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JManga is now offering Kodansha titles


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Brand



Joined: 30 Jan 2006
Posts: 1028
PostPosted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 9:27 am Reply with quote
There is probably huge legal hurdles with Print-on-Demand which is most likely why it isn't a priority for them.
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MrXarnus



Joined: 28 Mar 2011
Posts: 79
PostPosted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 9:54 am Reply with quote
brand wrote:
There is probably huge legal hurdles with Print-on-Demand which is most likely why it isn't a priority for them.

Yes, but they could at least tell me 'We're looking into it.' and not 'No interest'. There are many people who would buy some of these titels if they were in print. (Hope you are reading this, JManga.)
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RAmmsoldat



Joined: 19 Oct 2005
Posts: 1261
Location: North wales coast
PostPosted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 10:00 am Reply with quote
Id rather have a no than an ambiguous maybe answer. Besides that having the digital license wont mean they have the right to print which i can imagine costing them a load more
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LKK



Joined: 31 Oct 2007
Posts: 426
Location: Virginia, USA
PostPosted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 10:46 am Reply with quote
ZepysGirl wrote:
LKK wrote:
ZepysGirl wrote:
Ghost Hunt! Please let this mean we'll finally get the last volume. GHOOOOST HUUUUUNT!

I posted my Ghost Hunt plea to JManga's Facebook page & they said thanks for the suggestion and that they'd look into it. If you have a FB account, why don't you go echo my suggestion and let them know it's not just me who wants GH?


Thanks for letting me know! I just did.

Excellent! Now the campaign to get GH on JManga has officially started. Smile
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MrXarnus



Joined: 28 Mar 2011
Posts: 79
PostPosted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 1:37 pm Reply with quote
RAmmsoldat wrote:
Id rather have a no than an ambiguous maybe answer. Besides that having the digital license wont mean they have the right to print which i can imagine costing them a load more

Then why the hell can't Vertical licence a JManga titel if the don't have the print licence as you say? (it may be another reason why, but it's the first reason that comes to my mind...)
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RAmmsoldat



Joined: 19 Oct 2005
Posts: 1261
Location: North wales coast
PostPosted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 1:53 pm Reply with quote
Well you'd have to ask ed but it could be a number of things. All i know is that owning the rights to distribute something digitally wont always mean you have the print rights also and there are lots of things to take into consideration when putting these books out.

Honestly since hearing things about the industry from Ed I've come to see that the perception from the outside seldom meets the reality from within.

and yeah Im mad too but what can you do?
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Brand



Joined: 30 Jan 2006
Posts: 1028
PostPosted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 2:14 pm Reply with quote
I'm going to assume (which may make me an ass) but the reason Vertical doesn't want to pick up Jmanga titles is there isn't that big of an audience. Many of the titles are very niche or they are titles that have been printed in the U.S. before and have run their course.

While, yes there have been a couple of manga recuses before (Yotsuba&!) been pretty successful, I don't think most publishers will want to take the risk.

Lets say there is a 10 volume series that had 7 volumes that came out before the company publishing them folded. Now, if new company wants to pick it up they have to negotiate the rights (which maybe harder to now because the title wasn't finished the first time and the rights holders are now gun shy about it). They would have to re-translated the volumes that have already come out (I guess it could be possible to re-use the translation but most likely they would still have to pay the original translator for the rights to use it again). Then they have to sell several volumes they know won't sell as well as it could because the title's main audience bought the book the first time. There is the case of diminishing returns where the last volume of a series almost always sells less then the first.
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Genet



Joined: 05 Jun 2009
Posts: 261
Location: USA
PostPosted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 2:48 pm Reply with quote
MrXarnus wrote:
brand wrote:
There is probably huge legal hurdles with Print-on-Demand which is most likely why it isn't a priority for them.

Yes, but they could at least tell me 'We're looking into it.' and not 'No interest'. There are many people who would buy some of these titels if they were in print. (Hope you are reading this, JManga.)


Huh?! They said that? I've seen them say that they're looking into it. But a flat-out "No Interest"? If that's true, then that is a huge huge disappointment.
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MrXarnus



Joined: 28 Mar 2011
Posts: 79
PostPosted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 3:45 pm Reply with quote
Genet wrote:
MrXarnus wrote:
brand wrote:
There is probably huge legal hurdles with Print-on-Demand which is most likely why it isn't a priority for them.

