ALC Publishing and JManga Announce POOR POOR LIPS Partnership!

January 20th, 2012

Okashi Nako is a young woman living in poverty. When she applies to work at a Gem store, she learns that store owner, Otsuka Ren, is a lesbian. Ren promises that Nako’s not her type, but she may be lying…. Nako takes the job and so begins a comedic tale of rich and poor, sickness and health, for better and for worse!

ALC Publishing and JManga are proud to announce a partnership to bring you Goto Hayako’s Yuri love comedy, POOR POOR LIPS!

From JManga, the world’s first official Japanese manga portal website, directly from the 39 prominent publishers that make up the Digital Comic Association, and from ALC Publishing, a pioneer in Yuri Manga comes a partnership that brings you some of the best in Yuri digital manga straight from Japan! With the honest representation of lesbian life you’ve come to expect from ALC and the convenience of digital manga, Poor Poor Lips is sure to please Yuri fans.

(Cover Image: Poor Poor Lips Volume 1 (c)HAYAKO GOTO/Takeshobo Co., Ltd.)

24 Responses

  1. JIN says:

    I like Nako and Ren story, but (if) it ends the typical, overdone class or wealth arranged marriage of a Lesbian story where fate must accepted as it cannot be helped = Yuri misery and tragedy, etc, etc. Whether comedy or drama I am losing tolerance with underlying, implicit sociocultural message presented in Yuri. For a comedy to be given happy ending cost nothing for creator but please fans to return to their work. As with Sasamekikoto I have urge to dismiss them after this. Perhaps I am oversensitive, yes, but unless editor staff causes pressure to creators I cannot know of, in these times there is no reason and so inexcusable. But you may see more than I am aware of in this ?

  2. Mara says:

    Yay! What wonderful news. Will we be seeing a kindle or hard-copy release as well? Sadly I cannot access JManga from my country.

  3. @Mara – I know that, and I’m pushing for ending the region-blocking. JManga is the rights holder, so right now, the only release is through them.

  4. BruceMcF says:

    Damn, now I have to actually bite the bullet and subscribe to JManga. I guess I can cancel my Netflix disk subscription.

  5. Sean says:

    So will it only be available on JManga? No physical copies?

  6. @Sean – Yes, this is a digital release only through JManga

  7. Cryssoberyl says:

    Congratulations on this partnership. I hope it’ll open the door for many more such endeavors.

  8. Mary says:

    Unfortunately JManga is currently only open for users in United States of America and Canada

    Unfortunately indeed. Sometimes, this industry feels as if it’s still 1999.

    Thanks for pushing to change that, at least. :)

  9. CTB says:

    It would be great if someone there could think about some other counties as well! For People from outside of US the situation didnt changed at all ! First we didn’t Had a chance to read it legally because it was in japanese only …. and now when its finnaly in english … we still cant read it ! While Im glad that finally there are some novements in widening accesibility of more Japanese works to non japanese readers Im sad that people from outside of the US arent considered as worthly clients by the JManga. We also have money You know !

  10. @CTB – The decision was not by JManga. For many reasons, Japanese rights holders are reluctant to address content access on a global scale.

    I have, as I said, expressed strong sentiment to JManga about this. There’s two problems that not making this available to anyone creates – first and foremost, it limits the size of the market, which is just stupid.

    Secondly, it gives people a reason to continue scanlating a series, which means people who say they would buy it legitimately, but actually won’t still have an illegal option available, which is also stupid. IF I were the rights holder, you can be sure I’d be pushing to get this book out to everyone everywhere. But, alas, I am not.

  11. Anonymous says:

    Fuck. Fuck this. Fuck everything. Fuck JManga for interrupting quality scanlations so they can produce shitty, inferior digital scans. Fuck ALC for ruining Yuri with their abhorrent bullshit. Fuck the scanlator mentality that caused KawaiiScans to drop this just because some retards thought it would be a good idea to license it, despite it probably ending up dropped after the first volume anyways.

    Fuck Erica for existing.

    >comment moderation

    WELL I HOPE YOU ENJOYED READING THIS, ERICA, BECAUSE YOU’RE DEFINITELY NOT GOING TO ALLOW THIS KIND OF FRANK REACTION ON YOUR SHITBLOG.

  12. @Anonymous – Frank does not worry me. Obscenities do not hurt me, or my readers. Congrats on being a stereotype.

  13. GregC says:

    This is why we can’t have nice things.

  14. @GregC – Why? Because there are 1000 people like that for every 10 responsible humans in the audience? If that’s what you mean, then…yes.

    I wonder why Anon thought I wouldn’t post that, though. I always post negative comments, with a few exceptions.

  15. Anonymous says:

    No physical copies? This is the type of thing I’d like to own in paper!

  16. Anonymous says:

    “@GregC – Why? Because there are 1000 people like that for every 10 responsible humans in the audience? If that’s what you mean, then…yes.”

