“US Manga Sales Plunge 20% in 2009, Scanlation to Blame!”

Cry moar

Scalantion has always been there and now its affecting sales?
Sure, blame it and lets just ignore there's a recession and badly marketed products with silly high prices always suffer.

back in 90s in the USA the manga ranma 1/2 cost $20! and the page numbers where cut down so you get less content. also there is no weekly, bi-weekly or monthly releases of most manga hear. have to wait 6 to 8 months for each volume. some stores stock items once and never re-stoke theme.

Well for those that would actually like to buy the manga, they simply cannot because of either prices or don't have the income to especially since jobs are STILL difficult to come by. If I had a decent job, I would buy everything, but since I don't, I deal with what I have.

Man! I read manga online all the time. Honestly I'd love to buy the mangas themselves but I can't afford 'em T.T lower the prices and I'll buy 'em a hell of a lot more =P

IT DUE TO THE UNEMPLOYMENT AND THE HIGH PRICES !! you all fails as a researchers you stupid ^%$#^@%

Personally I only download the scanlated manga that they so proudly deny us of... Kodomo no Jikan for example.

The industry needs to STOP blaming sanlation and fansubbing for their woes. I can't speak for anyone besides myself, but I know I don't purchase manga because I can't stand the mainstream popular trash that the industry tries to push.

Out of the whole manga selection at places like Barnes and Noble, or Virgin Megastore, there are probably only three titles that I might actually purchase. I'm much more likely to purchase lesser known fringe titles from smaller publishers that are likely to go under anyway. For example I purchased all four published volumes of Blood Alone from Infinity before they tanked.

I see kids just sitting in the manga section reading the manga right there anyway so internet's not the only problem.

"The almost total lack of digitally distributed manga capable of competing with such versions by now hardly needs mentioning"

So very true master Artefact. One of the reasons I buy few manga is because it's hard to store and keep them, compared to digital format at least.

The recession is worth noting, but compared to the overall GN sales drop of under double digits, additional factors are clearly at work in the case of manga. On the balance, scanlations are hurting the industry. Manga’s dependence on bookstore distribution also became a liability when those channels suffered; the comic-focused direct market weathered the recession better.

But all that is based on looking at the industry as a whole. When you look at things on a publisher-by-publisher basis, these generalizations become less dependable. So book store space for manga has shrunk, but more of that space has been given to Viz and Yen. Scans may hurt some publishers more than other (in Icarus' case, Yamatogawa's Aqua Bless has sold slower than our other books because it is so much more popular, hence easier to find online). Domestic comics may have had a more stable year, but that came with more Marvel and DC releases dominating the top, so that is little consolation for small comic publishers.

“[keeping] hot new titles such as Rosario + Vampire from achieving the kind of success that previous Shonen Jump hits have enjoyed.”
>Implying Rosario+Vampire is something worth buying and not a piece of fanservice shit.

"Manga readers lack the “collector mentality” of comic book fans and also tend to be both young and tech savvy."
It would seem that by "collector mentality" they're expecting westerners to be retarded otakus who'll buy whatever shit comes out from a publisher, just like the japs who buy whatever shit comes from Kyoani.

"Increasingly retailers who saw their once strong anime sales shrink away to nothing are telling ICv2 that manga readers are SAMPLING new series online and only buying their favorite one or two series in printed form."
BINGO!

And sampling is the key, because smart people wouldn't spend over 500USD on a manga series without previously having a clue if the manga will end up being good or not.
Unlike the past, when anime/manga was scarce and the anime fans from the west actually HAD TO FEEL LUCKY they were able to buy mediocre manga/anime, now with the scanlations and internet being massive, a part of them have actually become smarter (Also a part of them've become increasingly retarded, see moeblob show's success even in the west).

Scanlations harm the publishers when the products the publishers sell are just not buy-worthy enough.
Therefore STOP PUBLISHING SHIT, YOU RETARDED FAGGOTS!!!!! Or at least refrain from whining when your SHIT doesn't sell as much as you want.

oh yes, SCANLATIONS are to blame....not pointless censorships (Dragonnball, FMA)...

