Authors-Wann

Hey people,

I haven’t finished my last post on authors but I will sooner or later. I don’t have anything planned for this week nor do I have the will to go in depth on another topic that I would like to so I’m just going to be lazy and jump off of last week’s topic, authors. I don’t want to bash on an author nor do I want to choose an author who has written a lot and has been scanlated so please bear with me and excuse me for my laziness.

Wann is a manhwaga. I’m pretty sure Wann is a female because one of the free talk sections in a manhwa, she talked about her being pregnant, also her manhwa chibi portrait is a girl I think….? Anyways, Wann is one of my more recent favorite manhwagas. Or actually, she’s not so much as a favorite as is her stories are interesting and unique compared to what we see these days (so I guess she can be considered a favorite by my standards). She draws shoujo manhwas but a majority of them involve more adult presence than teenage high schoolers. First, her art—the drawings are pretty good and easy on the eyes so they qualify for most people’s standards I think. Males are handsome (especially in a suit and with black hair) and the females are relatively fashionable. Now for her stories…she mixes things up well with different plots touching on different lifestyles and settings. From what I’ve read, there’s been small country royalty, the art world, the rich and wealthy (a few of her manhwas), other worldly, etc. Both males and females are strong character leads in all of her scanlated manhwas so far. Basically it’s the diversity of settings that Wann dips into together with the strong characters that makes her a favorite for me.

The following is a personal note to the manhwas I’ve read by Wann. They’re kind of in order by favorites (length of notes aren't very significant):

Can’t Lose You

This is my above all favorite among all of Wann’s manhwas. It’s not the first that I touched on but it’s the first I enjoyed and read to the end (and rereading a few times right after reading it the first time). I first found it from my local library and later searched for it online with no luck at all until I obtained a direct download to the zip files from someone who had it downloaded from Netcomics. Now it’s available online too but it’s not a scanlated work (the very same Netcomics) so it isn't on batoto but on ad-ridden aggregate sites. 

So…there were a lot of things I loved about this manhwa but I don’t want to be so direct to give too much to spoil so I’ll be very generic. SPOILERS/Synopsis The story is about two people, girls who appear to be each others’ doppelgangers. Lida is rich, heir to an enterprise—she is, in essence, a cold hearted but very insightful queen. Yooi is dirt poor, an orphan but was raised to be a sweet hearted and hard working samaritan. Both are bound to a destiny beyond their grasps from the day they were born. When they meet, attempts happen to be made on Lida’s life so she hires Yooi as her double. Although fate brought the two together, the male lead’s presence, Gaon is significant to the two and their relationship. Gaon is a charismatic and successful young man as well as a cold hearted business man (doesn’t blink an eye to take money from people or have someone killed). Upon the first meeting with Lida, he rejects to be her fiancé but being the only man with his caliber fit to be the husband of the great Lida, she’s insulted. One day he walks by a shop that Yooi happens to be working at and at that moment, Yooi is napping by the window. Gaon is pissed and accuse her of stalking him and then lays a kiss on her. Next thing you know, he’s literally fallen head over heels for this girl whom he thinks is Lida. And so by being Lida’s double, Yooi meets him again and they develop a relationship—whenever with her, his personality turns 180 from his cold hearted-ness. However, with the two girls’ fate, the story isn’t so simple and there’s a lot of action going on especially with the attempt on Lida’s life.

I’m sorry that was a little too detailed was it not? Said too much I think. But anyways, the twist of fate for the two identical female leads, Yooi and Lida as well as the fiancé Gaon who stands between them. This isn’t a simple tale of love as cheesily as I’ve put it. There’s a lot more pressure with fate than with love especially since Gaon’s future is dependent on which of the two girls he decides to fulfill his days with. There are also a couple of other characters and the family of Lida is very crucial to this story. And touching on fate, if you know Greek mythology and the whole prophesy stuff with mythology, then this story is kind of like that. No matter how much you want to change the future, fate has a way to play and force you back to that route is kind of what this manhwa is saying. Also, even though seers can foretell the future, they don't see everything. I just realized it's kind of like how the Fae can't tell lies but they can speak the truth in a twisted way by leaving out details. The details of the future aren't aligned but the future will become as foretold.

Well, for the most part, I feel like it’s a well rounded dramatic story. I love how all of the main characters and secondary main characters turn out to have a happy ending except for one...which makes it a semi tragedy... All in all, it’s wonderful and just one of my favorite all time stories.

