It really depends on the translation's quality, completeness, and availability.

I've seen enough poor translations, which, while I'd really like to support the author, are honestly not worth paying for. I want to support the author/s, yes; not shoddy (at best) translations. I've read works where the official translation is inconsistent or confusing and works where basic usage is ignored and trampled to death. Not to mention stupid and pointless localizations, since many Western companies still assume that all comics, graphic novels, and related media are aimed at children and that they will be the primary audience regardless of the realities of the series' intended audience and actual fan-base. I can also point to the bizarre preference for modifying or even changing the text over periodic translator's notes. And that's just the quality.

More often than not, only the main story is translated, while any other material, whether integral or accessory to the work, is left untranslated (in part, because the licensing covers the entire series). E.g. Renta! does this as a rule, even when it's obvious that the omitted material is integral to the work. Then there's the electronic-only translations, which are often only available for a limited time since readers are paying for access to the company's copy, rather than for their own copy, and hosting that costs money. (At least with printed material, if the company stops publishing it, your money has not gone down the drain and new readers can still potentially access the work.)

Unfortunately, I can think of a number of good works where at least one of these factors is lacking. If I were to list examples, this post would much, much longer. I don't want to support exports that not worth a brass farthing, a blivet (10℔ of excrement in a 5℔ bag)… you get the picture. Especially since contributing money like that leaves the company assuming that they're doing a good job (if only competition were allowed in some way where the author would still get payed). So I try to support the author in other ways, e.g. buying an art book. Alas, that option is not always available, especially outside of East Asia.

So let me repeat: quality, completeness, availability.

Last edited by blackluna at 7:14 am, Jul 27 2022

Although policies may vary, for the most part from what I've experienced, once you pay to access chapters of webtoons (for example) you will always be able to read them, even if the online platform's license expires. This is definitely true for Tapas, Tappytoon, and Lezhin US, and I suspect most others as well (like Coolmic, Netcomics, etc). I think they did it like this because the pay-per-chapter model wouldn't hold up long term. Once people figure out the actual money used to buy all those not-at-all-cheap digital tokens was completely wasted, it would be a PR nightmare. So I suspect this is sort of their way of giving their content a feeling of permanence one gets from printed books.

The only bad thing is if you somehow lose access to your account, if the website dies, or the company goes out of business, you're screwed with respect to all the content you paid for.

Last edited by Jessica_desu29 at 11:20 am, Jul 27 2022

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I've always kinda been in the mindset of "if you can easily access a legal version of a work you probably should give them the money" (and especially if they're giving it out for free anyway then you should definitely be reading on their site.)

But I don't really care what scanslators do and do prefer having the option since often time the official release is dog shit lol. However, even if the official release is dog shit I still like to buy at least 1 volume of it officially just to toss them some money while still reading the superior fan release. (I usually buy the inferior volumes and just donate them to the local library). I think even if you can't afford to buy every volume or every chapter, you should at least pay for it a little bit if they give you a reasonable option to. I also think if scanslators are going to continue a series once it's licensed they should make readers aware of that and give links to the official source.

As a scanslator myself though, I try to stay away from stuff with a US license for legal reasons. I know it's unlikely they'd ever come for me but it is significantly more likely than the Japanese IP holder coming for me lol. I just don't wanna risk it personally. I have family members who work in the legal world that deals with this exact kinda stuff so I think I'd be a bad look for them if I got busted on it lol.

Hmmmm. I think it depends on the license. If it's just an announcement that might not go through and even if it does it will take them years to catch up to the point where scanlation is, I'd say continue. If it's a good translation and the fan scanlations are not far ahead enough, I'd say stop and/or even slowly remove access to the old chapters that are available through official means. And it's always better to avoid legal issues than end up getting taken down completely.

What makes me the saddest however is when the good scanlations stop because of license...and then the quality of the licensed translation is basically hot garbage. I do want to support the author but I really don't want to support low effort quick cash grabs calling themselves official translation.

Last edited by Alwerien at 9:50 am, Jul 29 2022

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If for some reason you check my public lists, please be aware that is only a fraction of my lists. Not like it matters.