Nothing makes me so aware of time flying as these weekly reports. End of January already? Wow.
Yuri Manga
Sasamekikoto, Volume 9 (ささめきこと) is finally here! I haven’t paid the least attention to anyone discussing it, and the cover is lovely, so I’ll look forward to it. (Anyone who thinks to try and spoil it for me or anyone else in the comments, a pox upon you. It’s not clever or funny and I read fast, so it won’t work, either. I will see your linguistic clues and delete it before you can be an ass in public. You’re welcome.)
Another from Mangatime Kirara, Onegai Kami-sama (おお願い神サマ！) has, to Japanese fans’ relief, Yuri. Or at least one characters says she likes Yuri. Or something. Anyway, I’m not reading this myself, and if any of you lovely folks out there has purchased Volume 1 or Volume 2 and would like to do a guest review, this is a great opportunity!
Speaking of Magatime Kirara and all it’s little wizards, a couple of folks pointed out that Aoki Ume’s new series will begin in the newest addition to the Mangatime library, Mangatime Kirara Carino.
If you, unlike me, enjoyed Kiji Torajiro’s Otome Teikoku (オトメの帝国) you’ll probably be happy to know that a second volume is out.
The new edition of Morinaga Milk’s Kuchibiru Tameiki Sakurairo (くちびるためいきさくらいろ) is due to hit shelves in April.
Volume 7 of Pure Virual Anthology Hirari (ピュア百合アンソロジー ひらり) will be out in March, Tsubomi, Volume 16, in February and March issue of Comic Yuri Hime is currently gracing Japanese bookstore shelves.
***
Yuri Anime
You may have seen that Gokujyou anime airings are being cancelled, with really bizarre apologies for “excessive stupidity.” This is clearly a ploy to get people to buy the DVDs – but the apology is absolutely correct. This series was excessively stupid in every way. I realize that this is a lame, obvious ploy, but it’s so in keeping with the story itself, it kind of makes sense.
Let’s finish off with some positive news and a glimpse at a future I’d like to see. The Black Rock Shooter anime, in conjunction with Nico Nico Douga, will stream *worldwide* in 8 languages, and will be airing on the Noitamina time slot on Japanese TV.
I know it’s hard to imagine that things are changing for the positive sometimes, when all that affects you is the negative, but there is nothing absolute or fixed in the universe – only change.
Let me take this opportunity to hop back up on my sopabox, just for a sec. Recently, a fan asked about whether Fantagraphics is licensing Aoi Hana. I suggested she write them an ask. They said, “not at this time” and she wrote to me with “I guess we’ll never get it.”
This is not the right lesson to have learned at all.
What she and so many of you must understand is, publishing is about money – it’s a numbers game. Sure if five people say they’d like to buy Aoi Hana, Fantagraphics will reply “not at this time.” That is true – right now, they have their hands full with other projects. When that number increases to 500, 5000, 10,000…that might change. The lesson is – do not give up, do not got all weird and fatalistic, *organize!* When 5000 people write Fantagraphics a polite note suggesting that if they licensed Aoi Hana, we’d buy it, I guarantee they’ll think differently about the topic.
The only constant is change. learn to roll with it and you’ll generally be a happier, healthier person. In the meantime, get ready to enjoy Black Rock Shooter in 8 languages. ^_^
***
That wraps it up for this week.
Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by sending me any Yuri-related news you find. Emails go to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com. Not to the comments here, please, or they might be forgotten or missed. There’s a reason for this madness. This way I know you are a real human, not Anonymous (which I do not encourage – stand by your words with your name!) and I can send you a YNN correspondent’s badge.
Good, I have been waiting for your review of Sasamekikoto Volume 9. What thoughts of final plot and last chapter. Finally.
@JIN Don’t hold your breath. I haven’t ordered it yet and won’t get to it for weeks. I promise to get there when I get there. ^_^
There’s one change I can’t wait to see: the utter and definitive annihilation of region-locking.
Does it even make ANY sense business-wise?
I tried niconico.com and found an outstanding number of ZERO anime available in France.
Okay, I might be the only French person desperate to legally stream anime and legally download manga. Or we might well be too few to sustain a business model, anyway. But what harm would it do ANYONE to grant me access to more than 3 series on crunchyroll and more than 0 on niconico.com?
Am I missing something?
“Does it even make ANY sense business-wise?”
It’s a legacy of pre-internet publishing.
Also, it lets one sell more foreign licenses. The more different licenses to sell, the more room for negotiation to get the most profit out of the richest markets.