                                                                                                                                                                           

The Snow Queen

This is my second favorite manhwa by Wann but I guess this is influenced by another factor as well. This is a shoujo manhwa about a young man who becomes the body guard/chauffer of a spoiled “brat.” Spoiler This is also a tragedy because she has a fatal illness to do with her heart I believe. However their story isn’t as simple as a one day meeting. Her past has been tied to this man through her brother who died when he was young. I think this is a very good story but it has a lot of holes in it in and keeps the reader kind of wondering why and how this and that is relevant in the manhwa. I can’t exactly describe it without talking about the drama it was adapted into. Now, this drama is just really sappy. Literally, I was just crying from the very beginning to like episode 12 I think (it was so good that I remembered) but it was because I just couldn’t bear to cry any more. The manhwa is a good preview for the general storyline of the drama so if you watch it, I recommend reading the manhwa before watching. The manhwa kind of provokes the reader to try to read between the lines which I think is pretty clever of Wann and the drama does a good job filling in the holes. However I’m not sure if Wann had the intention of such a storyline in the drama when writing the manhwa so this is solely based on my personal experience. I guarantee the manhwa and the drama are great as a pair though!

                                                                                                                                                                           

100% Perfect Girl

This manhwa by Wann…many have held it as esteemed but for me, it falls short somewhat but I think it just may be because of my prejudice against harem mangas.  The first time I laid eyes on this manhwa was before Can’t Lose You but it was new in releases. I stopped reading the first few times I tried, I’m not sure why but when I finally did read it, it was because I read Can’t Lose You and The Snow Queen. Anyways..

I love the whole royalty and the whole falling in love between two characters with the same/similar names “J”. It’s cute but when things just got so intense and dramatic with the whole love-hate relationship and the aggressive prince lover…mmm that was a little off putting but I think the obstacles they went through with the whole love hate relationship was really amazing. Destiny really had a way with pulling the two together still. Even though it started off as a fairy tale kind of love story and they went through so much trauma and terror with each other to the point of actually hating each other yet loving each other, gosh it’s really amazing that they ended up together happily ever after if you can say that…

Both characters had SOOOOO many flaws and I meant to use the emphasis of “so” as how I’ve used it. The prince was just an extremely obsessive and possessive lover. A lot of the times, he was (kind of) a douche bag but you know, love has a way of making people crazy ergo “crazy in love.” But, for a powerful figure like himself who has never known love and simply known how to make love, I’m guessing the intensity of falling head over heels was just too much for him. Then there is the female lead…I love that she has talent in art and I admit that she’s pretty and kind of cute but seriously…an harem of men. AN HAREM OF MEN. Every single guy who has laid eyes on her except for her family, (excuse if I have this wrong but) it’s like every single guy literally fell in love with her to the point of laying down their lives for her. I have a prejudice against harems if you’ve read my post on harems and that really got to me about this manhwa. The intense love was already just so much to bear but ugh…every single guy just falling in love with her and every single one of them were all shady and dealt with bad business…she was a bad boy magnet. Also personality-wise...not so impressed with the female lead but I guess she's a different kind of "strong female lead" just not really what I picture or think a strong female lead is. She was kind of weak willed....

Ok, so I have a lot of feelings about this manhwa. I love it (I guess?) yet hate it like the relationship we have in this manhwa but not as intense. Props to Wann for the dramatic and intense story but I really did not like the whole harem of men falling for this “ordinary” but very cute girl (apparently she’s very ordinary in the story but very cute to all the men in the story). Sigh…glad I finally got that out but all things considered, good yet bad, very dramatic—not at all good for the heart yet also sweet. However I think people have disagreements on the ending...

                                                                                                                                                                           

So that's all I have to say for Wann and my experience with her manhwas. She really is a favorite. There are more manhwas but these are the big three. I may update this post at another time to add the other manhwas like Wann's newest 2013 manhwa but another time. Thanks for reading, I hope you've had a nice visit.

Best,

tohukyo

Authors—Yoshizumi Wataru

With the finite of topics I can think of to write about, I decided this week to write about one of my favorite authors in the graphic novel world whom I like reading and rereading from, mangaka Yoshizumi Wataru. This will probably a first of a number of posts with a topic on authors in general though I’m not sure how to structure this though since I don’t know so much about these mangakas than I do know about the mangas they write…Also, the chosen author is extremely significant—I just think it'll be easier for me to write about Yoshizumi as my first author post since most of her mangas are also completely scanlated. 

So the mangaka Yoshizumi was among the first mangakas I read from before I started reading online—Marmalade Boy and Ultra Maniac (was available at my city’s huge library network). I think she became one of the first I also read from when I started reading online—Datte Suki Nan Damon. And thereafter, I began to seek out and read all available Yoshizumi mangas that were scanlated.  I have this feeling that a lot of people don’t really like Yoshizumi’s work. I think all of them vary in degrees of greatness but generally the storylines are enjoyable if you read with more of an open mind. She initially wrote shoujo genre but recently in the past few years, I’ve seen more scanlated mangas by her showing up under the josei genre.

