To all the Christian/Catholic people out there, happy Easter! If you guys are on Spring Break, lucky you too~ (As for me, my Spring Break is in 2 weeks still...)

We (the admins) decided to rearrange the way the series Gacha Gacha is presented in the database. Now, the two different arcs are separated correctly:
Volumes 1-5: Gacha Gacha Capsule
Volumes 6-16: Gacha Gacha Secret

The original series entry has been left alone so that votes and comments still exist. If you favor one arc over the other, now you can vote differently.

-Mangaupdates Staff

This week's poll is more about why you like manga. Just choose the option that MOST fits your taste. Thanks go to member Razril for giving the poll suggestion.
Note: The option of "Popularity" means you read the series because everyone else does (which brings to mind the Naruto/Bleach/One Piece argument)

And the results for last week's poll:
Question: How do you choose to read a new series?
Choices:
The magazine where it's serialized in - votes: 64 (1%)
The artist/author and his/her previous works - votes: 889 (14.2%)
The scanlation group - votes: 336 (5.3%)
The associated anime or related media - votes: 118 (1.9%)
The popularity of the series - votes: 274 (4.4%)
Recommend- ations from others - votes: 562 (8.9%)
Same genre as my favorite series - votes: 1275 (20.3%)
I just read random manga - votes: 1319 (21%)
I come to MU and see a new series on the release page, so I decide to try it - votes: 1445 (23%)
There were 6282 total votes.
The poll ended: March 22nd 2008

I can't believe how many people just come here, see a new series being released, and just choose to read it...

According to Yahoo! News, Japanese internet service provider, facing complaints from big media companies, are planning to cut off the Internet connection of anyone who downloads files illegally (like through Winny/Share, where most raws come from). Go here for more info. However, Danny Choo is reporting that instead of disconnecting users downloading files, but users who abuse bandwidth:

"The Japan Internet Providers Association released a press release which states that they are after heavy users of Winny and similar P2P software due to the load that those users are placing on the network and not because of any illegal copying. The extra load caused by heavy P2P users causes instability for other internet users."

Okay, so I decided.. what's the use of having a website if you can't abuse it once in a while!?

I'm using this little space to advertise a novel series I've been following. It's called the The Twelve Kingdoms by Fuyumi Ono. Published by Tokyopop in the USA, these novels follow the lives of several characters as they deal with living in an alternate dimension. If you're interested in fantasy, action, and adventure, you might find this interesting. They just released the second novel recently, and you can find them here:

Twelve Kingdoms Novel 1: Sea of Shadow (click for description at tokyopop)

Twelve Kingdoms Novel 2: Sea of Wind (click for description at tokyopop)

I love this series, and I hope they keep translating them. They're releasing them at the rate of about one a year, so maybe we can help give them a bump to pick up the pace!

(and just in-case anyone gets any ideas, i do NOT do paid endorsements of series in news postings, so please do not send me requests. thanks)

We have a new poll for the week! Unfortunately, the long words kinda broke up the site formatting...but who cares? (Edit: Thanks Manick, for fixing the problem~) This time, we're wondering exactly how you guys choose to read a new series. The poll was submitted by MajorMarmot. If anyone wants to submit their own poll question, here is the place to go: http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=3903

Now for the previous poll:
Question: Who knows you read manga?
Choices:
Everyone - votes: 1917 (31.1%)
All of my friends - votes: 1494 (24.3%)
Only a few of my closest friends - votes: 1644 (26.7%)
Only the people I know online - votes: 291 (4.7%)
Only my family - votes: 390 (6.3%)
No one (I don't tell anyone) - votes: 422 (6.9%)
There were 6158 total votes.
The poll ended: March 15th 2008

A fairly even split. Not too many people are keeping it totally secret due to embarrassment. Don't forget guys, if you spread the word of anime/manga, then its popularity will spread~

Nominees for the 12th Tezuka Cultural Awards were announced in the latest edition of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. Ten manga in all:

• [url=http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=13135]Umimachi Diary (1) Semishigure no Yamugoro[/url] by Akimi Yoshida
• [url=http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=6741]Ooku[/url] by Fumi Yoshinaga
• [url=http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=7511]Kaijuu no Kodomo[/url] by Daisuke Igarashi
• [url=http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=655]Nana[/url] by Ai Yazawa
• [url=http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=10516]81diver[/url] by Yokusaru Shibata
• [url=http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=15619]Moyashimon[/url] by Masayuki Ishikawa
• [url=http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=5708]Yamikin Ushijima-kun[/url] by Shohei Manabe
• [url=http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=5]Yotsuba&![/url] by Kiyohiko Azuma
• [url=http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=1969]Lucu Lucu[/url] by Yoshitoo Asari
• [url=http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=7254]Red[/url] by Naoki Yamamoto

Before you yell at me, I REALIZE that we are a manga site, while the article is about anime. But remember, what happens on that side also influences this side. We like the same stuff, right? (No arguments about which is better!)

The original article came from ANN:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2008-03-11
The person interviewed is Tofusensei from the group Live-Evil. As a former fansubbing AND scanlator, I totally understand his sentiments. I would consider myself "old-school" in that sense, even though I've only been on the scene for a few years (read the article for what I mean).

Now the question is, will this spread to manga scanlators too? Notice all the one-man teams that speed scanlate the most popular series? (Some are just individuals that have a tiny knowledge of Japanese and editing and just throw together a sad looking thing they call a "scanlation") How about the large speed groups that do tons of series, but in LQ? Will the book industry decline like DVD sales? It's all to be seen...

First, sorry about being a day late with updating the poll. I've been too busy the last few days to manage much, but here I am!

The new poll is Who knows you read manga? I realize most people have some sort of mixture of the options, but please just choose the one that most applies. There is also no "other" category, or else most people would vote for that one (probably), and we'd not really have much of a poll there, would we? Personally, I'm interested in knowing how many closet readers we have.

As for the old poll:
Question: How do you get most of your manga?
Choices:
IRC - votes: 1207 (17.5%)
Torrents - votes: 386 (5.6%)
The scanlation group's website - votes: 2213 (32%)
Manga hosting sites - votes: 2496 (36.1%)
I buy most of my manga - votes: 480 (6.9%)
Other - votes: 128 (1.9%)
There were 6910 total votes.
The poll ended: March 9th 2008

Torrents are dying for manga releases (although I wouldn't say the same for anime releases). IRC interestingly enough still has plenty of people using it! If you haven't already, visit #lurk and you'll be in heaven. As for the top results, scanlation group websites and manga hosting sites ran neck to neck. Quite an turnout, I'd say~

Some good news for once~

snowdrop writes: Serenus Dreamers decided not to shut down. The group will continue their work but dropped a couple of series. For more details http://www.serenus-dreamers.com/~sizzle-manga/Dream/