[Hei! This manga is just 'blahblah' version of 'blahblah' series!]

[I seems like reading 'blahblah' with (without) 'blahblah' addition]

[This series is using a lot of 'blahblah' elements with less (or more) 'blahblah']

[I'm I reading 'blahblah' but created by 'blahblah'?]

[This is such a blatant rip-off of 'blahblah'!]

I've read such in a lot of user comments in countless series pages. No, I'm not the type who like to read others perspective before starts reading a series, and I'm not a tsundere either.

Too bad that the 'User Comments' section is placed above the 'Submit Rating' section (no, I'm not criticizing mangaupdates's page structure, really), so that I've caught a glimpse of those comments and getting curious about the others. So what do I do? I track random series that I read recently and found more of those malicious comments.

It's annoying, yes. But not to the point to made me wrote this. I don't really like to leave thoughts, as I don't like to read them. I gave rating, yes, but it's unusual for me to writing comments. Even so, I made this topic, because the more I search it, I found more. And one of them contain a trigger one shouldn't have ever wrote.

"those who rated it highly probably did not read too many manga"

Just to state it bluntly, "I Read Manga", and you have to read it as like read "I'm breathing". Not just manga, anything, be it manhwa, manhua, or light novels.

Have I ever found similarities? Of course I have found them. But so what? I found both ice cream and syrup are sweet.

Most of us read manga, maybe as much as what have you read, or even more. We give our rating based on what we thought of that series, and it's even possible to rate something highly while feel it's similarities with other series. And we (uh, or maybe it's just me? Right, I think it's just me) never think of those similarities as plagiarism.

Just please stop comparing series only to accuse the latter is imitating the other. You're insulting the creator. You don't event know what the creator is really think. It's normal to have same idea. Or, do you really like to look down on the creator?

Tch, what have I done. This is just wasting my time, really. I wrote a lot just to get bad response, no, no one would actually really care to read. Sigh, anyway, I've wrote this much, it's such a waste to not to press the 'Create New Topic' button, right? I've no choice then.

To the rest of your post, the only thing I can do is advise you to not pay attention to those reviews. Maybe they are true, maybe they aren't; does it really matter if you like the manga?

To the following part, though, I can only ask: where did that come from?

Quote from Necrophades

...No, I'm not the type who like to read others perspective before starts reading a series, and I'm not a tsundere either...

There are times when you will miss what you never had. I wonder how you will find what you so desperately need.

even if i agree with you

you must learn that no matter what you think
there will be ppl who dissagree with you
think you are stupid
and just flat out hate you
for no reason whatsoever

same thing with everything else
ppl find flaws in manga
alot of series of course are simmilar
alot of series pay homage to great works like dragon ball,hokuto no ken,Jojo ASO
and alot of series ride on the populairty wave...yuri wave,yaoi wave,moe,incest ASO ...and they tend to be clones...that can piss ppl off

but
dont get angry
read and love whatever you want
and dont care so much what other ppl think

when people say **** like that, well.
Its like comparing some politician to hitler.
Because Hitler was a politician, and a human, there ARE similiarities.

Just like between series genres there are similiarities.

Shounen Jump wanted to repeat Dragon ball's success so it HIRED manga to make similiar works.

its not plagarism, they own the rights to print dragonball, its not a copy... unless its like traced from the original.

But sure its an imitation. Its very rare for a shounen mag to take chances with something new when a formulaic recipe works just fine.

As such generic shounen have many similiar elements of the recipe.

A rival,
An enemy who becomes a friend.
a useless attractive female who wants the main character.
The protaganists father is typically someone impressive.
Training arcs
Tournament arcs.
Flashback sob story arcs in the middle of a fight developing the character.
Powerful moves that kill the user slowly when used, but never kills the protag during the fight, occasionally they die young after the series completes.
Friendship/other bullshit being used to win fights simply refusing to lose. Sir you've lost 10 times the amount of blood in your body and sliced in half. REFUSE TO LOSE.

So things like that, are well, part of the genre.

Two things:

-Reviews exist for a reason. They're supposed to gauge quality, and unless something is the absolute last bastion of perfection, expect bad ones. In an industry where 90% of the plots are essentially regurgitated reiterations of earlier ideas, the majority of the products are going to have major detractors in the form of anyone who either doesn't like a certain premise or has grown tired of it. If you're going to complain about people writing negative reviews, don't read reviews. That's just flat-out dumb.

-More on point, even literati scrape and steal. People grow up reading certain styles and become familiar with certain ideas, and the mangaka who emerge inevitably want to replicate what they liked. So of course it's all ripoffs. Especially in an industry that already serves a specific niche. Unless you're looking at the small groups appealing to the international community of cartoonists, or the types that are mimicking novels instead, you're just going to see the same thing over and over. Those comments aren't malicious, they're just factual. There's nothing fallacious involved, they're just educating the average reader. I really don't think that there's anything wrong with that.

