This week's poll is from our member hiei_luke. So imagine this scenario. Your favorite series has already been completed by the author, but the scanlations for your preferred language (let's assume you can't read the original language) are just too slow (let's say in the order of months between releases). What would you do? Of course, can't include every possible option, but this should be a good selection.

You can submit poll ideas here (and try to keep them manga/anime-related)
http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=3903

Previous Poll Results:
Question: Are you hard or easy when rating manga (on 1-10 scale)?
Choices:
I give everything a high rating if it's just okay. I like to be nice - votes: 344 (3.2%)
I give mainly good ratings, saving the highest and lowest for extreme cases - votes: 4372 (40.6%)
Most series are average, so most series get a 5 - votes: 505 (4.7%)
I tend to rate everything pretty low - votes: 64 (0.6%)
I only rate the extremes. Anything in the middle gets no rating - votes: 1066 (9.9%)
I believe I legitimately give a rating that the series deserves - votes: 2632 (24.5%)
I don't rate manga at all - votes: 1781 (16.5%)
There were 10764 total votes.
The poll ended: May 10th 2013

I was actually doing a bit of investigation on the series ratings last week for a separate project of mine. And let's just say what actually happens is fairly close to what this poll indicates. I also mentioned to Manick that I suspect the publishers filter out most of the bad series by not publishing them, so perhaps that's why the series ratings tend to be on the high side. Then again, publishers tend to publish based on what will sell, and not by what is unique or good (since as we all should know that good doesn't necessary mean it'll sell, and vice versa).

Last edited by lambchopsil at 9:54 am, May 11 2013

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A just ruler amongst tyrants

Where's the 'Get fed up of waiting and translate it yourself' option?

Well--if the scanlator hasn't translated the series for more than year--I usually feel sad for a day or 2 looking for summaries, spoilders, or raws. I wait patiently and ponder if I should learn Japanese otherwise...

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If it is a series I really enjoy/think has good potential, I will usually buy/find raws and attempt to read it in Japanese. My Japanese sucks though, so this takes me ages as I am constantly looking up words or grammar points, therefore I only do this for series I love, or ones I have already finished (because then I don't mind taking my time).

Series I'm indifferent to, or ones I enjoy, but they don't have me on the edge of my seat, I tend to put on hold until the scans have been completed, and then re-read it all in one go.

I never read summaries because they aren't the same. I would feel like I am missing something because the insignificant interactions between characters are the reason I up caring about them in the first place. A summary gives the bones without the meat. I prefer to wait, even if it takes years. Seeing all those dropped manga I want to finish is good motivation whenever I can't be bothered studying Japanese.

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The pen is mightier than the sword...and considerably easier to write with.

I can't do raws/spoilers! There's no point in reading the story if it's not at least somewhat in the original format, and I can understand what it's saying.

To the question: I either hound each release, or just wait till a batch is translated. I voted for batch (waiting) since if there's too long a space between releases, I have to re-read the previous 3 or so chapters to remember where it left off. If it's a series that generally gets a release every 3 or more months, then it's better to wait until 3-5 chapters have been released, and then read them all at once.

Definitely the raws. Best to be Japanese raws, since I'm learning the language. Even better if it's in an european language, I don't have to use a dictionary that often then.

I have no clue about Korean or Chinese but I get by, looking at the drawings is enough to understand the story. They have pictures for a reason. However that's only effective for the majority. Some manga requires you to understand the lines and the conversations in order to actually know what's going on. So I'll read the raws first, and then wait for the translation to come out.

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Man is more ape than many of the apes.

I always wait until manga are complete before reading, so it don't really bother me how slow scanlator can be.

Either wait or read the Chinese translation. My Chinese reading skills are awful though, so I have to use dictionaries to make out the characters, especially if they're in traditional.

can read Japanese so I just read the RAWs if i find them.

Unfortunately, I move on and forget about the series.
Another problem of mine is that I seldom return to finish the beloved manga, once it's finally been completely scanlated.

Sometimes I find raws and flip through the pages, but it's mostly random yaoi where I don't really care what happens and just want to look at some smut...

The ideal solution would be to wait for the series to be completed before starting, but we all know it's impossible with such gems as Berserk. I might not live to see it end, but I sure want to read it while I can.

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Hrodulf and Bjornolfr, you will not be forgotten.

And if the world were black and white,
you would be my rainbow in shades of grey.

Click 'n Play!

If I had a fantasy self, it'd be a tentacle monster.

I'd assume the filtering effect would be on the side of the readers, rather than the publishers. That is, people generally figure out what kind of series they like and seek them out, therefore they're more prone to giving good ratings. That's certainly the case with me.

As for this week's poll, I generally wait until a series is completely available before reading it. If for some reason I've started a series before it's completely available in a language I can read and the scanlation releases grind to a halt, I go back to waiting for the entire series to be available.

I wait for it. I really hate spoilers. Ruins the story completely. Kind of goes along with only reading a series once, because I don't enjoy reading (or watching) the same thing more than once. If the releases are slow *cough*Alice in Hell*cough*, then I usually forget about it and go onto something new. Once in a while, I'll return the to series if I happen upon it and catch up. I hate cliffhangers when the group is slow a fuck and the "leader" is a twat. Yeah, that means you Illuminati-Manga.

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-No longer do I quote great scholars, the famous, etc. Kids feigning wisdom ruined it.
--I wont type a post like a college report. If you don't read it just for that reason, you don't have to post why your hoity-toity ass refused to. I swear, so many people on this site are so full of themselves. A lot seem to think they always have an "intelligent and/or logical" point or show signs of a superiority complex. They never admit they're wrong. Maybe partially, but excuses abound! :\
-Stop mailing me about my comments. I don't read them.
/sigrant

If someone is still working on it, I'll just wait for it. If I know that no one is going to scanlate it any time soon, I'll wait for someone to do so if I haven't started reading it yet, wait patiently if I'm already reading it, or resort to looking at the raws if I'm desperate enough(the series is good enough/cliffhanger)

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There have been cases where I've gone, "y'know what, I need to know what happens", found the raws and gave them a little skim. Most of the time though, I'll wait for the releases.

Actually, I have witnessed the same thing happening in anime sites, like MAL. My explanation for that is more simple: People tend to rate series based on their enjoyment level and since the very reason people come here is because they like manga you have high ratings. Also, most users don't just read any manga in front of them: they are very picky. Some just read manga with romance, others manga about sports, etc. Since they only read manga about their favorite genres and demographics, the possibility of a low rating is also low.