However, I also really think manga would never be remotely popular without scanlations, and publishers will sell more manga because people read free stuff online and buy manga. But on the other hand, I think the general interest in buying more niche manga just isn't there within the target audience... Scanlation definitely prevents less popular and lower potential manga from being published. Essentially, outside of the blockbusters and hits, people just won't buy enough less popular manga to allow publishers to make a profit, since just enough of the potential reader base won't buy it. Comics are already a niche in the USA, and Japanese ones even more so. So, it's not that people aren't buying manga because of scanlations. People aren't buying manga because they were never going to buy manga in the first place.
Honestly though, the fault lies a lot more with the Japanese publishing companies than the localization companies or the readers... they make it way too hard to license, distribute, and profit off of translated manga. As people have said before, they're way too late to the game to compete well.
Last edited by achyif at 5:33 pm, Mar 6 2019
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