One could cite a lot of things. Mainly, I blame the fact that manga is typically overpriced for what you get compared to equivalent stuff from other publishers.

A manga tankubon costs roughly ten to twelve bucks per item. Which wouldn't seem so bad, except that I can pick up a hardcover copy of Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man Volume 1 for sixteen bucks. It's got bigger pages, full color, and it's hardbound so it's more likely to stand the test of time. All for four bucks extra over a novel-shaped book of a similar page-count with black and white pages. Customers know that they're getting screwed compared to what's available from other companies producing similar products.

Honestly, the localization companies could be trying harder to keep costs down for consumers, but they don't. The same problem applies to anime. The last time I picked up a DVD boxed set was a couple years ago, because it cost me nearly seventy dollars. For something like the Irresponsible Captain Tylor Ultra Edition, which included a bunch of extras, that's fine.

But take Naruto. It's up to eighteen boxed sets. At fifty bucks per set, which is cheap compared to some stand-alone series, that's nine hundred bucks. Just for Naruto, animated. Now add in the games, the tankubon, posters, then movies...

The fact is, the industry is fucking flooding the market with expensive products during a recession and then wondering why their sales are down. If they would learn to just fucking dial it back a notch or two and release things a little slower, for a little bit more reasonable a price, maybe they'd see some better returns.

i have two options read bleach/naruto online and be up-to-date as in japan or wait three years for volumes to catch up to date at this point and then i'm still behind. currently we are on volume 26 in the US in Japan volume 44

Pfft, I'd happily support the series I like if the translations weren't atrocious.
All the jokes are replaced with retarded American jokes which changes the entire thing completely.
Everything's lost in translation, it's like watching dubbed anime.

I didn't even know Canada sold manga... O.O

Bullshit. There's this thing called the Economy. It's kind of TANKING right now. You see, when I have to choose between Manga and Food, I'll take the food. Food keeps me alive, I can live without manga.

I paid $30 for one volume of Naruto.
That's why it's scans for me.
I'm not gonna pay blown up prices just for a manga.

The real problem is that it takes 4 to 5 months for the next volume to come out! Why?!?! Most mangas that come stateside have ended their run or are at the end. When a US company buys the license, translate and print. The smartass take months and months between each volumes. Fansub are quicker even if their not always correct. Those companies can't find translators to do the damn job?

Plus the titles they pick... I've been to Japan and the titles they carry in the stores cover everything in the world! All we get are schoolgirl drama?

I bet Japan's response was like this. xD

Japan: Manga sales are dropping! Foreign countries and pirates are to blame!!!

Fuck! Are they goddamn retarded or something? (Obviously they are.) Maybe if they wouldn't fuck up the translations to a nauseating degree I might THINK about buying their crap.
But even then what little they have licensed doesn't please me. (I'm not encouraging their licensing either. It's troubling frankly.) I'd rather not waste my money on half-assed material. I'll just keep buying the raws from Kinokuniya and happily downloading my scans. They can burn in hell. Fucking greedy ass Americans.

While this does really affect me as I don't buy translated manga these days. I'm translator by trade and I find the state of some "official" translations shockingly bad. I'm not saying that scanlators are any better but at least I'm not paying any money for it.

I do agree with other posters here that the prices of manga here is at exorbitant levels. Whenever work takes me to Japan I always make sure I load up my suitcase with manga as the prices can be as little as 1/4 of the prices here.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is the day I stop downloading raws is the day they start sell Shonen Sunday for 260 yen here(or alternatively I could just move to Japan).

Not “collector mentality” means we aren't stupid suckers paying 9-15 dollars for 11-15 pages like retard comic book fans. Hopefully these scammers will lower the prices.

If it wasn't for scanlations they wouldn't be selling nearly as much manga they're selling at this momment. The only reason I discovered manga was because some scanlations I discovered on the internet, if it wasn't for that I wouldn't had bought the volumes I have right now.

Yup yup. Let's see...recession? Yup. Takes FOREVER to get here? Yup. So much suck is sold here? Hell yup. Can't find anything besides Naruto and Bleach in stores? Around here...yup.

