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General Questions
Questions, policies, and information related to General Questions
I'm new to manga... What exactly is manga? Scanlations? A Oneshot? An Omake? How about Doujinshi? Manhwa? Manhua? OEL? Tankoubon? Bunkouban?
How do I join a scanlation group?
Why doesn't <scanlator group name> have any info?
What is <name of genre>? What is the difference between that and <name of 2nd genre>?
What if I can't find the answer to my problem here?
I'm new to manga... What exactly is manga? Scanlations? A Oneshot? An Omake? How about Doujinshi? Manhwa? Manhua? OEL? Tankoubon? Bunkouban?
"Manga" itself is the name for Japanese comics. While "Anime" is the name for Japanese animation (cartoons).
A "Scanlation" is what we call a translated (typically into English) form of manga. Most often released by "Scanlation Groups" in a picture format (JPG/PNG usually) that can be downloaded and viewable on basically any computer.
A "Oneshot" is a series that consists of only one chapter. The whole series is contained in one release, from start to finish.
"Omake" stands for "Extra" and is usually the extra (usually non-plot related) content that can be found at (normally) the end of a volume of manga.
"Doujinshi" are fan created works that use characters from popular series to create new plots and stories. Typically, but not always, these are adult-orientated.
"Manhwa" is basically the Korean equivalent of manga.
"Manhua" is the Chinese equivalent of manga.
"OEL" stands for Original English Language. These are published series influenced by manga but originally written for an English audience.
"Tankoubon" (or tank) refers to a volume of manga, which will contain many chapters of the series, usually the thickness of a paperback novel. This is opposed to magazines, which contain only a single of a series. Tank raws are better quality than magazine raws (because of better paper quality).
"Bunkouban" (or bunko) refers to another form that manga is printed on. Bunko volumes are more compressed than tankoubon volumes, thus fitting more chapters per volume, resulting in usually about half the number of volumes printed.
How do I join a scanlation group?
If you like the series that a certain group is doing, you can first attempt to contact them through their website or IRC. Visit their group page to find their IRC channel or website.
There are many types of scanlating positions available. If you're curious about what the job might entail, you might consider checking out this forum post.
In addition to the above suggestions, we also run a Recruitment forum. Here, scanlators will request help from the community, or you can offer your services.
Why doesn't <scanlator group name> have any info?
In most cases, this isn't good. We must have missed something... and you can tell us about it here. Most of the time, we require that groups submit at least a forum, site, or IRC channel for us to list their releases. However, if there is a special reason why the group would not like to have their group information shown, we do make decisions on a site by site basis if asked.
It is also possible that the group is dead or inactive, so any old information we had would have been useless anyways. In this case, we simply just deleted the info.
What is <name of genre>? What is the difference between that and <name of 2nd genre>?
We have a section of the site describing what all the different genres are. You can find it here.
What if I can't find the answer to my problem here?
You have a few options. One, you can PM an admin such as lambchopsil. If your question is more general and any updater could answer it, you can try submitting a change request. you can also contact him at lambchopsil___@t__ mangaupdates.com
