and I much prefer reading volume-sized portions, not a single chapter at a time. There’s also of course the space print magazines take up – those things are huge bricks on a shelf and, despite the cheaper print-quality, still tug too greatly on the heartstrings to be easy recycle dumps. See how they emotionally blackmail their way into becoming teetering stacks on your bedroom floor in place of the collected editions of the same series? Or maybe that’s just me…

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the large print size, the diversity of titles and perhaps most of all the editorial portions and advertisements that made up the space in between. Collections like these are fun compilations and it’s exciting having anything in the manga-world be as consistent as a monthly anthology in print.

So I’m definitely not against the whole manga compilation in large format, cheap newsprint manga-magazine-style book. Far from it in fact, but I think it’s worth lays elsewhere than an initial hash of material that companies are already banking money on elsewhere.

But what would get ‘me’ to put money into this kind of thing? What I’d love to see is a publication similar in format to what Shonen Jump and Yen Plus have done but with a focus on standalone shorts. The value of the individual issues would be higher for consumers by providing a complete experience, one that isn’t just one piece of a coming collected edition. This kind of publication would not only offer a fun reading experience in its own right but also have the ability to showcase entirely new talent to the English-reading market that could give publishers a glimpse of what talent is worth exploring with future series licenses.

This could (and should) also include work from around the world, putting into play the hopefully sizeable response Yen Press in particular garnered from past outstretching of interest to budding comic creators. Plus a short story is so much less daunting for artists fairly new to the medium (and you’d be amazed how rarely first-timer comickers try for shorter works – the temptation to dive into long works is too great, even if not the ideal place to start!).

Put together a diverse collection of one-shot stories, a complimenting dose of ads and a dash of editorial spark from knowledgeable contributors and then you’d have yourself a collection that I would subscribe to in a heartbeat. Give me something new, give me a true ‘taste’ of something that will inspire me to buy new series when they come out and something that can spark real discussion, debate and recommendation from readers on a regular basis instead of charming us once and then rinse and repeating every four weeks. And while I’d much prefer this in physical form, I’d pay for a digital copy as well simply because I know I’d be paying to get something new that I won’t be seeing a more worthwhile version of a month down the road.

But, I say all this with a necessary disclaimer: I can only speak from the side of the consumer – I’m not as versed as I’d like to be in the inner workings. What would be the cost of such an endeavour? What is the cost of licensing short stories? Is there even an established means in which to do this? If I had to wager an answer I’d likely guess ‘a lot’, ‘too much’ and ‘no’. But a manga-fan can dream right?

Rounding it up, this I think is the real kicker issue – did Yen Plus offer anything aside from being a physical copy that readers couldn’t (and can’t) already get elsewhere, if not right away but very soon? Maybe not so much before but now that they’re moving to a digital front, there will be even more pressure to do so. Personally I hope Yen Press rises to the challenge, they’ve already got so much strong work under their belts, but when it comes to the success of Yen Plus it’s really a wait and see at this point.

Omnibus releases are not a new thing to the manga world but with recent changes in the economy and buyer habits, they’re becoming more and common. In fact in the past year alone it’s become evident that more than a few publishers are turning more and more of their attention to the omnibus format.

With tactics changing, buyers shifting and bookstore shelves reorganizing, are the omnibus editions we’re seeing now just the beginning of a new era of manga publication – could they be the future of manga in print?

As a few present examples:

Digital Manga has recently released two omnibus editions of previously released series, Yellow and Little Butterfly, and they took this route for newer material with Ludwig II and Swallowing The Earth, an Osamu Tezuka title. Vertical also released Tezuka’s MW as an omnibus, merging the original three-volume series into one.

Tokyopop has several recent series in omnibus form, including Jyu-Oh-Sei and Tsubasa: Those With Wings. Both these series had omnibus editions for their second runs in Japan. Both Tokyopop and Viz have released several of their popular series in collected editions, such as Fruits Basket and Viz’s VIZBig books.

Seven Seas has also put out several omnibus collections of previously released material, including Hollow Fields and Kashimashi, as had Dark Horse in recent years with popular older titles such as Gunsmith Cats. Dark Horse’s recent acquistions of several CLAMP series will see them released in omnibus format as well.

In what could be the most dramatic move to the omnibus format, however, is evident by retail-site listings for upcoming Del Rey releases.

The majority of those on this list are currently running series so the change to omnibus format will come mid-series to readers of these titles, and though only guesswork, the choice of which series are to be given the omnibus treatment is likely based on pre-existing sales information. Several popular Del Rey series are continuing to come out as single volume releases – such as Fairy Tail and XXXHolic, keeping in mind of course that some of the books currently continuing as single volumes simply may not have enough books left to constitute an omnibus. However this sharp and sudden change still shows just how seriously Del Rey could be taking the shift.

Note: Del Rey has yet to comment on the majority of the above listings so until confirmed by the publisher, they remain speculation. However, Samurai Deeper Kyo, a Tokyopop license resuce, is a confirmed omnibus format as previously announced at SDCC. The remainder of this opinion-based article will discuss the books in an existent manner.

While this change, like any other, is sure to ruffle a few feathers, I have to give my kudos to Del Rey for the decision, along with others going the same route for likely the same reasons, be it a first-run treatment of new series or a re-release of an old favourite.

Looking at this from a production side, it’s a more affordable method for publishers to release multiple volumes in one book, and in most cases this savings for them translates to direct savings for customers.

Looking at Del Rey’s omnibus editions for example:

Air Gear (Vol. 14) – $13.99/CAN
Air Gear (Vol. 15/16/17) – $25.95/CAN

Based on these numbers, readers will be getting a 3 for the price of 2 deal on every omnibus – not bad! The savings in the long run of a series are fantastic, though in the short term readers will find themselves paying more per purchase.