But yes, throw that aside and let's blame the intertubs. Just like music, movie and game sales. Remember how the VCR destroyed the movie theater? Remember how MP3s destroyed the music industry? Wait, it was destroyed before with cassettes and people recording off the radio. Remember how games free of DRM sold better than with DRM?

No? Blame the intertubs... except for the VCR\cassette thing.

A large number of the manga that scan groups do aren't licensed for sale in the US anyway...

If they're saying that 99% of their sales were from naruto, then yes.Maybe it was the scan groups' fault.

Let's not forget the US is in a recession, you have bad buisiness practices and manga in the us costs 4x the amount it does in Japan.

I've been buying manga I like recently and reading it online, if it's declining it sure as hell isn't my fault.

I like reading manga on paper. I'm not fond of reading it on a screen.

They act like nobody's ever thought to put a book in their pocket in a book store with no security cameras and just walk out with it. The Internet's not always to blame. Sometimes ACTUAL thieves are the culprits.

Some of you really need to read the article before commenting, instead of just the headline. Everyone here telling them how they're so wrong and it's actually price and the economy that's causing it, despite them citing price and a major reason pirating has gone up.

they only have themselves to blame for taking 6 months to release the next volume

It's the ECONOMY, stupid...

Really, in a economy where anyone (even the "I went through COL-lege for X years..." crowd) can lose their jobs at any time, including for absolutely no fault of their own, then the "Waiting Game" might be too long for any benefits/savings to last...

Well, if you might move, including to smaller (aka a "Car") quarters, why have a suitcase full of $10+ each japanese comic books to drag along with you? Or rather, to the shrinking customer base, why add another box/suitcase worth of the same formulaic stories?

Scanlations, IMO, if anything keep up consumer interest in those who'd otherwise not buy. Myself, I read a lot of manga at a bookstore/coffeshop but have been buying less than usual due to the economic fears we all have. That and most of the "New" stuff coming out is sh-t. The exception is "Vampire Hunter D" which I do buy.

Here's my proposal to the producers of Manga:

1. Put your works available online in English at reasonable rates. No dead trees, no paying for the distributors = the same profits at less price. I'd still pay $5-$7 for "Shonen Ace" if you start translating it:-) But most "Manga Volumes" should be $5 each.

2. The "Scanslators" have already done 95% of your work for you. They took YOUR manga and scanned, translated, put it online. Just take what they did, double check the "Engrish" and logos, and use it for your own sites. Don't "Sue" them, they did you work for free, but of course you don't need to pay them a dime and if they try for money the "You took our intellectual property without permission!" argument applies:-)

3. Let fans contribute $ for stuff they have already with NO penalties. If you ran a shop, but someone came in and paid you $ for a book they 'stole' but you hadn't noticed it was gone, is it not the best thing to forgive them? In this case, you didn't even lose physical inventory. The "Theft" if the fan is welcome to "Support the artists they love" becomes a form of free advertising.

4. You might go after, by filing complaints, sites that host the files, but then have your own alternative ready and waiting. Or with better designed sites, work with them and just start selling the "Newer" volumes on the site, then let the older stuff stay free as 'advertisement'.

5. NO DRM. It doesn't deter the "hackers" by even a second, and most of the stuff out there was literally scanned from paper. A lot of people's fear right now is they'll have to move to other and unknown, likely smaller living spaces. However, a stack of SD cards and/or portable HDDs can carry FAR more data than bookshelves full of books. They'll buy something from you, they'll have a little bit of data they can carry with them in essentially no space for a long time. That way also, long, LONG after your company breaks up or transforms (new teams, new owners) many times, the stories you worked on will be read by "New" readers. This will influence new generations of artists/writers and at the same time might renew interest enough that an old "IP" could sell new stuff or keep selling if it's always in the "Files" for other people to download.

