Shonen Jump Alpha and Manga Stream

I’m going to do this again. I’m going to talk anime industry again. And I wanted to challenge myself with some Japanese pop culture instead. But no.

Anyway, Manga Stream (an illegal manga viewing site) just shut down every Viz translation they had up on their site. Which means One Piece, Naruto, and BLEACH, most notably, are now off their site. I know this because, up until now, I had been using their site to read those three manga because I was A. cheap, B. poor, and C. too lazy to get a Shonen Jump Alpha subscription. Well, the first two haven’t really changed, but I can always find enough money for anime or manga in my wallet. And the laziness changed when Viz shut down the Viz manga from Manga Stream.

I’m going to first talk about Manga Stream, then move on to Shonen Jump Alpha, as I have problems with both of them.

First, Manga Stream, when I started reading it back when One Manga was still a thing, was in support of legal translations. They had a banner on their archive page (which went back about four weeks) that said they only had the last four weeks because they encouraged buying the manga. Now what do they have? “Manga Stream translations are spoilers, we don't archive any older chapters.” I have no idea when they changed their “mission statement,” but it’s clear they don’t care about legal translations anymore.

This is the latest volume of Shonen Jump Alpha. Its comments have exploded with people complaining about Manga Stream’s Viz titles being shut down. One comment in particular has both greatly amused and annoyed me.

“What the crap is this? i paid 26 bucks for a 1 year membership only because Vis decided to be turds toward the fan-based scanlation sites, only to find out that the current issue is the one i read 3 weeks ago? and not only is it 3 weeks behind what the fan sites already did, the translations are crap and the site is nowhere near my definition of user friendly.... your company is putting out a shoddy product and (as a paying customer), I'm unhappy.”

Wow. Really? All of this information was clearly defined when they had the press release for Shonen Jump Alpha months ago. So you just said to yourself, “Hey. No more Manga Stream, better buy it then. Jesus…Oh? What the hell is this? This is outrageous! Blaraaaaaaarg.” If I didn’t know anything about Shonen Jump Alpha, I would do a bit of research before dropping 26 bucks on it. Fortunately, I dropped 26 bucks on it having done lots of research.

One comment by username “Vizsucks” simply says, get this, “Viz sucks”. That entertains my greatly. But before I talk about their business model, I’ll complain a little about Viz myself.

A trend in the anime industry in general is their apparently love over Apple products. I am not one of the swooners. I have a Windows PC, a Zune HD, a Samsung Mesmerize, and a 1st Gen iPod Shuffle. Very little Apple stuff in there. Yet Viz is appealing to, granted, their biggest audience by having their mobile apps only on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. I have absolutely no problem with this, but I have also heard no word from Viz that they’re planning on releasing non-Apple app equivalent for us non-Apple users. I do have a problem with that, if it turns out to be true (which I am hard pressed to believe). I would gladly pay a few bucks for it, if they wanted it. Preferably free, but that’s really how all of us are. And I would buy the hell out of manga if I could get it right to my phone.

Of course I see what Viz is trying to do here. Shonen Jump Alpha is a huge step toward stomping out manga piracy, and nothing up until Shonen Jump Alpha had really been done to stop it or slow it down. You can call shutting down One Manga a step in the right direction, but more sites can just pop up.

But until you get to the point where you’re getting the release same week as Japan and your service is just as good or better than the scanlation sites, you’re still running behind. Someone like me that wants to support the industry will buy the subscription, but the run-in-the-mill anime fan wants their stuff for free and they want it now. The best and easiest way to get that is undoubtedly the scanlation sites.