It is War you Manga Pirates!

I caught this on Sankaku Complex the other day. Shonen Jump is taking the offensive on those that translate and upload their newly released manga for others to read.

Here is an excerpt from the message they sent out:

"To our readers,

The Internet is now overflowing with illegal copies of manga. All of these illegal copies run counter to the wishes of mangaka. They also ignore the wishes of the creator as to how the manga should be read.

It may be done without much thought, but in reality it hurts the mangaka who pour their creative talents into these works, and it is also against the law.

When we discover such illegal copies, we discuss possible measures with the mangaka concerned and try to tackle the problem, but there are so many heartless people around that it is just impossible for us to tackle them all."

I can understand their perspective on this as it is taking possible revenue out of their pockets. If someone took something I wrote and translated into Japanese, I would be a bit miffed.

This has been as much of a heated debate as those that upload new Anime from Japan. If everything that was published in Japan was also published elsewhere, then this would be a non-issue.

However, there are some things that we find we love to read, but know for a fact that they will never make it over here for us to read. It is not possible to publish every issue in the multitude of languages so that everyone can read it. Explain to me what you want us to do in the rest of the world?

Here is a personal example. I have not been able to locate a copy of the Shonen Jump (VIZ Media) release of Kurohime 15 here in the US. It was supposedly released on 2010Jan05, but I have never found it.

No one has it here in the US and even eBay is vacant of the book. I have all the previous 14 volumes and really want to read this volume. Am I suppose to wait until the end of days to read the last volume? Should I jump on the internet to see if there is a Scanlation for me to read. It has been over 3 months which I think is a fair wait on some news on this.

The other thing that gets my goat as well is the US Distribution time frames. Why am I waiting MONTHS between volumes. I can see maybe 1 - 2 months between volumes, but 3 to 4 (or even more) is a bit much. If you want to keep my interest, then keep popping them out a little more frequently dammit!

For those interested, here is a list of the Manga that I am currently PURCHASING:

20th Century Boys, Cats Paradise, D.Gray-Man, Dance in the Vampire Bund, Dogs: Bullets and Carnage, Fairy Tail, Gurren Lagann, Kuronhime, Ninja Girls, Rosario + Vampire, Soul Eater, Nightschool - The Weirn Books, Raiders, Hero Tales, Sayonara; Zetsubou-Sensei, Yokai Doctor, Waqwaq, The Dark Hunters, Tegami Bachi and King of Debris.

I have never listed all these before - what a damn big list I have. Now these are what I have on my shelf currently and is always growing. I have a really wide range of tastes and do share these with my wife and son as well.

What are you thoughts on all this?

Source: Sankaku Complex