For example, by having separate licenses for English-language editions in the North American market and English-language editions in the Indian market instead of one license for English-language editions, it was easier to charge higher prices in the North American market and lower prices in the Indian market (this is huge in the textbook market, especially since the language of instruction in most Indian universities is English).
For another example, suppose there’s no one publisher that’s expert in selling your kind of product in Brazil *and* selling it in Portugal *and* selling it in the Lusophone African countries. By having 3 different geographic licenses for Portuguese-language editions instead of just 1 Portuguese-language license, you can have your product translated into in Portuguese and marketed by the local experts in *all 3* of those markets. Otherwise, you’d have to choose just 1 of those markets, sell the Portuguese license to the publisher expert in that market, and give up on the other two (for example, giving up on sales in Portugal and Africa if the Brazilian company to which you sold the Portuguese-language license sucks for your kind of product in those other 2 markets).
@Anonymous – Now imagine a completely different marketplace – where people bid to translate a work into their own language, and receive a cut of the sales in return. No printing, just localization, quick turnaround, creator input and sales directly to readers (easily adjusted for local economies.) That could be the digital market. It would not be hard. It’s completely possible right this second. And perhaps one day we’ll see it.
“@Anonymous – Now imagine a completely different marketplace – where people bid to translate a work into their own language”
…or even into their own different dialects within a language! :D …
“No printing, just localization, quick turnaround, creator input and sales directly to readers”
Imagine the possibilities!
A word-for-word Japanese-to-English translation of a work wouldn’t rule out a Japanese-to-fluent-English translation of the same work.
An unflipped Japanese-to-English translation wouldn’t rule out a Japanese-to-English translation of the same comic in which the panels and the writing flow in the same direction (some of my friends still greatly prefer flipped to unflipped manga, and I heard that the French manga market prefers to read manga panels in French flowing in the same direction as French too).
“(easily adjusted for local economies.)”
Of course, adjusting for local economies would also include print to adjust for locales with less broadband coverage. Maybe people could bid by text message or by chiming in at their bookstores to show demand for titles when they don’t have internet on computers at home?
I noticed some French comics are already sold in hardcover for the French market and paperback for the Francophone African market (but you can still get both on amazon.fr these days).
Meanwhile, covering even more people’s own languages, check out http://en.childrenslibrary.org/ (“for the children” in a *great* way!)
@Anonymous: I see how your model makes sense, but that’s not what I’m talking about right there.
I mean, I do rant a lot when things are sold in France with the American price and no currency conversion (watch the magic of $50=50€), but I can see that it makes perfect business sense for the people (I feel are) ripping me off.
What DOESN’T make ANY sense, as far as I can tell, is to sell content to the US and block every other part of the world from accessing it. You’re not selling different licenses, you’re not playing on prices, you’re just cutting part of the market out.
Look at Amazon and the Kindle. As long as the Kindle was only sold on amazon.com, Europeans could buy it there and I did. I had to pay almost twice as much as I would have, had I lived in America, and I couldn’t access as much content as US citizens, but I still could buy the Kindle and buy lots of books and I was happy.
Then, they got around to actually localizing their Kindle on all their international websites. And they pushed me real hard to transfer my Kindle account from amazon.com to amazon.fr, which I did.
There. That makes PERFECT SENSE. As long as you are not even negotiating foreign licenses, you should let foreigners access your content. Agreed, only a meager portion of them will, but they will and it is silly to block them out.
Then, when comes the time for you to negotiate foreign licenses (if that time ever comes… I’m looking at you Crunchyroll X[), you transfer foreign accounts to the appropriate locations.
My question still stands: am I missing something?
@Anonymous – There is no reason at all to insert a “word for word literal translation” is there. It’s really pretty obvious that way plenty of people, both pro and amateur are capable of rendering a fluent translation.
The problem with printing a book is the “printing a book” part. This *is* going away. It has to. It’s too expensive, wasteful, slow, and the distribution lines are fading away like contrails.
Interesting how when I say “Imagine a completely different world” no one ca. Fans, companies, they all cling to a model that is dying for no reason at all. I can see why companies do that and I take it that anime fans are just not nearly as creative as they pretend to be.
Until some one can, on fact, “imagine a *new* model” we’re going to be lost in this idiotic tug of war with region-locking and increasing printing costs. Why fans want to stick with that, I can’t imagine.