6. Get better artists, even putting up with 'eccentric' ones that might not be "Human Factories". This goes double for "Shonen Jump" but not for "Shonen Ace". Most Manga artists seem as good or better than American artists, but those kooky European artists that take a year to make a comic that maybe gets published in Heavy Metal could wipe the floor with either of 'em, with the exception of guys like Shirow. (Druuna, SkyDoll, Druillet, Moebius...) I'm sure you can find some (rejected as "very good but too slow") characters from your job interviews and just say "Try to send us this kooky project you are working on, but work it out as good as you can, and if we publish it we'll pay you." That way, you'll get a pile of "Unique" stuff to put in with the 'regular' stuff. It'll get a fanatic fan following who'll eagerly wait weird lenghts of time, and spark new sales.

7. Focus on improving the story. I think the "Same theme with a twist" is done to F*cking death. How many more "School kids in a Ninja magick giant robot kung fu slaughter battle acadamy" do we need to think we are being "Original"? You need to find, not necessarily "Writers" but "Storytellers".

As a non-Japanese, paying consumer, I would much rather wait a year, or more, before getting a translated copy of something.

I also wish to pay inflated prices; nothing resembling prices in japan.

I also just love the fact that Manga hasn't gotten more and more generic, with less and less innovative and courageous titles.

Yup, that all sounds about right.

SOMEBODY TRANSLATE THIS
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/759/57700708.jpg

Last I checked, most the stuff people like to read scanlated isn't even released or licensed in the US/EU. So they aren't losing sales there.

As for why sales are down, I blame Japan's lack of quality titles and interesting manga.

I also think that %20 they lost went back over to American comics.

Oh bullshit.

Companies are always trying to play the victim role, but we are forgetting something here. While I do realize piracy isn't something positive, people don't need to have so much pity with these corporations.

Just think about it, without scanlations and fansubbing, this manga / anime culture wouldn't even exist outside of Japan. Even Japan made profits out of these fans: there wasn't even a market for people like that, so they could only win more customers, not lose any.

Now these corporations blame the very own scanlator, who created this whole friggin' market. Oh the irony... It's not like they'll starve from hunger or anything.

lmao i remember actually buying manga during middle school but at some point that seemed to burn a hole in my wallet T.T

Maybe if translations were more true to the original and prices weren't so high, we wouldn't prefer scanlations.

...You're shitting me right? For reference, manga in Japan can go to, like, $5 a volume for a new one, while it's at least $15 here... and that's supposed to be fair?

perhaps if the publishers picked out better titles and released them faster than scanlators can scanlate, which will require simultaneous release then... some more people will buy the books first instead of reading the scanlations first and not buy the book because they already read it...
and a drop in the price to like 7-8 bucks a book will help...

The almost total lack of digitally distributed manga capable of competing with such versions by now hardly needs mentioning – strong demand for convenient digital manga is apparently something publishers in both the US and Japan are desperate to ignore.

Oddly, the report completely fails to mention that there was a major global recession commencing in 2007 – apparently macroeconomic climate has no effect on manga sales worth mentioning, just like in Japan.

O rly? Haven't we seen this elsewhere? Heh. But indeed, with online availability many hardcore fans can now choose what to buy instead of blindingly buying unknown manga. Digital availability of official releases would be wonderful =/

Tokyopop losing their entire Kodansha holding, taking atleast 20 percent of the available titles off the market with it couldn't have had an effect on the industry either oh wait.

Less manga is being released to market in N. America. What is coming over isn't as good as what came over during the boom, and certainly not worth prioritizing over rent and food. Those are the fucking problems, not scanlations.

I import my manga from japan because I can.

It can't be helped. Even I'm rich, don't expect me to be patient enough to buy a volume and officially translated, which takes forever...

Artefact is right, it's the economy. I also think some of you are overreacting. Upset about the price of manga? Well, once again, the economy is to blame for that, not the publishers. But on this issue, if you're paying the retail price for manga, you're an idiot. Go to Amazon or RightStuf. Manga volumes there will almost always be considerably marked down.

Furthermore, the vast, vast majority of manga printed in the US is unedited and contains decent translations, or is at the very least equivalent to the scanlations in quality. But this is just an assumption, seeing as I don't speak Japanese. But neither do most of you I'd wager to say, so the "bad translations" arguments is a bit unfounded. I've read enough of both to know that scnalations are in no way shape or form the paragons of accuracy and correct grammar. Don't kid yourselves.

