Japanese publishers' idea of fighting against manga piracy: kill all legal options and launch their own website that is only available in USA (kmanga).

Gee, I wonder why that didn't work!

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 37 points 3 months ago (2 children)

For real, I'd pay for anime, manga, hentai, manhwan, western comics, etc. if there was just one site or a group of sites that:

required just one account and/or one subscription for all of them
was available worldwide with no restrictions
was fast
let me pay in any currency
translated everything in different languages

Fuck yeah I'd pay for that. Sign me the fuck up for that awesome legal option.

Instead we have whatever the fuck is going on right now. Fan-subs and fan-translations are mandatory because their shit isn't translated either ever or not in time. I want to give you my money for what I want and so that you make more awesome shit, but you fucking won't let me.

The ships have to sail 🤷

Anti Commercial-AI license

[–] spacesatan@lemm.ee 33 points 3 months ago

Crucially: let me have the damn files.

Why would I pay to use your awful webreader or streaming client when reader apps with good UI and quality video players exist.

[–] yuuunikki@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 months ago

I'm not paying for shit lol

[–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You forgot to mention the absolutely idiotic way kmanga works.

[–] sanpo@sopuli.xyz 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'd mention that if they allowed me to even access the front page from my country. :)

[–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

They had some sort of point-based scheme, nuf said. It was so monumentally stupid I can't even describe it without getting upset.

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago

They do it to get you to buy points because they seem incapable of understanding any monetization strategy besides paying-per-chapter

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago

Also have a crappy pricing scheme that people have been pushing against for years, while Shonen Jump rakes in money by having their app and monetization not suck

[–] Sabata11792@ani.social 27 points 3 months ago

I'm not convinced any legal anime site can actually offer anything better than what I can get for free. Service issue.

[–] sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz 24 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Sorry Japan, manga piracy/scanlations until I die. There are so many niche authors/manga that never get officially translated to any other language because your industry thinks everyone just wants to read shounen and only the top 1% of shoujo/seinen/josei. Don't even get me started on BL/GL.

Meanwhile some fucking random scanlation team does a better job of translating and making a chapter of Rose of Versailles more accessible to modern audiences than the entire Japanese manga publishing apparatus ever will.

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Personally, I have a subscription to Shonen Jump's app and love it, while kmanga insists on trying to get you to buy individual chapters, which I refuse to do.

Piracy is a service problem

[–] sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz 4 points 3 months ago

Shounen Jump is a great example. It works, it's readers find value in it enough to pay for subscriptions, and it clearly has some sort of profitability. A great model of what other manga magazines could do, but they refuse because most of them are run by dinosaurs and would rather cry "piracy is ruining our profits wah" when they DON'T EVEN HAVE A PRODUCT in the market to profit from!

[–] yuuunikki@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 months ago

SAME

[–] terribleplan@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 3 months ago

"losses"

[–] M500@lemmy.ml 15 points 3 months ago

I tried to read the attack on titan manga years ago. I bought a manga at Barnes and noble and thought it was a decent price. But then I read the entire book in like 20 minutes and thought to myself that I way over spent on the book.

I regretted that purchase. Maybe it’s worth while if you want to look at the art for a long time, but I just wanted the story.

[–] Kissaki@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 3 months ago

… new pirate sites appeared. Cost to the industry: $800m per month.

oh, because they're hosting those illegal sites? /s