“@Anonymous – There is no reason at all to insert a “word for word literal translation” is there. It’s really pretty obvious that way plenty of people, both pro and amateur are capable of rendering a fluent translation…”
*Capable*, yes! :D *Willing*, maybe not always. :/
I’ve seen some people complain at other people who *do* render fluent translations for not leaving the text “Japaneses enough” (as if a translation from Japanese shouldn’t make the text readable for someone who doesn’t know Japanese).
Maybe some of these people are capable of rendering fluent translations (they sure are capable of rendering fluent complaints) but prefer not to?
Having more than one translation into English could satisfy both sides! That way, each creator could reach even more English speakers instead of having to choose between the ones who want to read a whole bunch of the words in romanji and the ones who just want to read a good story (and are busy studying Spanish or French as a non-native language instead of Japanese), having to choose between the ones who want to read unflipped manga and the ones who want to read the whole thing LtoR, etc. :D
“…The problem with printing a book is the ‘printing a book’ part. This *is* going away. It has to. It’s too expensive, wasteful, slow, and the distribution lines are fading away like contrails…”
Must it go away *before* everyone who wants to read books, who deserve to read books, has access to books online?
“…Why fans want to stick with that, I can’t imagine.”
I don’t want to keep access to paper too for now as a *fan*.
I want to keep access to paper too for now as a *human being* who gives a damn about literacy for *everyone* instead of just people like myself.
Everyone includes people who only have internet access on mobile phones with small screens so far.
Everyone includes patrons of the Biblioburro and the Garissa Camel Mobile Library ( http://sustainablecitiescollective.com/petersigrist/7664/el-biblioburro-donkey-library-and-other-mobile-libraries ) who want to borrow books to read at home.
Everyone includes the people Livres pour Tous serves in West African low-income neighborhoods ( http://www.deslivrespourtous.org/accueil.php ).
Everyone means *everyone*.
@Anonymous – That response is so bizarre I can’t respond.
Manga publishers do not hire literal translators, and the assumption that fans want a literal translation is old and debunked. Fans want an authentic reading experience. I have no idea what you think you’re saying, but it simply has no relationship to the actual state of the manga publishing.
It really doesn’t matter that you like books – they are going away, except as collector’s items and hipster items, just like LPs.
“@Anonymous: I see how your model makes sense, but that’s not what I’m talking about right there.”
Just thought you asked “Does it even make ANY sense business-wise?” and so described a model (it’s not even mine) of how it used to make sense business-wise.
“Manga publishers do not hire literal translators,”
Exactly, that’s so true…
…and I’ve seen some self-proclaimed fans berate the publishers for that and use that as their justification for sticking to scanation. o_O
“I have no idea what you think you’re saying”
Then go back and re-read the text. :) If I didn’t mean to say it, then I wouldn’t have said it. ;)
“but it simply has no relationship to the actual state of the manga publishing.”
This part:
“…The problem with printing a book is the ‘printing a book’ part. This *is* going away. It has to. It’s too expensive, wasteful, slow, and the distribution lines are fading away like contrails…”
sure doesn’t seem to limit itself only to *manga* publishing, especially not when a lot of ebooks aren’t manga and aren’t even comics.
I simply responded to those points about printing booka with some additional points about printing books.
“It really doesn’t matter that you like books – they are going away, except as collector’s items and hipster items, just like LPs.”
It’s not that I like paper books. It’s that I like people having access to books :D and so I don’t want to see anyone *lose* access to paper books *before* they gain access to ebooks.
Even if *you* don’t want to publish paper books anymore *yourself* (which is perfectly fine :) you chose a tiny niche for ALC and shouldn’t be all things to all readers)…I still want to see *someone* keep publishing books on paper until *everyone* has access to ebooks. No matter how much someone *else* wants paper book distribution to disappear ASAP.
@Anonymous: You’re quick to advise people to re-read your comments, maybe you should follow your own advice…
When I said “Does it even make ANY sense business-wise?”, the word “it” referred to region-locking as in locking out regions entirely.
Your answer was about different licenses to different regions, which makes sense but has nothing to do with what I was talking about: if you license something to a region, you’re not locking that region out, per say.
I’m sometimes mad at unfair regional differences, but I can see how it makes sense for the publishers, distributors, etc. But, seriously, what good is it doing anybody that I can’t access 95% (that’s the lowest estimate, really) of Crunchyroll’s content? It’s not that I have to pay more to access the same content, I simply CANNOT.
Also, I think you’re missing the point about books disappearing. It’s not that somebody wants them to. It’s just that THEY ARE. It’s a rather slow process, but it’s happening.
