Forum - View topicNEWS: Manga Reading Site JManga to End Service in May
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ZeetherKID77
 Posts: 981 |
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I want to know what will become of all the titles they had and if there ever will be another digital manga site that can host those. This is EXTREMELY upsetting especially for people who wanted to continue reading discontinued Del Rey series like School Rumble, which has now been canceled a SECOND time.
Is this because of their DRM on the manga? I know DRM has become an issue now because of stuff like SimCity and Ubisoft's Uplay service, and the fact that they're just flat out deleting their manga instead of letting people download it for posterity's sake is probably a sign they used DRM. |
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Catseyetiger
Posts: 779 |
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I could see the site shutting its doors from the get go. Despite low costs. Seeing as one could NOT own anything from the site you lose whatever money you have already spent on this site.
I am very happy I did not waste one Dollar on this site. I am unhappy that the site will never add those I really wanted Princess Resurrection! as well as some others! sad to see this site go. |
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ZeetherKID77
Posts: 981 |
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What I want to see launched is a service like J-Comi (which supposedly has an English version in development, whenever the hell that happens) where you can download DRM-free PDF files of the manga. This serverside DRM is probably EXACTLY what killed them. That and their online reader was buggy and didn't save zoom levels right, which ironically they promised a fix for before saying "WELP, we're shutting down now, bye!"
I feel extremely bad for the people who backed this service and helped out, especially the translators. There needs to be an alternative to this and I would gladly contribute to a Kickstarter or something to help launch it. |
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marcos torres toledo
Posts: 269 |
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This is the problem if the company goes out of business you lose your digital library no matter if it's books,comics,manga or magazines. A then there is the problem of changes of technology a planed obsolescence and you can't read what you own because a the new e-reader incompatibility with the old one. You don't have that problem with good old printed real material in your hands books,comics,manga and magazines they are real thing.
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Keichitsu0305
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If had to guess, all of the titles go back to their respective publishing companies. I wonder if the Japanese side would try doing something like this again if a newer service that offered downloads available for most systems (Mac, PC, e-books, etc) and had a more user-friendly currency plan. I tried Jmanga (expecting my refund soon) and I liked quite a few tiles (Crime & Punishment, Your & My Secret, etc.). Stinks that these titles might never be released in the West again, digitally or otherwise. :/ Wonder if it was just lack of subscribers or the rate people were paying wasn't enough to make back the price tag for the titles? |
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ZeetherKID77
Posts: 981 |
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What REALLY upsets me is that Lucifer & The Biscuit Hammer was on there, a series NOBODY bothered to pick up in print because they didn't realize how potentially great it could be (thanks a lot Dark Horse). Now I'll NEVER see that series continued legally, and I hate the scanlations with every cell in my body because some idiot decided it would be fun to stick stupid blurbs about stuff in the margins about "lol this looks like gurren lagann".
I HOPE all the series they had get picked up digitally elsewhere on a new and better site. I'm not being a Debbie Downer about this and going "oh they'll never be released digitally again" because there IS A WAY to get these series. If Japan is planning on doing things themselves with manga as well like that Daisuki thing, then I want to see DRM-free manga you can get as PDFs and read anywhere, any time. Pricing should not be a problem because unlike anime (*coughAniplexcough*) manga in Japan costs peanuts compared to the prices we have to pay here because people buy manga magazines, read them on the train then toss them in the trash. J-Comi sounds like it should be the right way to do it, but we STILL have no proper English version outside of the Facebook app that uses machine translations. |
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darkchibi07
 Posts: 5466 |
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THIS!!! JManga is probably the best place for checking out yuri manga titles, and it seemed to be cultivating a solid niche after all these years. Argh, man I hope some other company is willing to give that genre a chance (Seven Seas seems viable). |
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ZeetherKID77
Posts: 981 |
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JManga was probably also the ONLY chance we had of seeing Hayate X Blade continuing here because of the stupid publisher change in Japan. I'm still sore about that and the fact that now we may NEVER have a chance to see it again even digitally is devastating. Seven Seas might get some yuri stuff now but they seem to not care for it much at all. |
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Polycell
 Posts: 4623 |
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Well, I guess we can always hope somebody rescues the licenses, even if it's still just digital distribution. |
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dm
 Subscriber Posts: 1358 |
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I went into my JManga subscription knowing full well the risks of DRM. For me, manga is moderately disposable --- read once and wonder what to do with the books --- so JManga's "it's really a rental library" model was okay for me, especially since everything was always on sale.