Whenever I think of Yoshizumi’s work, I think it’s quite relaxing in how realistic she writes her stories. Her style of art is between simplistic and detailed but more on the simplistic side. It’s pretty clean which helps the mood of the stories she draws since most of her stories aren’t extremely complex but very slice of life style (if the stories she wrote were to be played out in real life). The stories vary in terms of drama but when I think about the characters and stories she creates, the drama isn’t superficial and somewhat understandable unlike other shoujo and josei mangas. To simply put it, for me, she isn’t a cliché writer.

I’ve read every single Yoshizumi manga available on the net so the following will be personal notes on each manga.

Shoujo

Datte Suki Nan Damon (completed)

I think this is one of my favorite light reread mangas. The story isn’t great but I think it’s well written considering the characters that Yoshizumi creates in this manga. The male lead, Masato-kun isn’t someone to exactly look up to since he is dubbed a playboy but removing that information, he’s a pretty decent male lead. The reason for why Masato is a playboy is more or less forgiving especially when one reaches the end of the manga. The female lead Moka is likeable since she’s not a frustrating shoujo lead and is quite honest. Her commitment to the feelings she has, how Yoshizumi lets Moka shine by not making her overbearing and insistent about her love really drew me in. I think of this story as quite relaxing.

Random Walk (completed)

I like to think of this manga as a good realistic and possible account of dating for people today/in high school. It’s not everyone’s experience but I feel like it gives a piece of reality that not everyone sticks to one person throughout their high school years and in early adulthood (especially since young people don’t really know much about love either). Motives are different of course, some people date for the sake of the dating experience and just having fun whiles others like the female lead in this manga Yuka, date for the sake of finding their love. Much like the title, this manga is a “random walk” for Yuka because she finds different guys and falls in love kind of easily but I like how she’s open minded about falling in love. I like her father's open-mindedness towards love as well. I think a lot of people don’t find this manga very tasteful but I enjoy it because today, not everyone is lucky to find “the one” as easily as most shoujo mangas portray.
Handsome Girlfriend (completed)

This isn’t my favorite manga by this mangaka. In fact I find it fluctuating in terms of how interesting it gets throughout the story. What I like about this manga is that there is the element of the entertainment world but I find most of the characters…”meh.” I’m quite fascinated by the male lead, Ichiya’s ambition as a director and “movie enthusiast” and the people he’s gathered around him. The female lead, Mio…well the concept behind a “handsome woman” isn’t about sexiness or elegance but about the strength of a woman that can potentially be associated with that of a man as “handsome”. Mio is supposed to be a “handsome woman” but I see her as more of a cry-er than “handsome” so she didn’t appeal to me. However I love the concept behind the movie that is produced in the manga known as “Private Ai.” I wish Yoshizumi would write a manga based on the concept behind that movie because it’s pretty interesting but I don’t think it’s likely with what she said in the free-talk sections.

Mint na Bokura (completed)

It’s a gender bender involving two identical twins—brother and sister. The brother sneaks into his sister’s school (a boarding school) as a girl to try and get his sister to come back to school. He ends up rooming in a double with another girl of course. Another of course is that the roommate he has happens to be someone he ends up being attracted to/falling in love with. It’s pretty funny but it’s been awhile since I last reread it (maybe I’ll take this opportunity to reread it).

Ultra Maniac (completed)

I kind of call this an oddball manga written by Yoshizumi since it’s the most out of the ordinary compared to the other mangas she has written. This is a manga involving the supernatural—witches but not in the usual sense with wands but with spelled objects. I can’t exactly explain it since it’s been awhile since I last read this manga. The female lead is pretty childish but it’s forgivable because of she wasn't raised in the human world—though I don’t favor characters who refer to themselves in third person and I think she’s one of them. The man that she eventually falls for is sensible so I liked him. All in all, it’s an ok manga with touches of child-like innocence and refreshing youth.

PxP (completed)

I like this manga because both leads (male and female) are impressive. The female lead is outgoing, down to earth, and pretty smart and really athletic. The male lead is intelligent and cool with inventive skills. The two of them work as a duo in a Robin Hood way but instead of stealing from the rich to give to the poor, together they steal meaningful items back from people and return them to the original owners. I think it helps that this manga is also short so there isn't so much time to develop any frustration with the characters as well. It’s a light read.

