This whole mess (or mess-to-be) with MH and Viz feels like an ominous cloud over my little picnic party. If Viz accepts, many... many things could go wrong. If they don't, then hopefully MH will just drop it and continue with what they were doing before.

I've never used MH before, but the fact that this might/will affect the future of scanlations...

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Love is so bad.

Well for what I've read it's not very clear this info. In my opinion:
1- Involving an American company (especially the one chosen) it's a great mistake.
2- It would improve the quality on their translations. And that it's extremely necessary.
3- Are Fansubs going to gain something from this? I mean the ones who do the work are going to see some of the money? I want to believe some of the money will go for the mangaka, thats good. Some will go for the japanese editorial, thats also good because they are the ones that have chosen the manga to be published. The company american company will gain some money because they pay something for the rights and then do a crappy work editing it in English. MH will gain some money because they are the ones that brought up this plan. And after all of this will the translators and editors from the fansub gain anything? The real ones doing the job are the mangaka, the Japanese editorial and the guys at the fansub. I think you get what I mean don't you?
4- If the American company would do a good job translating and editing people will buy their work. Take Shakugan no Shana for example this company (guess witch) bought the licensing rights and BT had to stop their work. Due to low sells they stopped doing it and now nobody can do it because a crappy company decided it didn't give then enough money.
5- If you are trying to make money because you have a popular website try to make it the right way. The American company is the way you have to avoid, don't get me wrong any other company that it's not the original company, should be left out of fansubers work.
6- I'm from Argentina and there are only a few titles on sale here. Trying to pay for english manga, since I can't read japanese, with a devaluated money it's not a pain in the as* but a whole g*y parade. Fansubs are the best way to go. I donate to some groups (not always I'm ashamed to say) when I have some money to expend at the end of the month. And why I have to pay to a company in some place of the world, that's not the original Japanese company, and that just thinks can make a good couple of dollars doing some crappy translations of shows that are famous around the world because people distributed them for free.
The censorship that they put on manga in places like USA it's just a joke. I Don't see why people spend time editing someone smoking in an anime (thinks of how ridiculous it looks in One Piece) when all Hollywood movies shows someone smoking. Ridiculous. And they say they have the rights to protect the work of the mangaka?
I'm not saying manga should be free all around the world and just be paid in japan. Most fansubs work for free so between the more serious fansubs and japanese companies could implement a deal where fansubs use ads on their pages and get the money to pay the servers and the rest for the company. I don't know if this a viable option because I don't have a fansub and don't own a web page, but maybe someone smarter can think of something better. Music industry already is having troubles with online free material. Nothing beats thats what is free. So think of new ways of using that. Some people doesn't care to donate when they have some money, at least I don't, but when the content is free by other means they won't pay if you charge a lot of money. Maybe a combination of ads money and donation could give enough money to please a japanese company without having other companies involved. BU could give links to the pages where the content you look for is, as they do nowadays, and that way you get the ad money an maybe eventual donations.
That way japanese companies will have the money and fansubs could be more legal and keep doing the work some companies do wrong and get paid for.
Sorry for making it this long but It's 2 a.m. here in Argentina and it's difficult to concentrate in making it shorter.

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The cat was here,
and left the building.

Eff. How long did it take you to type all that?

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Love is so bad.

For me...I'm still calling BS until something actually happens.

Reading through the Goals & Objectives, I don't see anywhere it says it's going to sell scanslations. It even says, "Continue to provide current features such as free online translations"

The way I see it, MH is going to sell itself as a marketer for Viz (and others), to sell Viz's products online to it's large Userbase.

Though the "access to workforce of hundreds of translators and editors" line had me doubting for a bit since it could mean using said translators and editors scans, it could also be interpreted differently as giving Viz, a pool of potential people to hire.

The problem with this is that scans of a licensed manga might be taken down.


Last edited by blakraven66 at 11:03 pm, Sep 23 2009

If they weren't selling anything, why would they list online scanlations as competition on page 19? Why do they comment on how they intend on getting licenses to make the scanlations legal to sell? Why do they use data on read and downloaded scans as their projections for income?

While I by no means want MH to turn into a paysite, if Viz accepts the deal (which is an entirely different and unlikely matter) it will almost certainly become one.

EDIT - My mistake, looking over things again I think i misinterpreted their comments on licenses.

EDIT^2 - However, on the mangahelper announcement, they mention that any translations/scanlations use is voluntary, meaning that they may attempt to sell them if they can get permission from everyone involved.

Last edited by Hinokai at 11:10 pm, Sep 23 2009

What I'm taking from this is that they're going to try to stop scanlations? I know scanlations are illegal, but scanlations are what make up MH. Shoot, the only time I go to MH is to pick up a scanlation every now and then.

It doesn't seem like a good move to destroy what helped build you up.

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"I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts." -John Steinbeck

Did you read the part about "facing competition from the 'illegal' scanlation industry, and educating it's userbase to stamp it out"? And obviously Viz is going to lay down it's own terms to the deal, and if that includes ip addresses of people, then? I mean, nothing i nthe document says they'll cover the scanlator's privacy. Speaking a sa businessman, if I learnt that what was stopping me from making money was someone who I don't even know's ip address... I'd hand it over in a second, everyone would. It's the profit motive.

Ya, that's what I understood from that post, which makes no sense at all. If this is really the case this is a bad move for MH. If they really are selling themselves as a marketer for Viz wouldn't that mean they would have to remove all their links/archives?

I doubt Viz would allow distribution of their manga on a site that hosts free scanlation of the same material, or simply hosts free scanlations, which are illegal.

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Monkeys, always at your service.

All comes down to whether or not people will still use MH, after this whole fiasco... Their "statement" was utter crap... their own business plan is proof against everything it states... I mean, if it involved the general public in anyway... you'd think at least some of the scanlators would be approached for an opinion. Me, I'm not going to go there anymore.

What is the purpose of scanslations? It's to have people learn of a title they don't know and get the attention of a publisher to license it, that's why groups drop projects when they're licensed. The competition probably meant scanslators who don't stop after it's been licensed otherwise, MH would need to wipe their entire database clean and only have licensed material there.


...You have me stumped with this one...


They could continue to host scanslations and only removing scans that have been licensed.



Which is the biggest reason why this deal won't be accepted.

If you were paid to remove a few gigabytes from a hard drive... wouldn't you?

If you believe that, then it only proves the point that MH is not selling scans, it's merely going legit at the cost of destroying what made it so popular.

They're going legit so they CAN sell stuff, remember? It all comes down to the same thing. I mean, I'd have sympathized more if this was a sudden plan wrought together because of outward pressure and so on... but, apparently, they've been working on this for years, as stated in the docx and referenced to in that business plan. Makes me wonder if this wasn't their ideal all along.

But they're selling Viz's stuff, not scans (which is what makes this topic so controversial in the first place) so it's not the same. Like I said, I'm being skeptical about this so I'm not pointing the finger until something actually happens. Since they've been in the scanslation scene for a while, I'd at least like to believe that they're not THAT stupid.

Last edited by blakraven66 at 11:40 pm, Sep 23 2009

They've researched everything, being on the scene for all those years. They plan on providing pay-and-read-onine versions of licensed mangas and so forth. What I want to know is... how could they have underestimated the scene so badly. I mean, they're distributing it online on a pay-to-view basis... why should I pay for something I can't even physically own when someone can do it for free (aka scanlate it). It's just absurd. They're banking on their strength in the scanlating community and I'm just glad their motives came to light before they did what they were trying to do.