You keep writing about people who have no access to the internet and how you worry about books disappearing on them… Do those people really enjoy such great access to books to begin with? And shouldn’t we fight for them to get internet access rather than try to hold on to the status quo?
BTW, gotta give you more credit for “(easily adjusted for local economies.)” instead of assuming that there aren’t different local economies or assuming that only the local economies with the highest incomes matter.
:D
:D
:D
“Your answer was about different licenses to different regions, which makes sense but has nothing to do with what I was talking about: if you license something to a region, you’re not locking that region out, per say.”
Region-locking is a symptom of regional licenses, sorry I wasn’t clearer about that! :/
“But, seriously, what good is it doing anybody that I can’t access 95% (that’s the lowest estimate, really) of Crunchyroll’s content? It’s not that I have to pay more to access the same content, I simply CANNOT.”
Tell the anime creators that. They seem to be sticking with a system that profited them in the days of licensing their anime to be translated and sold on videotape and videodisc:
The fewer customers in Fance already buying their tapes and discs distributed outside France…
…the more customers one could get for those tapes and discs after buying a license to distribute them in France…
…the more someone would have been willing to pay for the distribute-that-product-in-France license…
…and the more the anime creators could profit from selling that license.
“Also, I think you’re missing the point about books disappearing. It’s not that somebody wants them to. It’s just that THEY ARE. It’s”
Books are made by people. :) When books get printed, that’s because somebody wanted to print them. When books don’t get printed, that’s because somebody wanted to not print them.
“a rather slow process, but it’s happening.”
I agree that it’s happening and that it’s a slow process. My point about that is simply about *how* slow people who publish books and therefore run the process should make it.
“Do those people really enjoy such great access to books to begin with?”
Great, of course not. Better than they would without paper books at all while they wait for broadband at home and school, absolutely.
“And shouldn’t we fight for them to get internet access”
YES, *and* that doesn’t have to mean getting rid of analog options *before* they have digital access.
It’s the same way only jerks want to see neighborhoods without access to fresh fruit lose their local overpriced convenience stores *before* gaining farmers’ markets and full-service grocery stores.
“rather than try to hold on to the status quo?”
Who said anything about *holding on* to the status quo?
Note the term “until” in “I still want to see *someone* keep publishing books on paper until *everyone* has access to ebooks.”
Note the term “for now” in “keep access to paper too for now.”
Meanwhile, I’d like to see improvements to energy efficiency and using renewable energy sources *speed up* a ton :D (since we’re talking about ebooks and displaying those on a screen takes up more electricity than opening a paper book does).
@Anonymous, obviously. ^^
– “Tell the anime creators that. They seem to be sticking with a system that profited them in the days of licensing their anime to be translated and sold on videotape and videodisc”
No they don’t. Crunchyroll and niconico.com are the exact opposite of sticking to old days of videotapes.
Two more things about region-locking.
1) If we’re talking about me, it’s dumb as all hell to lock me out under false pretenses of “maybe someday translating to release in France”, as Crunchyroll does. Why? Because I neither need nor want translation. I cannot stand either French or English dubbing, it makes no difference to me whether subtitles are in French or English and I enjoy watching anime without subtitles at all (plus, it’s good Japanese practice). So if you’re locking me out today to potentially try to sell me crappy over-priced translations in 2022, you’re out of your mind.
Of course, I realize I am anything but typical, which brings me to:
2) If we’re NOT talking about me, it’s dumb to region-lock people because it does not prevent them from accessing the content, it just keeps them from doing so legally.
At a time when the biggest threat to the industry is the habit an entire generation is growing into of getting stuff for free, to think “we’ll let some people pay to get what they want legally, but only some” seems suicidal to me.
– “Books are made by people. :) When books get printed, that’s because somebody wanted to print them. When books don’t get printed, that’s because somebody wanted to not print them.”
Hm… I admit I don’t have any experience in publishing, but I still call bull****. When books don’t get printed, it’s not that somebody did not want to print them, it’s that:
nobody thought it would make a profit
and
nobody had enough vested interested in the book getting published AND enough cash to “waste”.
Books that get printed are either good sellers (which are not necessarily the most interesting books out there) or propaganda (paid for mostly not by the readers).
That has always been true and it will remain true right until everybody has switched to ebooks, which I might well not see in my lifetime (and I’m only 26).
What makes me hopeful about the change is that the digital entry barrier is lower than the analog one and I believe it means it’s easier to publish niche content (like, say, Yuri manga) and harder to force propaganda on people.