Yes, but they could at least tell me 'We're looking into it.' and not 'No interest'. There are many people who would buy some of these titels if they were in print. (Hope you are reading this, JManga.)


Huh?! They said that? I've seen them say that they're looking into it. But a flat-out "No Interest"? If that's true, then that is a huge huge disappointment.

The first time I sent an e-mail, they said 'looking into it'. The second time they said the same, but it sounded alot more negative. And finally, the third time they said that they had other projects on there hands and any progress would be slow, but that was like 5 months ago, so maybe that chanced already...
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truanifan678



Joined: 08 Jul 2006
Posts: 73
PostPosted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 12:34 am Reply with quote
I can't comment too much on the whole "rights to do this or that with such-and-such title", but I can comment on something I do know about... The actual scans/pages and printing.

I don't know how JManga handles it, but for places like Digital Manga Guild the scans they provide their groups are not exactly print ready in my opinion. When you make/print a manga (or any print) you have a bleed area. A bleed area is extra page content for when the printer binds the book then cuts/sands the edges of the pages to make sure they are all flat and even. That's why in some books the text in word bubbles aren't centered when the bubble is close to the edge of the pages. You need to make sure your content is within that safe zone before the bleed area. A lot of indie manga artists have white borders on their self published works because of the lack of bleed area and the printer's page dimensions.

For Digital Manga Guild, the pages they provide don't have that bleed area. A lot of the are straight scans from previously released books which have already been cropped from the printing process. Some bubbles or content are barely even on the page as they are now. In other words, a lot of the time they pretty much do what scanlators do and their source material is straight from a book and not the original manuscript. The final print/page size is that of the book and the dpi seems to stay around 300 dpi, but it all depends on what groups are given. I've only talked to one person from one group and this is what I was told.

I can't comment on publishers (like, Viz, Vertical, Yen, etc.) who license a title for print. I don't know if they get the full pages or if they also work from book page scans. I'd love to know the answer to that, but I doubt they'd tell me. ^^;;

Also, if a publisher were to get licensing rights to any title that was previously released digitally—as mentioned before—they'd literally be starting from scratch and it would be a whole new deal between the author, the original publisher, and the publisher wanting to release a translated version. I remember reading an article a while back on manga publishing and international publishing. I have it saved to my computer some where. Either way they'd have to re-do the whole thing from scratch. They wouldn't work with what has already been translated and released.

Whew. That's the end of my babbling. Feel free to call me out on something I may have misunderstood. The internet is vast and I'm always worried that I get information wrong. Wink
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Genet



Joined: 05 Jun 2009
Posts: 261
Location: USA
PostPosted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 2:35 am Reply with quote
truanifan678 wrote:
I can't comment on publishers (like, Viz, Vertical, Yen, etc.) who license a title for print. I don't know if they get the full pages or if they also work from book page scans. I'd love to know the answer to that, but I doubt they'd tell me. ^^;;


I think, though I'm not 100% sure, that a lot of companies work from high-res scans of the original books, and I think some are able to obtain manuscripts. I'm sure they'd be okay with at least divulging that much.

I think you're correct on print rights and digital rights though. They're two totally separate things, which is why you have some JManga titles that are available in print through SS (prolly with different translations, etc).

I will keep holding out hope that, even if it's not their biggest priority right now, that JManga may seriously look into working with print-on-demand. It's not even just about being a collector, for me, but I just like to have a physical copy of a work if I really enjoy it.

I'm sure there are people that think "DIGITAL ONLY RELEASES ARE THE FUTURE OF MANGA!111" but I just don't see that being the case. It's not comparable to things like CD's vs MP3's or VHS vs DVD vs TV, it's not the same format at all. While I don't mind a digital release of a work, so maybe I can convienently take it on-the-go or whatever, the whole field is still a big work in progress, but I sincerely, honestly believe that digital releases will never be superior to print releases.

I lol at people who think that the print book will cease to exist, because I believe that, maybe print may be relegated to more of a "luxury" commodity in the future, it will always exist as a market. I just think people will always be willing to pay money for a high-quality, physical release of a book. That may not be true about MP3 vs CD's (I wouldn't pay for a CD now that I have MP3's, but that's 'cause there's little quality difference between the two).