I agree with all those who mourn the discontinuance of a lot of revived Del Rey titles. It's nice that they're giving us a couple of months warning before completely pulling the plug --- it gives us time to read those volumes we hadn't finished yet. |
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Peebs
Posts: 419 |
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There's that, but it's also the fact that Apple does not and will not sell pr0n which is what SuBLime is selling. So they decided to go with DRM-free PDFs with your name on the pages. That way they can trace back to whomever is uploading their purchases online. So far so good. *knocks on wood* I want to know what happened, though. They're not saying how the refund is being computed. Are they saying that a point is worth a dollar? It better because that's what my subscription was paying which probably (it better) means that I'll get an Amazon gift card for about $160. I wish they hadn't gone under. Their online reader was horrendous and the typesetting equally so. They had no iOS app and the only Android gadget I have is my phone so that was out for manga reading. There was promise if only they had done more and managed things better. |
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asimpson2006
 Posts: 3151 Location: USA |
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I pretty much accepted what JManga subscription was, it was at least an attempt to deal with scan aggressor sites. I too am upset with Del Rey titles since Kodansha won't at least put out a few of the titles to finish the volumes out. If it wasn't for the fact that are release some titles I am interested in, I would have completely turned my back on them and not buy their products. I don't like looking at my incompletely sets of School Rumble and Suzuka because Kodansha won't release the last three volumes of said titles. I would be fine if the resorted to some print on demand for those few titles that never got finished from Del Rey. I'm sad to see them go as I really REALLY wanted them to work out. I guess enough people just couldn't support it to work. That being said I did enjoy their reader and what few titles I was able to enjoy. |
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Polycell
Posts: 4623 |
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fuzzytipsy
Posts: 16 |
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To me, this really sounds like there must have been some sudden legal problem, or a backing company in Japan pulled out suddenly. This doesn't feel like it is happening because of the site not being profitable, since there would probably be more notice then, and an appeal to consumers for support.
In terms of the discussion about being able to download manga, I do agree that Sublime seems to have one of the best solutions. You can download your purchases as pdf's, or read them on their website. Viz also does pretty well, since you can read your non-mature titles offline through their app. |
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truanifan678
 Posts: 73 |
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Sad to say, but this is exactly why I don't buy digital media. Even if you "download to own" a PDF or ebook, if the service goes bellyup or they pull the content and your hard drive crashes where does that leave you? With a print book at least you'll always have it unless if there's some thing like a flood or a fire, but how often does a person's hard drive fail and how often do they have a disastrous accident where they lose all their books? Like the argument of plane crashes and getting struck by lightening. I realize there are a few people who do have such misfortune and I don't mean to make light of them, but for the sake of an example I brought it up.
Honestly, I'd love to see a service where you can read digitally, like JManga was or other services like Viz or Digital Manga Guild, and if you want to purchase a physical copy they have a print on demand service. That way those who want to read digital only can read their digital books and those who alternatively want to buy a book can. Another plus would be physical book stock will never run out or readers having to struggle with out of print hunting. Of course the comic (not just manga) industry isn't suited for that (right now?). I still would love it if people toyed with the idea. To end my post with; it's really sad to see JManga go. It was a strong stab from Japanese publishers to hit the English reading market without taking too large a risk (like publishing a ton of books and then not turning enough of a profit). I feel sorry for all the subscribers who can't read the titles they got and are compensated with gift cards. It's really a shame for both sides. |
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