Marmalade Boy (completed)

Not my favorite by Yoshizumi but it’s one of her earlier mangas and I think it’s her most successful right? I enjoy the unique scenario that she thought up as well as Yuu’s charismatic playful personality. Miki is a little annoying but she’s very much “normal teenage girl” material as a character so I give props for the reactions of Miki towards her baffling circumstances. It’s fun to reread like once a year or couple of years because of the freshness of older style shoujo (older than today that is). I enjoy the purity of older shoujos and even though Miki isn’t such an appealing character, I still like her since I feel like she’s like the connection of the “normal.” (Sounds like BS but I kind of feel like because she’s the most normal, it makes sense that she’s the/a main character).

Kimi Shika Iranai (completed)

I think this is another not as well liked manga by Yoshizumi. SPOILERS The female lead is a high school girl who was once married but is now a divorcee, but (and excuse me if this is a little plain-spoken) she didn't even lose her virginity yet. Now, the protagonist is actually a male who falls in love at first sight with the girl. As for the reason why I think it’s not a well liked manga, it’s ultimately because of the girl—she kind of became all anti-love after finding out that her ex husband had cheated on her. The worst part  about this ex husband is that he doesn't even see what he did wrong because physical cheating isn't the same as emotional cheating which I can kind of see his point since there are things like open marriages but still. The girl friend zones the guy pretty quickly but the guy perseveres. The thing I liked about this manga is the male lead’s perseverance and undying (exaggerating) devotion to his love. Also, the little sister of the girl is pretty cool despite being a grade schooler. She has a good head on her shoulders and takes the role of the rational and supporting secondary character for the male lead, encouraging him to continue persevering for her sister. But for the female lead, I must put in a word that readers are way too hard on her because I understand rationally why she feels the way she does and acts the way she does. It wasn't exactly a clean divorce so with lingering feelings, she couldn't help but still feel attracted to the manslut. 

Chitose, Etc.

JOSEI
Cappuccino
Spicy Pink
Cherish
Happiness

*Incomplete post, to be continued*

How I feel about Harem Mangas

Greetings,

It's midnight Saturday into Sunday right now. (Is it midnight Saturday or is it midnight Sunday?) I'm posting this before I go to bed instead of after because I won't have time to later.

I'm just going to touch on this topic about harem mangas kind of lightly since this is just personal taste and opinion. Sorry if it sounds immature and inexperienced on my part. 

So...how do I feel about Harem mangas in general? Frankly I don't like/hate them. But my feelings towards those mangas varies between harem and reverse harems. What's the difference? Most people who have read manga for some time know (I suppose). Harem mangas are when you have one male and multiple females. A reverse harem is when you have one female and multiple males. 

Harem mangas. 

I don't particularly have any ill feelings for harem mangas since most of them are involved in comedy and aren't very serious at all. I tend to avoid them though because there isn't much substance to a lot of them. There are a few exceptions of course but I can only think of Kimi no Iru Machi and Yamada and the Seven Witches (if you can all Yamada an harem manga at all). I guess the difference is that those that I avoid usually center on a story about one guy encountering a bunch of girls from the very beginning of the story-usually very comedic and often a lot of comedic ecchi scenes too...The most clear indication of the harem manga that I avoid are those that start with a guy returning to a village or small town, encountering multiple girls with one as a former childhood friend? Sounds like Love Hina right? I'll admit that I read it when I was younger and it was for humor and boredom I suppose but in the last few years or so...not my taste. 

Reverse Harems.

For this genre, I guess I can kind of say I actually hate this genre. Of course with a "few" exceptions...though I can actually think of one right now which is Ouran High School Host Club. Anyways, the reason why I hate this genre is because more often than not, the female lead is just so...SO irritatingly frustratingly annoying. I guess they all try to redeem themselves in some way but since it's usually a shoujo manga...it's not easy to avoid cliches like really annoying love polygons. I guess when love isn't so involved as much, I appreciate reverse harems more, just like the one I mentioned already i.e. Ouran. But it's so rare. There is another kind of reverse harem manga that I thought did well known as Love Sick by Morie Satoshi. This one did involve love and all but the female lead carried herself through pretty well in relation to what the plot of the story was. Random Walk by Yoshizawa Wataru is another reverse harem-ish manga but I thought it reflected well on the whole dating experience that people today have in high school (though the girl fell in love with people too easily but I credit that to her open mind and her father). 

Basically, I'm less critical of harem mangas since they're usually comedic but reverse harems are more difficult for me to enjoy....I think the subjected pathetic-ness of the female leads is to blame when in contrast, harem mangas don't usually have pathetic males as a protagonist...

That's all I have to say for this topic. I don't want to get into it that much. 

Best,

tohukyo

Why So Many Projects?

Hello,

These last few days I've been busy with life so I haven't had time to really think and write. I decided to extend from my last post on a topic-kind of food for thought?

