#manga licensing

[nightmongoose]

Ages ago (when I was reading one) I was thinking about how funny it was that there were two manga licensed in English with very similar titles. Like, confusingly so. But apparently now there's a third one??

So anyway I think English manga publishers should continue this trend by licensing every manga called some variation of "(The) Mermaid Prince".

[thenostalgiadepartment]

With several licensing announcements tomorrow, I decided to make my 2025 manga license wish list. While some of these are very long shots, I hope some of these titles get picked up (someday).

I removed manga that are "technically" available in English that were on last years list. I still really dislike a lot of apps that are "pay by chapter". Please let me buy my volumes outright. 😔 Or even better published them in print. Looking at you Baby Steps and Hajime No Ippo.

[jellypede-senpai]

Manga Licensing Rant

so today i saw that manga i used to read a while ago (What Did You Eat Yesterday) got licensed (yes i saw this way too late)

I started thinking what a manga licensing could possibly do to a series. So, What Did You Eat Yesterday is not a popular manga, I think. 

It’s a slice of life shounen ai, that is basically two men in their begin forties, living together, because they got in a relationship “late”. They happily coexist, because they are both not in favor of the idea to find “the one” or something like that. The manga focuses on anecdotes, little stories, little things about their personalities, and of course, about what they eat, and what they cook. It’s mainly about the food dish of the chapter though.

Not everyone’s cup of tea, right?

It’s very ordinary, the writing and art style is not anything special, really, and the content is just nice to sit back and relax. It doesn’t emphasize that much on Kenji and Shiro’s relationship (romantic or sexual), doesn’t emphasize on Shiro’s slightly problematic family, it’s not dramatic, it just tells little stories, and anecdotes, and meals. It’s mood is like a peaceful feel good movie, and it doesn’t really cater to any kind of audience, really. So why translate it, license it, and start selling it?

Of course, you might think that it’s about profits, or making a series more popular, and the permission from the Japanese publishers etc etc all that jazz. But potentially, it really can ruin the series’s popularity.

How? Well that’s a very simple answer.

If you take a popular manga that just got an anime, and then you license it, you will have people buying it. It’s guaranteed. If you take a manga that is semi popular, and got an anime, and you license it, the chance is less likely for people to buy it. And if you take a manga, that doesn’t even have an anime, and isn’t even that popular, the chance of people buying it is even less.

Why?

Because buying things costs money.

If you want to sell something, then think about who wants to buy it. Do you want to sell milk? Well, lactose intolerant people won’t buy it, or vegetarian people, vegan people, as in, basically anyone who doesn’t have milk in their diet, but other people probably will. Why? Because milk is something very trivial and essential. 

Now, if you have something that is not essential to you life, (as in entertainment) if you have a way of experiencing it without spending the money, then you aren’t really obligated to buy it, are you? You aren’t, at all, you’re free to make the choice of buying it or not, and the decision lies in how much you feel like you need the thing.

So if you have more people knowing a manga, there’s more of a chance for people to decide on buying it. But if you have a manga that people are less likely to buy, then why want to earn profits from it if they are going to be low?

And this is where the part comes, where I complain about my twenty first century manga reading problems. So because this is a manga that I used to read just for entertainment, not really for a deep story, this is something that I won’t be buying for myself, I’m pretty sure. And because it’s licensed, it won’t be updated anymore, AKA, I won’t be reading it anymore, thus the whole series loses it’s popularity, and it’s potential to get even more popular. 

TL;DR: When a less popular manga gets licensed, it’s not guaranteed that people will buy it, the profits of the publisher will be low, the audience will lose interest, because it costs money, thus the series will gradually lose it’s popularity and it’s potential to get more popular, and people like myself are pissed off because of that

[kuroneko003]

Reading Scanlations Does not Lead to Manga Licensing

I’m about to say some things most of you don’t expect me to say considering my activities with Crimson Flower. But I feel the need to express my opinion on the matter of scanlations and licensing to give readers a different perspective on what manga scanlation can and cannot do.

First and foremost, mangaka, the Japanese publishers, and the non-Japanese manga publishers are businesses, and…

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