[img]http://i604.photobucket.com/albums/tt122/Wthuh/CrenshiSig.jpg[/img]
Reviews of my Work:
You are kind of boring - Blackorion
Congratulations! Ur an asshole! - tokyo_homi
**Your awesome!!! **- Cherelle_Ashley
NightSwan also said that she wanted to peg me, once, but I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or a threat...

People find similar concepts in two things and end up saying one is an imitation of another, but ultimately almost everything is derived from something else. If you can't handle it you might as well kill yourself because your name is most likely copied or inspired by something else.

You can call it plagiarism or copying all you want but it's a 'genre', and in a genre similar concepts are necessary.

Well, some series really are plagiarizing other series. There are cliches and allusions to other series, but plagiarism does occur quite often in manga. Many times these are discovered by those readers who complain that some series are similar.

Kayono is the epitome of a plagiarism example. Some of her audiences discovered some similarities between her series Shinobi no Onna and another series called Wild Rock. Those audiences blogged complaints. Those "annoying complaints" eventually sparked an actual lawsuit, though it ended in Kayono's favor. [we all know why though ):]

So complaints are useful if the readers know what they're talking about. They get annoying, yes, but they can also be useful. But some people are kinda thickheaded and can't tell cliches from actual plagiarism. Those are just plain annoying, yes.

What I didn't understand was why people said "those who rated it highly probably did not read too many manga". Like you, I highly disagree with that statement. That's just measuring others with your own meter stick. Everyone has their own opinions on what they like or dislike. Maybe they really liked that series even though it plagiarizes. I personally thought Leaf was a pretty good manhua though it totally ripped off Olimpos. It's really opinion related. Some readers know about the similarities, but they choose to read it because they like what's similar. A really bad example is my fetish for eccentric or idiosyncratic detectives in detective manga. I was really influenced by Sherlock Holmes in my childhood so I frequently go digging around for that similar trait in detectives in manga, books, movies, and other sources of entertainment.

Plus, you can't read enough manga, per se. There is no real definition of "enough manga". I've been reading manga for 8+ years and I haven't even gotten through half of what's in the MU database. I think I've read enough to be throwing up manga but some others who've read significantly more than me still think they haven't read enough. 😔

Quote from melon-ramune-freak

Like you, I highly disagree with that statement. That's just measuring others with your own meter stick.

I'm gonna be a bit of a troll here. In all honesty, measuring somebody else with your own meter stick is an extraordinarily good way to measure things, as meter sticks are standardized and therefore accurate in any and all situations (with room for some small error; nothing is absolutely perfect).

That being said, yes, you should never apply your own standards to another person's opinions. Now, I say you CAN judge the weighting system that other people use. Say they vote a series a one because they didn't like the art, or the story, or the message. You could then question why they applied a rating that implies absolutely zero redeeming qualities inherent in the work. I have personally never seen a manga that deserves a rating of one, by any standard. It would have to be spectacularly bad. Still, you can't, or at least shouldn't, judge that they feel it deserves a one, only the criteria by which they arrived at that conclusion.

[img]http://img.userbars.pl/69/13603.gif[/img]

As others have said, it's impossible to copyright an idea. How many times has Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet been used as the basis for a story? And more than likely Shakespeare took the idea from somewhere else. So comparing storylines is useless. As long as it isn't word for word, a story can be told many times, and many different ways and it isn't plagiarism. It might even be told better.

Art is trickier. Youka Nitta got in trouble for tracing backgrounds for her cover art, and placing her own characters in them. She apologized and is just getting over the scandal. If she had just taken the basic situation and redrawn it, then there might not have been a problem.

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." As long as you don't photocopy it.

Now as to the reviews: I, personally, don't mind comparisons to other manga. (Just don't get angry, etc, at other reviewers). More than once I've found something new to read from those reviews. Just don't forget to use those spoiler cuts.

Well there's really nothing new under the sun. Everything else has been used, reused, parodied, referred, cited, and exampled. So anytime I see something repeating, I just shrugged and keep reading. I think a great manga author can take something and turn it to something new anyway.

Take for example Sket Dance and Gintama. The mangaka for Sket Dance used to be an assistant for Gintama's mangaka. The story is kinda similar, because it talks about 3 people jack-of-all-trades team. They even pointed this out in the cross over manga.

But I think Sket Dance is one of the best manga ever written, and it's just about the only one I'm following right now.

And the next time someone says 'If you give this a good rating that means you haven't been reading enough manga' they couldn't be more wrong. **It's BECAUSE we've read enough manga WE KNOW that this kind of thing will happen and so it doesn't bother us anymore. ** Those people don't have a clue to what they're talking about.

Lol, no need to throw a fit over something like the comments section. It's their opinion.

Anyway, locking this.