there it is, plain as daylight.

So, I started out over at mangablog, which linked to this article at Rocket Bomber, and now I’m sitting here with Too Many Thoughts. Like always. Most of them can be boiled down to “I agree with Matt Blind,” but there are a couple of points that resonated with me in particular, and made me wish to expound. You should read the Rocket Bomber post first.

1. Regarding frequency of volume release/scanlations: First of all, I echo Matt Blind’s hatred of reading manga online. I want books. I want to sit on my couch, or on the plane, or on my deck on a lovely summer day, and read books of manga. I’ll read scanlations for series I don’t like enough to buy, or to try out new series, but if I genuinely like something I will buy the books. There is one other instance in which I will read scanlations, however, and that is when volumes of a series come out so slowly in English that I seriously just can’t wait. This is something I do with xxxHolic, and I’m even considering it with Fullmetal Alchemist, because being three volumes behind with months to wait for the next one is really starting to get to me. I don’t like it, though, and while I’ll definitely still buy xxxHolic and FMA when they are released (and savor each volume like a fine wine), there is always the danger for lesser-loved series that the scanlations won’t be good enough to keep me hooked, because they are sometimes really, completely incoherent, and the reading experience overall is vastly inferior. Sometimes, I will just forget a series if I have to wait too long. I bought the first two volumes of Alive: The Final Evolution, but by the time the third one came out, I’d forgotten to look out for it. The same thing has happened with Tactics, and even Mushishi, though I love that much more than the other two. I’m two volumes behind on each of those series (three on Alive, I think), and I didn’t even really notice, because the waits were so long. If I didn’t love xxxHolic so much, I don’t know how I’d remember by next March when volume 13 comes out, almost a year after volume 12. I can’t imagine that less devoted fans will make it, especially since even the scanlations of xxxHolic, which are the only thing besides fanfiction and doujinshi that fans have to cling to right now, are very slow to appear. Now, I appreciate the care put into the Del Ray editions of xxxHolic. I really, really do, and have made much noise about that appreciation. But man they make us wait. Makes me want to start reading Naruto.

2. Regarding DVDs of anime: Way back in my Anime Boston round-up, I mentioned an eye-rolling moment I had at Funimation’s xxxHolic premier, where the Funimation guy was blaming the woes of American anime studios on illegal fansubs. Considering that they were premiering the first four episodes of a series that originally aired in Japan in 2005 (and retails here for $30), I thought the logic was just a liiittle bit off. Matt Blind notes the difference in impact here between scanlations and fansubs, and he is definitely right, but I’ll take a stab at why. I would guess that a decent majority of serious anime fans, the ones who would shell out loads of cash for their addiction, don’t actually watch dubbed anime. I know I don’t. And yes, I know some people do, but not enough to make the difference here. Fansubs are fast and usually better translated (or at least more coherently translated, misspellings aside) than manga scanlations, and they give most fans what they actually want. Still, I’m not willing to blame them for the woes of anime studios, because seriously, if I have to wait three years for the first four episodes of a series to be released in English, I’m not dying to pay $30 for it unless it comes with free beer. Lots and lots of free beer. I’ll buy it. Eventually. Probably. If I’m still into it by the time they release it in a slightly more affordable box set. But otherwise it is too long and too much for way too little. Manga is reasonably priced. Anime is not. That is just a fact. And then the one company who seems to get the whole “we don’t need dubs” thing, Bandai Visual, is releasing series three episodes at a time, for $50. FIFTY DOLLARS. It’s nice that the episodes might be coming out faster, but they’ve made them really difficult for most people to buy. I’d really, really like to buy them, but if I want to continue to pay my mortgage and put gas it my car so I can get to work (which I do), I will have to pass on Sola and True Tears, as much as that pains me.

I’ve said before that I think what the anime studios really should do to compete with fansubs is to develop an online distribution model that would allow them to get subbed episodes to fans in a timely (and affordable) manner. I know I’d pay a reasonable price to download better quality video (with better quality subs) if they were available even a month after they aired in Japan. The quicker the better, but if they were coming out regularly, I wouldn’t even notice the delay after the initial month’s wait, and I’d love some kind of model where I could download a series legally, maybe even with some kind of subscription plan. I realize that there are always licensing issues, etc., with aired programs, but I really think it could end up being worth the hassle of figuring that out for the companies that otherwise are spending their time complaining about fansubbers ruining their business. Provide a good product, at a price normal people can afford to pay, and you’ll get the business. Timeliness does count. Right now, fans are the ones providing what other fans want. I know it must be irritating that the internet makes us all so aware of what’s available (and what’s not), and I know it didn’t used to be like that, but it is now, and that’s not going to change, so the industry really needs to adjust.

(Edited to add) Let’s take xxxHolic as an example again. At the AB xxxHolic premiere, someone asked the Funimation guy if they would be licensing the second season of xxxHolic (xxxHolic: Kei), which was about to start airing in Japan. I can speak for fans of the series, here, and say that we were psyched. He seemed a bit taken aback by the question (as if maybe he didn’t even know about the second season), and fumbled a bit, finally saying that certainly they would like to, but he didn’t know. It is July now, four months later, and xxxHolic: Kei has been over in Japan for a few weeks already. It’s done. The end. Meanwhile, I know that Funimation hasn’t even really begun thinking about trying to license it, and anyway, they are only a fraction of the way into releasing the original season, (which, incidentally, takes us roughly through volume 6 of the manga, which is only the halfway point in what’s already been released here by Del Ray). I was really excited about xxxHolic: Kei, because it starts getting into my favorite bits of the manga, and I’d be thrilled to be able to buy the anime here in nice, clean widescreen editions with carefully translated subtitles. Will I still care in three years? Hard to say. Though, as Matt Blind pointed out (yes, I keep using his full name because I don’t know him, and feel funny saying just “Matt”), the fansubs of xxxHolic: Kei are at least helping to keep me interested in the manga during my long wait until next March. Heh.

3. “Volume 5″: I loved this item in Matt Blind’s post, because it’s something I’ve been thinking for a long time, though my thoughts along those lines have been more directed towards OEL manga. I have been wondering if part of the problem with growing the audience for OEL manga is that, because the publishers are so skittish about taking risks on anything intended to run more than three volumes, they’ve actually been shooting themselves in the foot by discouraging the kind of epic stories that are the reason half of us love manga in the first place. I’d been thinking about this a lot, and then thinking about it more, ever since Jason Thompson’s post about the dearth of shonen OEL manga. I realize that OEL manga is young, and not as well-respected as most of us would like, and nobody wants to lose money, but I also have to admit that I’m much more interested in reading a rich, epic series than I am a quirky little set of stand-alone books, even when they are as charming as something like Svetlana Chmakova’s Dramacon (which is, yes, intensely charming). I mean, yeah, I’ll buy something like Dramacon, but not with the same frequency or the same urgency as I’ll buy xxxHolic, or Fullmetal Alchemist, or Banana Fish. The charming little stand-alone books will end up on the bottom of the list, no matter what.

I’ve rambled a lot here, and I’m not sure I’ve made any really strong points, but that’s what happens when I have Too Many Thoughts.

Your turn?

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