Just my opinion. And I hope that companies interested in digital format will always keep that in mind.
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truanifan678



Joined: 08 Jul 2006
Posts: 73
PostPosted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 2:50 am Reply with quote
I agree. I seriously doubt digital releases will the ultimate future of books, tv, movies, music, so forth, so forth... Every time somebody suggests I read a book and I mention a bookstore or library then they lecture me on how print books are dying I just roll my eyes. I'm sure print will stay around, as mentioned, like a "luxury" type thing or print on demand. I mean, yeah digital releases are "cheaper" and you can take them practically anywhere; but with an actual book you don't run the risk of losing access if the publisher pulls it or goes belly up, they work when the power is out, you can't lose the file, they don't take up hard drive space, you have access to it forever without an expiration date, and they look great on a bookshelf. I like a busy bookshelf. Lots of books.

There are a lot of titles that are JManga exclusive that I would buy in book format at the drop of a hat so I too hope for POD. Most of them are "off the beaten path" and probably have little to no fanbase in the grand scheme of things, but I like them all the same.

I honestly hope someday around the corner somebody works out a POD outside of Hetalia and TP original titles.
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MrXarnus



Joined: 28 Mar 2011
Posts: 79
PostPosted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 3:02 am Reply with quote
Funny how I never have to deal with this in EU markets, seems they HATE digital...
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RAmmsoldat



Joined: 19 Oct 2005
Posts: 1261
Location: North wales coast
PostPosted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 5:39 am Reply with quote
Books have done and continue to stand the test of time, i dont like the digital releases for a few reasons mostly to do with availability but also the fact that they require a piece of kit to use.

I Used to have a huge anime collection and I sold most of it to buy a big manga collection instead because one of the appealing things about manga is that all you need to do to read a print book is open it while with anime you need a dvd player to enjoy it and now they are phasing in blu-ray and the dvds still work but its just a matter of time before all my anime would wind up like all the anime i bought on VHS while I can still enjoy all the manga i bought at the same time i bought those VHS tapes.

Id buy mp3s though i prefer CD's for when my computer chokes and i have to re-obtain all the tracks, I grudgingly buy downloadable games but I've had them swiped back off me due to legal issues (midway folded, bye bye mortal kombat 2) I will not buy digital manga.
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Genet



Joined: 05 Jun 2009
Posts: 261
Location: USA
PostPosted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 11:33 am Reply with quote
truanifan678 wrote:
I agree. I seriously doubt digital releases will the ultimate future of books, tv, movies, music, so forth, so forth... Every time somebody suggests I read a book and I mention a bookstore or library then they lecture me on how print books are dying I just roll my eyes. I'm sure print will stay around, as mentioned, like a "luxury" type thing or print on demand. I mean, yeah digital releases are "cheaper" and you can take them practically anywhere; but with an actual book you don't run the risk of losing access if the publisher pulls it or goes belly up, they work when the power is out, you can't lose the file, they don't take up hard drive space, you have access to it forever without an expiration date, and they look great on a bookshelf. I like a busy bookshelf. Lots of books.

There are a lot of titles that are JManga exclusive that I would buy in book format at the drop of a hat so I too hope for POD. Most of them are "off the beaten path" and probably have little to no fanbase in the grand scheme of things, but I like them all the same.

I honestly hope someday around the corner somebody works out a POD outside of Hetalia and TP original titles.


I completely agree. I absolutely love my "burden" of having a huge collection of physical manga. I buy what I love, and I don't buy what I don't love! It's quite simple ^^ Now, granted, my collection isn't anywhere near critical mass,

Digital distribution serious needs to fix its sh!t if it intends to become the go-to way for people to read. Let me give an example:

I bought an e-book of Chi's Sweet Home from Honto (Japanese retailer that sells books/and now e-books- merged w/ BK1 back in May) and, after paying almost print price (Print version was 900 yen and the ebook version was 750 yen), I saw that the book would expire in a year. Meaning I could no longer download it after a year of having it. I could not download it and back it up on my harddrive, I was literally paying almost-print price for something I not only had to get online to read, but I would no longer be able to read after a certain time.

In short, I was renting it under the guise of buying it.

Which is, in my opinion, unacceptable- unless you're not paying near-print prices for something. Some people may not go back and re-read their manga after they initially read it once, but I've read some of my series in their entirety three or four times since I bought them a couple of years ago.(Like I read all 11 volumes of Drifting classroom four times since I bought it 2 years ago) Nobody's going to come bust into my house and take my books after a year.

Digital books should be like music- you should be able to buy the material, for the price, and download it to back it up. There is literally no excuse for the bs a lot of companies pull.
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