Scanlators don't all have such a large group of people working on projects especially since there are a finite number of people who are willing to give up the time in their lives for the many jobs required for a "HQ" scanlation~ providing raws/translating/cleaning/redrawing/proofreading/QCing (that all?).

So...I've wondered for some time, especially with one group specifically (the name of which will not be provided), why do some scanlation groups take on so many projects? This one group has like about 100 projects (give or take 10 or so that they have dropped but haven't removed from the ongoing projects list). I don't know how many people are volunteering to work in that group but even so, that's a lot of projects. With so much to do for just one project as well, it begs me to question, why bother taking on so many different projects?

Possible Reason #1--I understand that some groups seem to take on projects based on the magazines they subscribe from but in my opinion, it just seems less efficient to do that since not all magazines continue to feature a manga to its completion (or is that just American manga magazines).

Yes, Magazines have their perks. One of which would be that there are multiple mangas in each magazine. They also are cheaper in the long run I suppose when you calculate the cost of each magazine you get from the cost of an annual subscription against one volume of a manga. There's also the factor that it's a lot easier to scan from too if you do the whole de-binding method/ripping the pages carefully. That just seems like all the perks there are to me. Nothing more and nothing less. (Maybe color pages are a perk as well? I don't know if volumes in the country of origin have color pages.)

But of course, all things good also have its bad. But it's easier to compare than to simply say the bad so I'm not going to say why to me it seems better to not rely on magazines.

For me, it makes more sense to take on projects that are already completed in the country of origin. Whether you obtain the raws by buying the manga in a foreign language or online from people who upload raws on their own free time, it makes a lot more sense to do that doesn't it? This way, there is no doubt that the mangaka will drop it or put it on hiatus despite it being not very probably but also, it seems like it would be better in that a group doesn't have to wait around that long for a new chapter for a project being worked on.

I also think having a manga in volumes is better too. Similar to the idea of it already being completed, you at least don't have to wait so long for another chapter. Yes, volumes take longer to compile and be released but it gives more control over how many projects to take on right? If a group gets a magazine, I feel as though they may feel obligated to do all the mangas featured with some strange idea that they'll get their money's worth.

Possible Reason #2--Other groups have so many projects just for the sake of variety and keeping the interest alive I suppose which does make sense and would work better if you have a large pool of people you can dip into for job distributions but again, finite people.

There is one group in particular that I think works well with a large amount of projects because it has a large pool of people to dip into for work. But the largest difference is that this group also takes time to encourage and train its people to take on other jobs like from PR to cleaning. Although their PR needs some brushing up grammar and all but in general, they've created a system that works pretty well I think.

Generally though, I feel like groups should try and brush themselves up and control the amount of work they take on. Having so many and leaving most inactive for long periods of time is a pretty cruel fate for the projects as well as those who have vested their interest in those stories. It's sad to see projects drop but drawing on the exclusivity thing, by dropping projects that have less probability of reviving, it may be a better fate since it would allow the possibility of it being picked up by another group who many invest more time into working on the dropped projects.

Speaking rationally, this makes sense to me but maybe it's just to me. I can't really think of anything else to add (maybe later) but that's all.

Until next week,
tohukyo

Exclusivity of Projects

Hi,

My post is one day late (two for most people in the world) and I have a topic I want to write about but I'm too tired to go in depth so I'm just going to go into a topic in relation to it which is a lot easier to structure than what I have in mind.

I don't know how many people have actually noticed nor do people care but in the scanlating world, there seems to be this sort of "de facto" law with manga projects. (de facto: in practice or actuality, but not officially established)

The thing is that if you've been reading as long as I have and/or if you aren't always in the clouds when reading, you'd catch on that only one group/scanlator works on a manga. It seems like this exclusivity (note, exclusivity is an actual word) is some de facto law or some unified consensus among the manga community that only one scanlator/group works on a manga and no one else.

First of all, how does this exclusivity work?
Well, I think it's quite simple. From what I've seen over the years, a group has to simply deem themselves as a scanlating group (setting up some kind of webpage be it a forum or a blog or something else; so that people can find it and witness them as a scanlator) and make sure no one else that is established as a scanlating group is working on a project or has noted a project as a future work. If it's a person, well, same thing generally. But this also brings into question how this even began. I think it's just some kind of twist on the human notion of private property as well as the idea that there is no point on starting on a project if it's already being worked on. That's just me though, what I think.

