Forum - View topicNEWS: Kodansha to Launch New 'K Manga' Platform in U.S.
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wilson_x1999
 Posts: 183 Location: Monterrey, Mexico |
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And they just keep messing up the market for the fans.
As someone outside the US, if Kodansha doesn't want me to read their products, fine, there's plenty other companies that make their products available worldwide, and who will take my money just fine. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2640 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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It should be pointed out that The OASG put out an interview with Kodansha regarding K Manga today, and it does clarify a couple of extra details, namely that there are plans to eventually expand out beyond the US at some point, and that Kodansha will indeed offer older catalog titles from the 90s & 00s, i.e. stuff that TokyoPop had originally released in English during the first manga boom.
A full list of the 400 manga should go live with the next press release too, apparently. |
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PipimiOden
 Posts: 196 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
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USA Only? I'm from the US but eh, this means i probably won't be able to use it if I travel outside the US so I'll pass and just get the compiled volumes.
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ZeetherKID77
 Posts: 982 |
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Yeah, but they'll probably keep the same awful TP translations. Initial D and GTO still have theirs and that still frustrates me because the former has those awful name changes. |
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Peebs
Posts: 423 |
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Kodansha already had their own app which they abandoned and I had to fight tooth and nail to get access to the Fairy Tail volumes, amongst other titles, that I paid for. They put them up on Comixology and I was finally able to get to them. This smells like the same BS from back then but more restricted.
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dragonquiz
Posts: 67 |
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This, I really hate how Viz does this like couldn't they do a reddit (unless they got an exception, which is weird cause you can just access 18+ on safari anyway so it kinda defeats the purpose) where you need to have an account and turn on 18+ mode on both the website account settings and within the reddit submenu settings in the ios settings app If k manga (good name btw), does infact go the reddit way then hopefully viz will see their competitor do it and decide to go along that route. it really doesn't hurt their bottom line and actually increases mobile usage
not sure if the viz app is also tablet friendly, but if k manga isn't then we can provide feedback for the dev team to make one up hopefully its just a base sub model, no need for coins/xp/up points like what square enix's manga up unlike manga up, if its a sub model like viz the first three and latest three chapters are free probably for the initial run its the first couple chapters/volumes then will fill in the blanks later bookwalker's model is just an ebook reader approach so its always the full volumes, except some yen press simulub chapters |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2640 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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That's simply a case where no company in their right mind would ever bother to re-translate manga of these lengths from scratch when there's already an existing translation that they already have the rights to. It was either re-use those translations or don't bother ever re-releasing them at all, because there's no way they'd make their money back otherwise. Look, I know that everyone just wants to crap on TokyoPop (& for good reason, of course), but not every translation from them was actually crap, and I'd rather that those titles be made available again legally in some way than to never be given a second chance at all, & Kodansha is where a large portion of TP's licenses came from during that period. |
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TsukasaElkKite
 Posts: 4000 |
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How long will this one last before it goes under?
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Thundercracker
 Posts: 47 |
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Kodansha: "We don't care about people worldwide, so please keep pirating our stuff".
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7580 Location: Wales |
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What it actually says is “We do not have any concrete plans at this time. However, we hope to eventually expand our services to more countries.”
I’m not going to bother hoping that they bring back Ghost Hunt and actually finish the last volume. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2640 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Fair enough on the first part, wording was a bit off on my end, though the overall intention is the same, i.e. "They don't exactly intend for it to be US-only forever". As for finishing up older catalog titles, we can only hope that Kodansha will maybe judge things based on performance. So if, say, GetBackers was to be part of K Manga & it got enough new interest, then maybe Kodansha will put a team on it to finally translate those remaining volumes, ala Initial D. Ghost Hunt, though, they might as well just finish up for K Manga, if it's only one volume left. Also, I honestly forgot all about the Del Rey Manga-only releases that happened between TokyoPop & Kodansha USA. |
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LegitPancake
 Posts: 1308 Location: Texas, USA |
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I think you misunderstand the person you were quoting. It’s much better to have mature rated manga available on website (included in subscription), than to not let them be available at all, which is what Kodansha is doing. And do you even have an example of a service that does such a verification as you suggest? If you’re just making that up then there’s no point discussing it. Tumblr recently spoke out that the Reddit and Twitter apps have special privileges on the App Store and Google Play store to host mature content. Basically no other apps can get that privilege, even something as big as Tumblr. |
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kpossibles
 Posts: 146 Location: USA |
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Kodansha has a stronger hold nowadays than what J-Manga offered. I think it will do ok, but making it US-only vs worldwide or even North American (to include Canada) is going to give it a very negative start. |
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Dernu
 Posts: 8 |
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I agree, it's a shame that European countries are deprived of it. What for in the end? Good question 
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James_xeno
 Posts: 49 Location: Here |
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While it's a great and smart move to cutout the middle man, particularly today's ones in big western media, I can't say i'm happy about the other aspects though. Making it an app is stupid as hell. I wouldn't want to read manga like that even if I had a mobile device (which I don't or want) in the first place. And it doesn't look like they are going to allow a service subscription model, which makes things even more troublesome and complicated as an app. (not going to be easy to spoof or emulate in a fully functional way) Also locking it into app form still subjects it to 3rd party whims. Apps are especially vulnerable.
It would still be nice to be able to buy physical copies or at least media versions of stuff but.. until the current insanity ends.. with digital/streaming we are stuck. EDIT:
Wait what? I must have missed this. So they are abandoning all non-PG13 content? Well never mind then. This is like literally the worst of both worlds! Crash and burn! I look forward to doing a lot more sailing since they and others like them, seem so disinterested in actually selling me things.
This part however does excite me greatly. With storage as cheap as it is, this kind of thing should be the standard. The main thing holding it back is licensing, which first party publishing takes care of nicely. |
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