“Who said anything about *holding on* to the status quo?”
Huh, you did? Actually, your using the words “until” and “for now” makes you even more of a typical conservative.
Whatever the change called into question, the conservative answer is either “hey, that’s threatening X for reason Y, so let’s fight for it not to happen ever” or “hey, that’s threatening X for reason Y, so let’s hope it doesn’t happen until Z and we feel ready.”
And because Z is far from happening (in our case, everybody on Earth getting internet access), the whole point sort of becomes “that change is BAD, BE AFRAID.”
To that, Anonymous Sir or Madam, I raise the typical progressive retort: “the change is happening whether we like it or not, so let’s talk about how to make the most out of it.”
@Atarun – “the change is happening whether we like it or not, so let’s talk about how to make the most out of it.”
This is true. It is always true, at every time and place on Earth since it was formed.
I keep asking people to imagine a better way, a more flexible, inclusive way. I can envision a number of ways things can change, but I am not in a position to make them happen.
In other industries, if I were a man, perhaps, I’d be a visionary leader and companies would throw money at me to make that vision happen. Not in this industry. There is a reason that the word “hidebound” is associated with publishing. It’s always been a slow-to-respond industry, since even before Gutenberg. And fans, despite their delusional beliefs about their liberality and open worldview really are some of the least creative, most conservative thinkers (socially, politically, in regards to business, everything) I’ve ever encountered.
Fans want books and DVDs, and as you see, come up with a million reasons why the industry is at fault for them not getting them. The industry gets them out, but no one buys, so of course they stop making things, and move to a lower-cost model. Fans don’t buy digital, because they want books and DVDs (even though they didn’t buy those, either) and the cycle goes around and around in an endless and fruitless gavotte.
When I say “fans” here, I mean the faceless, but sadly not voiceless, masses who complain about *everything* ever, and never cough up a cent. Not actual fans, who do actually buy things and support the industry.
But ultimately, the fact is – this industry is changing, right before our eyes. We have a chances to help, to guide to grow, or to dig our heels in. Change will happen with us, or without us.
I always want to be in front of change, rather than being dragged along by it. Which is why I am embracing digital, both for myself, and my company – as you will see this spring.
“- ‘Tell the anime creators that. They seem to be sticking with a system that profited them in the days of licensing their anime to be translated and sold on videotape and videodisc’
“No they don’t. Crunchyroll and niconico.com are the exact opposite of sticking to old days of videotapes.”
You respond to a statement about what *the anime creators* seem to be doing with “No they don’t”. You then try to clarify that sentence of yours with what Crunchyroll and niconico.com are doing.
Do you think that the anime creators *are* Crunchyroll and niconico.com?
Hint: “No, A doesn’t do that, A does this instead” makes sense. “No, A doesn’t do that, B does this instead” doesn’t make the same sense at all. ;)
“…So if you’re locking me out today to potentially try to sell me crappy over-priced translations in 2022, you’re out of your mind…”
Good thing I’m not the one who sold to Crunchyroll and niconico.com the licenses to distribute those animes in only North America, so you’re not calling me out of my mind. :)
Meanwhile, maybe my guess about why the anime creators seem to not want to distribute in France is wrong. Maybe they just don’t want French audiences at all that’s why they don’t sell anyone a license to distribute their animes in France?
It could be like the way some people disapprove of scanlation of a comic readable in Japanese or Korean online for free (this can’t be about the readers paying either because legit readers don’t pay for the comic in the first place, so it must be about other reasons).
“‘- “Books are made by people. :) When books get printed, that’s because somebody wanted to print them. When books don’t get printed, that’s because somebody wanted to not print them.’
“Hm… I admit I don’t have any experience in publishing, but I still call bull****. When books don’t get printed, it’s not that somebody did not want to print them, it’s that:
nobody thought it would make a profit
and
nobody had enough vested interested in the book getting published AND enough cash to ‘waste’.”
In other words, it’s that somebody did not want to print them because they did not think it would make a profit, and it’s that somebody did not want to print them because they did not have enough vested interested in the book getting published AND enough cash to “waste.” ;)
“Actually, your using the words ‘until’ and ‘for now’ makes you even more of a typical conservative.”
Go back to your English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher (who I sincerely hope is a native reader of both English and French).
Ask him or her if “I still want to see *someone* keep publishing books on paper until *everyone* has access to ebooks” means the same thing as “I still want to see *someone* keep publishing books on only paper forever” or means something different.