What happens if someone else works on it?
Well usually this only happens with "amateur" scanlators e.g. (e.g. not i.e. -there is a difference) anyone, usually a one man job, who works on a project without consulting the group that has "obtained" exclusive rights to a manga. (Gosh this "obtained exclusive rights" thing just sound ridiculous since scanlators aren't doing anything legal per se.) And this usually happens because the scanlator that has the "exclusive rights" aren't working as quickly as the freeloading masses want them to. As a result, there are usually 2 different scenarios that can play out.
1) The amateur doesn't do a good job at all (stressing on the "amateur" but there are those rare cases where the amateur does a pretty exceptional job) and the release(s) simply serves as a preview (using paint instead of PS is one clear indication). This is good because that means the scanlator is pretty "professional" in the sense that they'll still release the chapter but in better/high quality.
2) The amateur (good or bad) keeps on releasing chapter after chapter and in the end, the scanlators stop working on it. After awhile, the amateur stops too.
Usually when this happens, it's because the scanlators get annoyed that someone else (amateur) is working on it and doesn't see the point of going any further--as for the amateur, they just stop because unlike the scanlator, he/she/they didn't have much obligation to continue working on it.
It actually rarely comes to this but when I sit witness to this, I advise the amateur to consult the scanlators as soon as possible in order to avoid the issue of a project being completely dropped all together. I'm glad they actually listen too
*3) The amateur does a good job at it. I don't know for sure what happens when this is the case because both 1 and 2 can happen but from what I remember with one person, the amateur realizes that #2 can happen and puts out some sort of warning credit/declaration about it as well as telling people not to release it on a manga aggregate site since it's just an amateur release.

It's kind of strange how this exclusiveness works but there are some exceptions and recently I've noticed a few mangas having more than one scanlator working on it and they're not any of the big name mangas either. It's strange when that happens but this is actually related to a topic I may be talking about some other time.

I never really thought about this "strange phenomenon" (or whatever you want to call it) of exclusivity until now but I remember one somewhat recent event that really made me aware of how crude that the practice of exclusivity can be. I'm not going to name anyone but this group, let's call it B (I know, how creative is that?) I remember only released the first chapter of a manga simply fearing another group, A would take it on as a project eventually. This manga had a prequel and a sequel. The prequel was drawn by another mangaka artist (the story is by a novelist) and A was making pretty good momentum in the scanlation of the prequel. The sequel on the other hand (by another mangaka-and in my opinion too flowery with details and doesn't fit well with the prequel at all) was kind of "up for grabs" so to speak. B wanted to work on it but feared that A would eventually work on it first so in a rush, B released a first chapter. I must stress that it's exclusivity in it's most unrefined "raw" state. The chapter was poorly done (cleaning was ok but the translation/grammar was poor--grammar and the flow of the text is necessary for HQ scans IMO) and it was "rumored" that B simply did a quick release in order to obtain the exclusivity. Worst part is that now, B has dropped it. I don't know what B's reasons were for dropping but if the reason for release is true, that's sad. Anyways, it's strange how this works in some ways I think.

But then there's the problem of some groups taking on too many projects that they can't handle it and end up not actually working on them simply because they're more recent mangas that are released by magazines... To solve that problem, I think some scanlators should look to volumes and not magazines as well as completed mangas instead of ongoing. But another day for another topic to go into I suppose.

That's all I have to say. I hope you enjoyed. If not, not my problem =)

Have a great week!
tohukyo

The Beef With Manga Aggregate Sites (A brief "analysis")

Good Morning visitors,

So this post will be very general (VERY GENERAL) info on what I know about the situation and some personal opinion about manga aggregate sites and the continuing feud between scanlators and manga aggregate sites for years now.

I don't know how many people know about this (not that much compared to the whole population of online readers) but for years, scanlators have had a lot of "beef" with manga aggregate sites. Now, first is the idiom of "someone having a beef with someone" i.e. a problem or bad relationship with someone. Second, what is a manga aggregate site? Generally it's a manga hosting site that collects all or as many of the translated work that scanlators do and host it on their site for people to read. (eg mangafox, mangahere, tenmanga, etc) If you just started off in the online manga world then I don't expect you to know much of this but it's some information you don't want to miss out on. If you remained ignorant despite reading for awhile, it's about time to get educated. If you know about this and continue to ignore and not care, then you are just trying to annoy me. (edit: 07/30/2013)-Not proud to know that my brother is one of those indifferent people....

Ok so, I'm not sure when this feud really started but it was about a few years ago when I realized how unpleasant and uncomfortable I was with the whole thing and I sympathized with the scanlators. First of all, just hosting on its own is quite harmless I think except that there are scanlators who depends on visitors to kind of make a profit to support their own sites. I'm not too sure about that but as far as I know, manga hosting itself is innocent except when they start putting ads up on the pages for profits. The things is that with a manga aggregate site and hosting manga, every time you click, you get a new page of ads as well. Think about it, let's say the average number of pages in a chapter is about 20-30, then you include the fact that you may read more than one chapter in a day and the fact that thousands are doing the same thing from the comfort of a accessible internet device worldwide. No doubt that people got the light bulb and thought that it would be an excellent way to make a profit. Some people claim that the ads don't do anything as long as you don't click on it. I don't know how much that is true but bottom line is that these sites are pocketing the money off of the hard work of scanlators who buy raws, scan, translate, proofread, clean/crop/level/redraw them, typeset, and edit/QC them. (Some do occasional color pages too!) These people aren't making profits off of any of the scans they work on yet someone else is doing that and pocketing the money for themselves....Anyone see how messed up that is?

