Theme by nostrich.
Logo by vivdesigns.
Keep updated with Manga Therapy by subscribing to my RSS feed! "Like", "Follow", or "+1" me for more lovely conversations about manga & Japanese pop culture!
Text with 5 notes
4Chan Makes Its Impact On Japanese Manga
When I hear things like this, it comes to show you that 4Chan can be SERIOUS BUSINESS. Just recently, Volume 1 of a manga series known as “It’s Not My Fault, I’m Not Popular”, by Nico Tanigawa, had a promotional line on the cover that said ““海外の2ちゃん的な掲示板で大人気!!”. This line can be translated as “An international sensation on the overseas version of 2Chan!”
This title is currently translated by a fan on the /a/ board of 4Chan and has also been approved by the publisher. Apparently, the title is a smash-hit because it relates to the users of 4chan as the main character, Kuroki Tomoko, is very introverted and depressed.
This is an interesting case study for Japanese manga publishers on how the Internet isn’t that scary and completely filled with piracy. If you ask me, they don’t focus enough on the idea of a strong community. Also, 4Chan is not ALL that bad. The thing is that anonymity does provide relief for everyone. If others know literally everything about you, your life will not be sane. That’s why I worry about regular people (that aren’t famous) who decide to join literally every social media site in existence. Is it just me or do those people feel insecure about themselves at times?
Back to the manga, you can read the fan translation here and buy Volume 1 here. I have to say that the Tomoko does make me think about people like her. It’s funny because I was once really shy and nerdy when I started high school. I wanted to be popular with the girls, so I began to watch more shows and read stories that were about dating. Whenever I made friends with a girl, I’ll be like “YES!” in my own head and have crazy thoughts. I have said some crazy things to girls back then (I still do though, but usually to troll). I guess you can say that I was a bit like Tomoko. Does anyone want to share any interesting moments of social anxiety you had back in the day?
I guess we can say, score another one for the Internet!
Image Source: Akiba Blog
Text with 12 notes
Has The Internet Changed The Way You Think About Manga?
Here’s a scenario that I want everyone to imagine with me. Ready?
Think back to a time where computers didn’t exist yet. Think back to when it was very difficult to find information about anything you wanted. Think back to when sharing one’s interests over a huge communication channel was almost impossible without going to a big-name media outlet. Now, hold those thoughts and ask yourself if the Internet has the changed the way you think about manga. Regarding manga, the Internet has truly made it global, but with a price. I sometimes wonder if the Internet is both the creator and destroyer of manga fandom.
Before the Internet became popular, the only way I found out about manga news was through the defunct WIZARD Magazine. I remember the first manga I heard about from WIZARD was Masamune Shirow’s Ghost In The Shell. After reading about the controversy surrounding Ghost in the Shell (i.e. the cybersex scene), the whole idea of manga began to appeal to me. I was watching Chinese dubs of Dragon Ball Z at the time and my interest in Japanese media continued to grow. When I found out Dragon Ball was originally a manga, I browsed text summaries of the original manga series online back in 1999. You don’t know how obsessed I was with looking for information on DBZ at the time. Thankfully, VIZ Media released the Dragon Ball Z manga in America and I bought all the volumes. The same thing also happened when I followed Rurouni Kenshin in the early 2000s’. I was reading text summaries of chapters online, visiting fansites to satisfy my cravings, and later bought all the volumes because of my love for the samurai epic.
Fast forward to the proliferation of scanlations. I decided to follow BLEACH (during college around 2005) after hearing some of my friends watching the anime. I bought the first few volumes from VIZ and was hooked. What happened next was I began using the Internet to find out more information about the characters. I found out about what was currently going on in the BLEACH manga from a fansite at the time, which was Sosuke Aizen being revealed as the main villain. That just piqued my curiosity even more and I wanted to know what happens next. As a result, the world of scanlations entered my life. I was pretty ecstatic to know that I can keep up with what’s happening with BLEACH. I also discovered many other series through scanlations as well. I was still buying manga and didn’t really think about how scanlations affected the manga-publishing industry.
And now here we are with the manga industry in a huge state of flux. What does that tell me? The Internet (the power of the creator) is great for manga since it exposes everyone to a wide variety of series and creates passionate fan communities, but the Internet (the power of the destructor) gives off this illusion to certain people that manga easily grows on a tree and everything’s dandy, when things really aren’t fine.
I don’t know about you, but there is one thing that bugs me about scanlations. Scanlators and aggregator sites often put up a disclaimer message telling everyone to buy and support a manga series if it’s available in their region. But, what if the manga is not available in their region and possibly never will be? What if the reader is an 8-year old? Also, I know a few people who work full-time that read scanlations and are not even interested in buying physical copies of manga. Do scanlators even understand their intended audiences and their consequences as a whole?
The Internet has made me believe that manga will be an online-only interest globally and will stay that way (though it seems like it already is). Outside of Japan, manga is still very niche to a majority of people. Combine that with free scanlations and you have a recipe for “fun interest that appeals mostly to Internet folks”. Though part of me believes the Internet is perfect for manga because most people like to read things online these days and they LOVE images on the Internet.
Another thing was that before the Internet, I thought every manga title out there was godly. Since the increased popularity of the ‘Net, I realized that there’s a lot of “junk” to sort through before you even get to the good stuff. Sometimes, I wonder how certain titles became published in the first place. Such is the harshness of reality.
One question does plague me: should the manga community accept those that read scanlations of a certain series and don’t really buy any form of merchandise related to the series (yet are extremely passionate about it) as members of the community? Would someone care to enlighten me on how those fans should be viewed?
With these inner thoughts in mind, I continue to research the crazy world of manga online and offline (I still buy volumes of manga) as many series have worked their charm upon my visage. Oh Internet, you’re as tempting as a bishojo girl nagging her “big brother” to spend time with her and leaving him with a colorful array of conflicted feelings.