And it is a FACT that if enough people do not support this medium monetarily, it will die. I for one do not want to see my hobby die (I still collect manga by the treasure trove) because of cheap motherfuckers with a ludicrous sense of entitlement.

"manga is very attractively priced compared with traditional American graphic novels"

Yes, paying $10 a volume for 20+ volumes of a series (a series that has been neutered by overzealous censors) strikes me as the best deal of all time.

Lol at goverment trying to control the internet

It's their fault for releasing only shit manga.

does anyone else feel that manga has become so retarded that you feel like your brains are going to melt and run out your ears after reading a few pages?
srsly , the vast majority is simplistic crap/garbage/shiesse with no redeeming value whatsoever...
even the furry fabulous freak brothers had more effort and care (and the artist was stoned most of the time...)
if all manga drops dead tomorrow i see no real loss to the world ...

It's not scanlation, it's people scanning the english publications and upping them for everyone to read.

Just fucking release faster dipshits. You guys still don't get it...

god bless the internet

I'm saving trees by not buying so many paper products. I'm not using gas to drive to the store.

I'm saving money I don't have anyway. People do not have money for these things, nor is it really worth spending on. So you can have your art enjoyed by some and possibly bought, or not bought or seen at all.

Now that I know I can get something for free off the internet, I don't need to get it, ever.

Net file sharing is not to blame for the economy, it is economists and those who really control the dollar, policy makers and a lack of fiscal/business awareness by everyone, and detrimental economic manipulation.

It's time to learn from all this that profit for creature comforts isn't a necessity or a priority in society. Say you lost money, so what, who cares? File sharing isn't to blame for music sales either.

I was a heavy manga reader, but then I didn't have much extra money to blow, so I would buy certain titles and then read other ones in bookstores.

But then the last few times I went to the bookstore to enjoy manga reading, I ended up getting aggressively hit on by weirdos so I stopped going to bookstores.

Scanlations are now my cheap way of keeping up with manga I don't have the money to buy.

I do wish it were priced better. $10 is a week's worth of gas. $10 is also a week's worth of food. At even $2~$3 less, I would buy more manga. Would save me from getting hit on at bookstores too.

I read scanlations, but u notice how each one always ask it's readers to support the series by buying the manga. I hope I could if I'd got money...
Also, If i buy a manga, i don't just want one or 2 volumes that i liked the most, it's my style to buy a complete set or none at all, cuz what will I do with just a couple of volumes when there's so many out.

but still, I dunno how great are american english translation compared to fansubs? I never read an american translated manga so I wouldn't know, but if it's anything like the anime script, then hell know.
I hate it when US manga leave stuff out from the original because of "cultural difference", like phrases, sayings and other things, and change it to something so american can understands, in other words - "AMERICANIZED".
I HATE IT, TO THE CORE!
like my manga authentic and original, a literal translation and little notes here and there for info, like what fansubs and scanlations do for us.

And then the thing is, even if the people buy the manga, won't they just scan it on the computer anyway?

Yeah, I borrow most of my manga from the library. I can't afford to spend 9$ a volume anymore,

Meh, I want the US LLCs to die out.

They mishandle manga and anime to the point of ruining it, and expect us to shell out an arm and a leg for their butchery.

Scanslators and fansubbers may have their slip-ups, but it's nothing compared to the slowness and crap quality of the fatcat companies.

I do buy manga when I can, but the combination of slow releases and series being cancelled at random do make me leery to start new series. I've had several series dropped on me at this point.

:The fact that manga is “long-form” entertainment, with many series running to dozens of volumes (Naruto Vol. 48 is due out in June), even taking into account the fact that manga is very attractively priced compared with traditional American graphic novels, it is very expensive to collect the entire series in paper.;

Naruto isn't worth collecting at all

You want to collect something
-stamps
-diamonds with color
-coins that are old
-video game consoles with GOOD games
-yard tools
-family photos
-trophies and not the fake video game achievements.
-the photos of your past girlfriends naked
-the photos of your drunk female coworkers naked(LoL)
-knowing they wanted you to take the photos
-knowing your not the blackmail type
-having sex with you, cause your great in bed
-having them write you come screw me letters
for your collection.