Now the moral grounds...yes scanlators and what they do with raws is illegal. They do stop if contacted by the publisher or if something is license (I hope). But they simply do this (at least I assume most of them do so) because they want to share their love for mangas AND the fact that not everyone has the privilege to access them in a language internationally understood. Most of the mangas that are professionally (ie through a publisher) translated into english have kind of been not so great in my opinion (especially tokyo pop mangas) There have been a few that have upped the game recently like Yen Press but there aren't many. One of the best sadly died a few years back too....CMX (may you rest in peace).  Anyways, there is an argument that scanlating reduces international sales but 1) scanlators aren't making profits off of what they do and 2)it is true that it reduces profits but again, things aren't being translated/published in english and not everyone has that access to buying translated text. 

The bottom line generally (and I stress this is an over simplification!!!) for manga aggregate sites is that it's unfair that they're making profits off of the illegal work that scanlators do voluntarily on their own time for free. One way how not to contribute? Get a damn Adblocker. I know firefox and chrome has it as extensions. I'm not sure about other browsers but I'm sure you can just google it and find one you can download for your browser. This application blocks ads from all sites including the video ads for youtube. You can also disable the application for sites that need the profits from ads like Batoto which I believe uses the profits from site to pay for the site which is supposed to be a scanlator friendly site for all languages. (good site to use if you want a good will aggregate site).

Personally for me, I use an Adblocker because I do not want to take part in the profits of sites like those. Secondly, I use batoto and scanlator sites/readers to read as much as possible but I don't know what sites are affiliated with profiting hence the adblocker. It's kind of hypocritical for me to denounce people who visit sites that are profiting as I've described in a very generic way because I'm a pretty avid poster on one of the most notorious manga aggregate sites ever, Mangafox. Maybe the difference is that people just remain ignorant and that really gets to me because they either think the sites themselves do the work or they don't care at all about HQ scans, expecting scanlators to come up with a new chapter within days of the previous release! Now back to my own hypocrisy of visiting MF...I go mainly for the discussion community which I think is the best there is, honest to god. It's a great place to visit for discussion and I've been with it for years now. When I first started out on mangafox though, it wasn't as terrible as it is now in terms of respecting the wishes of scanlators. I was here when anime-eden existed and I know for a fact that the staff used to take down mangas upon request but that stopped happening of course when voluntary forum staff were finally denied access to regulating the mangas that were uploaded to the hosting sites (this has NOEZ written all over it, the owner of MF and very notorious-HQ located in China). I feel kind of bad since it was once a quite respectable site to a certain degree when the voluntary staff still had that access....But anyways, if you aren't ready to make the shift just yet, just get the Adblocker. It'll save you a lot of loading time from the ads as well so you might as well get one. But I encourage going to scanlators who have readers of their own or go to batoto. Might as well thank them after you read them no?

I want to say more but this is getting to be too long and I'm getting tired (typing this at midnight before I go to bed). I want to say more and wish I structured this post a lot better and more eloquently but I've got a lot going on.


For more info (and you should want to look into this more) go to:

• 06-11-2010 (Anime News Network) Manga Aggregator to Close as OpenManga Plans Launch
• 08-04-2011 (Manga Updates) A Tale of Two Manga Readers
• **09-25-2011 (Evil Flowers Scans) Dear fans…
• 01-22-2012 The age of scanlators and money--This one is a little touchy on just the whole business of scanlating but I think it's informative. 
• 01-25-2012 (Japanzai) Watermarks/NOEZ
• 1*04-15-2012 (Batoto) Mangafox & Co. - How NOEZ does Business
• 2*04-10-2012 (Batoto) Mangafox & Co. - How NOEZ does Business
• 01-29-2012 (Batoto) Are some scan groups really better then Noez
• 03-08-2013 (Omari's Sister Scans) Please Boycott MangaFox and Other Manga Aggregators
• 05-13-2013 (Anime Loot) Why sites like MangaFox are Run by Douche bags for Douche bags

Sura's Place

(read a part of the journey of one scanlator, no longer wanting to deal with this feud anymore)

• Wondering About the Future
• Situation Update
• Closure
• A Little Too Late
• Nobody Knows & Love (Yeonmo) Dropped
• A webtoon coming soon
• ...Why?

