Comments on: This Week in Manga 7/25-7/31/09 http://manga.jadedragononline.com/blog/2009/08/02/this-week-in-manga-725-73109/ Manga News, Reviews and Commentary Mon, 20 May 2013 10:43:02 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Lori Henderson http://manga.jadedragononline.com/blog/2009/08/02/this-week-in-manga-725-73109/#comment-1055 Lori Henderson Mon, 03 Aug 2009 22:56:16 +0000 http://manga.jadedragononline.com/?p=1842#comment-1055 Thanks for the info, but forgive me if I don’t hold my breath. I’ll believe Tokyopop release dates when I have the actual book in my hand. :P

]]> By: Ephidel http://manga.jadedragononline.com/blog/2009/08/02/this-week-in-manga-725-73109/#comment-1054 Ephidel Mon, 03 Aug 2009 17:32:38 +0000 http://manga.jadedragononline.com/?p=1842#comment-1054 For what its worth, I’ve seen a couple of listings on amazon and book depository for Ecole du Ciel 9 in March 2010… only time will tell if that date ends up being any more concrete than the others that have passed by though :(

]]> By: Brian Henderson http://manga.jadedragononline.com/blog/2009/08/02/this-week-in-manga-725-73109/#comment-1053 Brian Henderson Mon, 03 Aug 2009 06:24:08 +0000 http://manga.jadedragononline.com/?p=1842#comment-1053 The problem is, there still aren’t any demonstrable cases that I’m aware of where scanalations have resulted in a large-scale loss of sales on the part of manga companies, except where I would argue they deserved it. If people start reading an unlicensed manga scanalated and 20 volumes later, someone licenses it, it’s unrealistic to expect people to stop reading the manga, perhaps for years, until the licensed version catches up. A company that does that doesn’t really deserve to have people buy all the back issues of manga that they produce when people have already read them all. By the same token, a company like Viz, which puts out a ton of manga at one time, Naruto in this case, really has no room to complain when people cannot afford to buy it and they read scanalations instead.

Another thing that these companies need to realize is that some people are moving away from physical books entirely. We know someone who no longer buys *ANY* physical books because of space constraints, he just doesn’t have the room to put them. Instead, he buys all of his new books digitally, they take up less space, they can be easily backed up, they’re more portable and, according to him, more convenient. I don’t necessarily agree with his reasoning but there certainly are people like him who want products in a certain format and many companies, manga and otherwise, are not catering to him.

I just don’t see where companies like Viz and Tokyopop and Yen, etc. think that just because they throw money at a license, they’ve somehow bought reader loyalty. They haven’t and in fact, there are many cases where their actions are going to cost them potential loyalty.

Even beyond that, there are simply some people who, in both anime and manga, don’t want to own a product, they want to consume it and move on. They don’t want to buy a volume of manga, they want to read it online and never look at it again. Whether these manga companies like it or not, there’s a sizable percentage of consumers who just don’t want to buy something to stick on their shelves and gather dust.

It takes all kinds and whether they like it or not, they need to cater to all kinds or they haven’t earned anyone’s dollar.

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