    Are they even in the same audience?

  17. @Anonymous – Yes, they are the same audience, but only the 10 are the *market*for that item. It does nothing to say you love a thing if that love does not extend to being willing to spend money on it.

    Saying you “love Yuri” but you only download scans means you do not love Yuri, you love Yuri you can get for free, and fuck the people who create and publish it, as raving Anon so succinctly pointed out.

  18. Anonymous says:

    “@Anonymous – Yes, they are the same audience, but only the 10 are the *market*for that item. “

    Oh, OK. I thought the “interrupting quality scanlations so they can produce shitty, inferior digital scans” whine was a demand for as-literal-as-possible translations with half the words left in Romaji and Japanese honorifics left on (even if the setting’s not Japanese and Japanese readers suspended disbelief when they saw Japanese in the manga because the characters are 1800s English or 900s Viking).

    That attracts some audiences and repels some other audiences.

    It’s the same way good translations edited to be in literate English instead of shaky “Engrish” repel the audiences who want as-literal-as-possible translations and attract some other audiences.

    BTW,

    “The story is ongoing, and I think your fears are unfounded.”

    made me think “so the little kid on the cover is their daughter some years after they settle down together?”

    Then I followed your links.

    “I’ll never get past the hurdle of a 21-year old being drawn like a 6 year old.”

    Yeah, total neoteny there. She definitely looks six years old (and consider, as JIN might say well, the “underlying, implicit sociocultural message” of *that* trend…). Who do they think they’re kidding? Flat-chested women exist IRL, short women exist IRL, women both flat-chested and short exist IRL, and *none of us look like that*.

    “(I’m clearly a minority in this.)”

    …and in a majority when we look at the bigger picture. Think of how many adults in the world are attracted to other adults and *don’t* have romantic/sexual/etc. fantasies about preteens! :)

    Your reviews here of manga about adults are my fave part of the site, I’m looking forward to more of those and seeing more of that manga translated into English.

  19. Anonymous says:

    I’m a big scanlations fan, but I have no problem with companies picking up series, regardless of quality. JManga might not do the best job, but they do try to stick to the meanings of the translations.

    That’s more than a lot of other companies can say for themselves. For example, the dearly departed TokyoPop once butchered manga, changing genders, names, and all sorts of different things in the name of “sales”.

    Would I like it to be higher quality? Oh yeah. JManga is notorious for churning out translations E Monsoon-style. (If you aren’t familiar with the reference, E Monsoon was infamous in the early days of fansubbing for putting out subs that were of insanely low quality in almost every aspect.) However, I’ll take what I can get in the hopes that it’ll sell well enough to where a more professional publisher will pick up the rights for the physical copies.

  20. @Anonymous – Not all scanlations are low quality, not all legit translations are great quality.

    If you like Lililicious scanlations, then you should like ALC translations – they are done by the same person. If you like Lili, but not ALC, you are pretty much delusional.

    The thing that strikes me as saddest, is that you, and your frothing mouth colleague thing legit licensing and the companies that pay the artists so they can make a living with their work are the Bad Guys, while scanlators, who steal that work from the creator and do not pay for it, are the Good Guys. They aren’t really and when it always comesdown to it, you’re mostly pissed because you feel you had some right to manga, for free. You don’t. It’s really that simple. JManga pays Goto-sensei. She can eat, and buy clothes and medicine.

    You don’t work for free. You would be livid if you job simply stopped paying you for a while. For Goto-sensei and her assistants, this is a job. Paying her for her work is a Good thing.

  21. Anonymous says:

    “You don’t work for free. You would be livid if you job simply stopped paying you for a while. For Goto-sensei and her assistants, this is a job.”

    Yeah, but her target demographic is in Japan, not elsewhere. If nobody is publishing it here and giving her a cut, then it’s not like she’s losing business by scanlation groups releasing it. If anything, it’s INCREASING sales of the manga, as sometimes people will go out of their way to purchase the Japanese manga if they liked the scanlation and want to support the actual author.

    I don’t really see any problem with scanlation groups dropping licensed manga. I think it’s less an issue of “doing it out of respect for the author” and more an issue of “there is now a very real danger that we could get sued if we continue this.”

  22. @Anonymous – I know this is the party line for people who want to believe scans do this, but it is not true.

    Because manga is content and not a physical object, many more people simply download the scans and call it a day. They don’t need to own the book – they have the content.

    What promoted the book is people who have bought it and reviewed it, and are enthusiastic about it. We talk to thousands of people and get a few of them excited about also owning it.

    What you have stated is a false justification, and if it helps you sleep at night, fine, but it’s neither true, nor fair. When someon steals your work one day and looks at you incredulously and make up justifications for why they do this (merely because they’ve created this story in their head about the creator not being a real person they have any relation to) I can guarantee you’ll think differently.

    Hayako Goto’s work is now available for purchase in English and any justification you use for not giving her the money is just that.

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