All this stuff is good.
Just remember when you go, post it at your Will and recite this public stating

"I'm a REAL MAN"
"Women loved me, the haters will hate, but at least I know I never needed to Masterbate."

As bad as I feel for the mangakas and Japanese companies, I cant afford to be buying all the series I read. Its a lot harder to discover the a lot that I don't have access to on the internet. Besides the fact that I'd need a new place to store all the ones I've read. Suck it up, companies here don't do well for this thing. In Japan they make billions in manga. America just won't do it

Their marketing sucks >.<...
If I didn't search for it specifically I won't even know that they are translating certain series.
Unlike some countries, where info on manga products are easily available with many stocks around.. Shopping for translated product take more effort in Us, and this includes time efficiency such as shipping, etc2.. Not to mention the price.

To bad, they got potential market, but didn't effectively do as well as the market worth..

@0% is a big drop I concur alas paying a little over 20$ for rwo volumes is something I can't afford as much as I'd want to.

Seems odd to be blaming scanlation now. Scanlation was a much bigger deal before, when none of these manga were officially produced in english at all, and almost everything you read was scanlated. The english publishers wouldn't have half their market if scanlations hadn't gotten people interested in reading manga.

I doubt the volume of scanlation has gone up at all in 2009, the publishers are just deciding to throw blame around now.

how about the fact that the translation quality is declining, shonen jump censoring their comics, and the fact that they have been releasing the crappiest manga from japan.

Get a real job. If all you do is produce stuff and expect to be paid each time someone pressed Ctrl+V, well, good luck with that.

Art isn't a job, it's a hobby. Go feed some starving Africans and make yourself useful.

It kinda makes me wonder why people read manga and watch anime, when they don't buy nothing to support it. American comic books do way better than Japanese comic books, what is the interest if people don't like to invest? At least with American comic books, we don't have to worry about people stealing and uploading comic books on torrent like websites like you do with Japanese comics. That's a big relief if you ask me.

Maybe manga companies were doomed to fail in the long run in the U.S. Especially with how the U.S. and other countries entertainment industries work. However I do think manga books have great potential, but it's never going to be in the same league as American comic books. Thank god Superman and Batman never had the internet back in the day, it would have been screwed big time. It definitely wouldn't of have the cash flow with the flexibility of the internet.

I mean that's just how I see it. Nobody likes to read English Subtitles, it gets very tiresome. I rather listen and watch what I can understand. I can understand the phenomenon that is Japanese Animation, but is it really all that great when it comes with all these problems?

It's scary that none of us even considered that the cause of the recession was the internet in the first place.

I'm claiming something outrageous. But the truth is people love free stuff and they think that something that gives them free stuff is a good thing for all people. They choose to look the other way when it comes to social consequences.

Consider this however: During the depression, we actually had to burn a lot of crops because there was too much surplus of it. That surplus made food way too cheap to sell. (Obviously I'm not saying surplus was the only reason for the depression)

I imply that Google has killed many jobs. For example, people who print encyclopedias lose jobs because there exists a free Wikipedia. Consequently paper companies lose jobs. Consequently trucking industries lose jobs. Drivers lose jobs. Mechanics lose jobs. Don't hire a consultant, just Google.

Let's go the other route. People would rather buy a new computer than a new Rolex or a toy gun. Consequently, our toys have to be made in China in order for that industry to compete with the 'free' that is offered by the internet and open-source computer apps.

You can include the reason that english translators for Tokyo-Pop and Viz are incompetent as much of the translation distorts the original message or that message is lost in translation altogether. It's funny how scanlation gropus are more competent than the ones that work for Viz or Tokyo Pop....

If they wanted to solve problems, the Manga and Anime industries would just HIRE all of the fansubbers and scanners to not only speed up the process, but have a better translation (yes some fansubbing is bad but still a lot better then buisness subbing). Lifting the bar alot higher would help (good god what would have happened if 4Kids had gotten Naruto instead of One Piece)

those two factors would improve the product AND boost sales..... But instead they make em look like devils.