Other potential downsides to omnibus collections are potentially fewer full colour illustrations (with the loss of multiple volume covers), consistency issues with previous volumes, and one heck of a hefty book in hand – some clocking in at over 650 pages.

As a simple but notable upside, it’ll certainly be a treat going in to pick up your usual 150-200 page volume and being greeted with triple the amount of your favourite series to enjoy.

Until we have more information about these volumes, there are different factors we can only ponder on for now, such how the wait between volumes will be affected for one. Will 3x the manga mean 3x the wait? Though when recieving three volumes in one, many readers may see this as a fair trade-off, especially when it comes to spacing out the larger spendatures.

How far ahead of the original releases the English editions are would also play a role in the span of time between releases. Combined volumes would allow large leaps forward which also gives publishers the opportuntiy to wrap a series up faster, moving it along for other new series to take it’s place without sacrificing the series to do so with cancellations.

This perhaps plays the most important role in the omnibus scheme of things from a reader perspective and that’s the allowance of series’ continuation. In recent years companies have fallen under scrutiny for the pause or complete halt of series due to low sales, smaller budgets and more strained time between fewer employees. Omnibus collections are a clear, and welcomed, alternative to stopping a series. It condenses the product to save time and money and it gets the series out to the consumer faster.

When given the choices – omnibus collections or no collections at all – the decision seems pretty clear from a fan view. Hopefully in that regard it becomes just as clear to publishers as well.

But taking all the pros and cons into consideration – such as notable series-wide savings, larger books but possibly sorer wrists and longer wait times – what are your thoughts on omnibus books – yay or nay? Are omnibus a pleasing package or a bulky blunder?

Originally written sometime last week, this post suffers from forgot-about-it-itis:

It’s no exageration that I’m a huge fan of Nickelodeon’s recently finished animated series, Avatar: The Last Airbender. As one of the most original and well-animated shows to play on television in my memory, I’ll forever be impressed and amazed by the creative team behind it and their visual and story-telling prowess that brought the unique series to life. You can see some screenshots of the multiple characters and gorgeous background paintings thanks to a “visual essay” of the series here.

That said, casting news of its upcoming live-action movie has created more than a little stir, a ripple of disbelief, that reaches far beyond its loyal fanbase.  This of course comes from the fact that the entire cast of this live-action movie are caucasian. As a series starring pre-dominantly Asian characters in beautifully rendered Asian locales, this doesn’t only seem completely inaccurate but also unneccessary. Is it to say there aren’t any talented ethnic actors and actresses out there? Because goodness knows that isn’t true.

A lot of talk has spiraled around about what can, and should, be done about this and more than a handful are stepping up to bring what they feel is a serious issue to Hollywood’s attention. What impresses me most is that many hadn’t heard of Avatar until this issue arose, which goes to show that it makes issue past fan-outrage towards disregard of the source material.

One of the largest, and growing, actions to bring a new perspective to the big-wigs is Saving the World With Postage, which encourages people to  send letters about Avatar: The Last Airbender’s live action movie and its attached cast. It doesn’t take long to write a letter and slip it into a mailbox so I hope that any and all who see issue with this, take a couple minutes to write up and send their concerns. The LJ posting has an example letter, tips, addresses and many responses from those who’ve already sent in their envelopes, complete with photographs.

As a manga-blog, I’ve no doubt my visitors know of the upcoming Dragonball Evolution live-action film. There was a quite a stir during the original casting announcements that the lead character Goku would be played by Justin Chatwin instead of an Asian martial artist. Truth be told in this particular matter, Goku may not neccessary have been originally Asian persay, (being an alien and all) as Toriyama’s worlds are vibrantly populated with people of every race, nationality and species. But none-the-less the scrunity was there and perhaps with good reason as another example of a growing trend.

This also reminds a lot of the casting for the in-production adaption of the popular video game franchise, Prince of Persia. How I love those games and have since I was young. But why is the ‘Prince of Persia’ being played by Jake Gyllenhaal?

Recent confirmation of Cowboy Bebop’s Hollywood treatment has also sent worried ripples through its fan community. AnimeVice has recently posted excerpts from an interview with the movie’s director and it seems they’re already trying to nip some of the obvious concerns in the bud:

“As far as the cast goes, I can’t tell you who is going to play what, but I can’t imagine that we’re not going to have a totally multi-ethnic cast.”

I’ve read lots of arguments on both sides, ranging from the quick-to-points on racism to people saying that as a white-nation, we should be making ‘white movies’. What? North America is multi-cultural society and is it so bad to have our movies reflect this? Are people really so interested in seeing an entire white cast decked up in Eastern clothing and pretending to be another race for two hours? And no, I do not believe that every causcasian casting is a racist decision so please don’t misunderstand me. Acting is one thing and goodness knows some can do it brilliantly (thank you, Robert Downey Jr., for your Tropic Thunder role which brings some well-said lines and a needed dash of humour to issues like these), but there are some things that do not need to be forged, forced or fabricated.

When it comes to adaptations, I usually give the benefit of the doubt. Different mediums call for different approaches. You’re not going to have something that can be, will be or neccessarily needs to be, nearly identical to the source material because the source material already exists to fill that role! But what I do believe in is respect towards the original and sometimes, it just really doesn’t feel like it’s there.

I leave you with a quote from Simon at Icarus Publishing, who links to a worthwhile read on the matter and as usual entertains:

“But even without the spectre of latent racism, the studio casting choices have me worried.  How hokey is it to see a bunch of white people wearing ancient Asian garb?  How is anyone to take the movie seriously, if you’re constantly reminded of somebody’s cheesy home video from his/her vacation to Beijing  with every single frame?”

My apologies for such a mish-mashed rant. For now, though, I have a letter to write :)