Gosh, as I copy and pasted the links and skimmed through some of them (many are familiar), I'm getting the same nauseous feeling I did the first time I found out about this.... 

Bye,

tohukyo

Kare Kano

Hi everyone,

This is going to be a short post compared to my other ones because this is just going to be about a manga that I feel like writing about.

Kare Kano by Tsuda Masami

This manga is probably one of my most favorite mangas. It is a definite all time classic for shoujos as well so if you read shoujo, this is one story definitely shouldn't miss out. (But because it's kind of a mature read so I think it qualifies as a josei in some ways). Well I should actually say "stories" since this is one of those mangas where all the characters become close to your heart as you read and journey through all 21 volumes.

So, the reason why I felt like writing about this manga today is because recently I decided to reread/skim through the manga. I've always thought of it as like the bible of shoujo, the golden story that is shoujo at its best and brightest but I lost touch of it and felt like recently in about a year or so, I forgot what was the reason for why I thought that. Well, because I recently "reread" it, I've rediscovered this feeling and truly, it is (in my personal opinion) practically the bible of shoujo. It really is falling in love all over again. But it wasn't until I finished it that I felt this. I guess it's one of those mangas that has a process and by the time one comes to the end, one realizes just how wonderful the experience and journey was and reflect well on it. This definitely is one of the things I love about completed mangas (just in reference to one of my earlier posts).

Now this story touches on so many aspects. True love, Friendship, Loyalty, Youth (high school), Unconditional Love, Trauma, Family, and so much more. It really hits the core of adolescence in a sense because it really shines through the struggles to maintain or create an identity but also to retain/find one's self as "being yourself." It's because it hits on so much of reality (slice of life genre), it really does carry the reader through a lot and with that, you really feel compelled to love it and really do love it.

With so many aspects that it touches on, there are so many stories to tell as well.

Main story--I don't want to give too much away but the main character story is between a girl, Yukino and a guy, Arima. Both are top students, perfect models that teachers want their students to be, and great leadership skills. However their reality isn't what is reflected, their act is simply a theatrical performance of perfection and only when they meet each other do they crack through this performance with personal happiness within sight. However Yukino's reality is much more simply and exudes the happy and loving family environment she has always been raised in (plus her own little cunning and charming capitalistic attitude). Arima on the other hand has a much deeper and darker reality that he has buried since childhood due to the unstable environment he was raised in a "typical" crazy "noble" and successful family (all that pressure and expectation to uphold family legacy goes back generations before Arima. It's like he's a victim). This main story is spread out through most of the 21 volumes.

Within the 21 volumes, we take occasional breaks with insertion of a fun high school youth life with friends and well as get peaks into the stories of other characters. There are a lot of substories involving the secondary characters themselves (ranging in length from one to a few chapters long). I don't want to list them all since it's kind of a spoiler with introduction of new characters but I'll just say this. It's quite uncommon for any manga to reveal the background stories but this isn't just any manga. Not only do the friends get some background and their own little stories, but we even get to know about Yukino's parents as well as Arima's family history (this one is especially important in order for Arima to break the curse of the Arima family).

This style of manga, this is of an older generation per se (not that old though). It's not as fast pace and it's more "innocent" because it focuses on the more profound moments and relationships of life. It's as though with the complexity of the storyline and the multiple sub storylines, to go too quick of a pace would have ruined the manga but everything just moved smoothly for Kare Kano.

But I must stress that this is different for everyone. Personally, I picked up this manga when I was young (like 11 or 12) and what I consider quite ignorant and didn't really understand the meanings behind the profoundness of most of the mangas I read (the way I read novels was completely different from how I read mangas too back then). It was until I was in high school when I finally picked it up again online and read through everything with my full attention that I realized the greatness of the storyline. This isn't for everyone though and you might not have the patience to last 21 volumes that has not only the main storyline but also sub stories. However, it is definitely worth reading since it is a very different style from what we're exposed to (given what we have from the scanlators). Read it with an open mind and if you can't handle reading some parts, just let it sit for a day, take a break from it.

Sorry if I sounded like I butchered it and was repetitive. I started on this earlier in the week when I finished rereading Kare Kano and I was still really hyped up on the energy and love I felt for it. Personally, I call it the perfect shoujo youth high school life manga =) Friendship, Love, Loyalty, High school youth. It shows love comes in all different sizes and different ways. Also, despite it being an older style, it certainly has a lot of modern and beyond contemporary thinking (this may not be as clear until you reach the end of the story).

That's all, until next time,
tohukyo

(Lol said it'll be short...oops.)