Morons T_T

1) High chance of even popular series being dropped by the English publisher before the end, leaving you having spent a lot of money on a long series without an end. Even if the English publisher doesn't drop the manga, it is not uncommon at all for manga to be dropped before they have an actual end. Basically, manga is very volatile and has a decently high chance of being a bust. I'd buy more manga if the English publisher had to refund half my money if they dropped the series before completely translating it.

2) Often a long wait between fan translation and official translation. Most people are not going to wait a year to find out what happens next when they can near instantly download the fansub.

3) High manga price. For a long series, you can end up spending hundreds of dollars and that is only one series.

attractively priced? Japan is fucking stupid.

Manga is too expensive, and only a tiny amount of manga actually comes to north america. Most of the best never comes here. Especially loli manga.

Awesome! A bunch of fans know more about the economic realities of selling manga than the people who actually run the companies! What geniuses! Surely these budding media businessmen will pay licensing fees and pay for translations and lettering and put their manga up on the internet for download at a small fee--whereupon it will be copied and distributed by torrent and website so that no one else ever has to pay for it. I admit, I'm envious of the high-grade cunning that this idea represents. I'm sure someone here will Change the Manga World any day now.
Right?
C'mon, you keep saying how great the idea is and how it can't fail to work! Anyone out there? Anyone...?
Hmm. Maybe it's just an echo-chamber of otaku who want an excuse to quiet the tiny voice of their conscience over the fact that they are STEALING someone else's work--someone they claim to admire and respect.

Moving on, manga are more expensive in the US than in Japan because in Japan the publishers gets 60% of the cover price and returns are not trashed by the bookstores, but returned to be resold. In America publishers get 40% of cover price (or less) and unsold copies are destroyed by the bookstores and the ripped-off covers returned for credit.
In other words, before you open your big yap about "greedy" American publishers, do some damned research.

ironically i never bought so much manga as nowadays, thanks to the scanlations

past 1-2years manga prices have gone up 4$ locally. I was okay with 8.99-9.99 price tags. But 13.99 is excessive. And compared to the 400Yen they cost in Japan, prices are ridiculous.

I probably wouldn't own any manga if it wasn't for scanlation, how about they blame the non-existent marketing departments of these publishers whose only tactic is to piggy back on anime.

Well fuck, you know what? They're pretty much right. When a manga fan becomes aware that they can get all the manga they want without spending a cent, do you honestly think they're really going to keep buying manga legitimately? I guess a minority who just love owning a hard copy might, but the vast majority will never buy another book.

It seems they're forgetting that scanlated manga isn't better only because it's free, it's better because you don't even need to move your ass out of your house, and is usually publishes 1 year before in Japan than in your country. Why wait 1 year to read something you could read today?

excuses.if they didnt take 6 months a volume then people wouldnt be going to scanlations

If it can release as fast as japan or scanlation manga, then anime fans will buy... if its slow, so sorry then...

It was not to long ago some of those companies decided to cancel 50% of what they publish.... Like spring 2009. And they also expected many fans who bought those to automatically buy the other series of them to just get showed in the face for more titles to never be finished released.

I would not buy an never complete published Manga anymore due this single reason, You cannot trust the publishers at all in this regard.

Still waiting for Shakuga No Shana Vol 3 of the Visual Novel.

Why is it that I have a feeling that this does not account for untranslated mangas?

with the consideration that fully 99% of manga is unreadable dreck, crap, schiesse, retarded, distilled, packed down, stupidty at best, the lack of sales to a thinking non'fanboy' audience is not unexpected...

I stopped reading manga because the series are like a bajillion volumes long, and it takes forever for the next one to come out. So either it's one volume at a (very long) time or a complete series that costs an arm and a leg to buy...

Question!

Did the growth in online manga readers spike in 2009?

Manga and Anime isnt new anymore, its not that hyped anymore and heck .. anyone will get tired of Naruto and fanservice centered Manga sooner or later.

"only buying their favorite one or two series in printed form."
---> out of solidarity.

Printed Manga are outdated, just go with time. E-book readers are on the rise. Stop dwelling in the past and get over it. Bitches.