Also ask him or her if “keep access to paper too for now” means the same thing as “keep access to only paper forever” or means something different.
I’m not impressed when I say something and my *family* gets mad at me for saying something else because they forgot some of their ESL lessons and got the words wrong. I’m no more impressed when you do it. ;)
“…Fans want books and DVDs, and as you see, come up with a million reasons why the industry is at fault for them not getting them…”
Reasons probably including “information wants to be free,” “copying’s happening whether we like it or not,” and “it’s not that somebody wants books/DVDs/music/games to get copied, it’s just that THEY ARE GETTING COPIED.”
“…When I say ‘fans’ here, I mean the faceless, but sadly not voiceless, masses who complain about *everything* ever, and never cough up a cent…”
Oh yeah, *them*. Loser FanBeings being losers in yet another way.
“…Not actual fans, who do actually buy things and support the industry…”
…and certainly not the rest of the publishing industries’* customers either, the librarians** and teachers and parents and other workers who buy books to educate and nurture and get work done instead of just entertain themselves…
* Sometimes it sure seems like there’s more than one publishing industry! :)
** My local librarians recognize that paper does some things better than electronics do, electronics do some other things better than paper does, and invest in *both* (not just duplicates of everything either, they’re more thoughtful when expanding the collections)! Want to search a library book on your computer at home? Don’t have a computer at home yet and still want to read a library book? They’ll serve *both* of you *at the same time* instead of going “no paper for you, change is good!!!” or “no ebook for you, change is bad!!!”! :D
“…We have a chances to help, to guide to grow…”
…and to grow in more than one direction. :)
“I always want to be in front of change, rather than being dragged along by it. Which is why I am embracing digital, both for myself, and my company – as you will see this spring.”
Cool – you’re in front of some changes, you’re sidestepping some other changes while other publishers are in front of them for other niches, and both make sense. :)
@Anonymous
About anime creators: let’s be specific, since you insist: they have nothing to do with region-locking. Distributors and publishers do and they are not technically _creators_. Also, I neither appreciate nor deserve your patronizing me.
“Meanwhile, maybe my guess about why the anime creators seem to not want to distribute in France is wrong. Maybe they just don’t want French audiences at all that’s why they don’t sell anyone a license to distribute their animes in France?”
It has nothing to do with France. It is, after all, an incredibly small portion of the part of the world that is locked out (anything but USA and Canada, as a rule). And it’s not necessarily that they (I assume you’re talking about Japanese shareholders, there) don’t sell anyone licenses to distribute in France (or elsewhere). What Crunchyroll told me is that they never tried to get an international license for 99% of their content in the first place.
“In other words, it’s that somebody did not want to print them because they did not think it would make a profit, and it’s that somebody did not want to print them because they did not have enough vested interested in the book getting published AND enough cash to “waste.” ;)”
Well, I see a difference between “somebody did not want to” and “nobody wanted to”. If you don’t, I guess we agree to disagree.
“Go back to your English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher (who I sincerely hope is a native reader of both English and French).”
How very productive and respectful of you.
I can’t find a productive answer to that. You win.
“I’m not impressed when I say something and my *family* gets mad at me for saying something else because they forgot some of their ESL lessons and got the words wrong. I’m no more impressed when you do it. ;)”
It doesn’t really matter what language you’re using: if you’re mean, the smiley won’t soften the blow. It will only make you look worse.
For the record, I did not say that “let’s hope X never happens” and “let’s hope X doesn’t happen until Z” are one and the same answer. It’s just that when Z is far-fetched, they end up having the same overall conservative tone.
For instance, saying “Women do not deserve equal rights” is not equivalent to saying “Women shouldn’t get equal rights until they work in as many risky and hard jobs as men”. But both remarks have the same conservative tone.
Let’s turn the subject around. You say you want books to be published right until everyone has access to ebooks. You are free to want anything. But why should we* care?
*”We” as in Erica and Okazu’s readers.
As a side note, why are you anonymous?
I can understand why somebody who just posts a knee-jerk reaction might not want to go through the hassle of registering, but seeing how much time and thought you have invested already on this thread, that obviously doesn’t apply. I am genuinely curious.
“For the record, I did not say that ‘let’s hope X never happens’ and ‘let’s hope X doesn’t happen until Z’ are one and the same answer. It’s just that when Z is far-fetched, they end up having the same overall conservative tone.”
…except when they’re not conservative in the first place.
Remember, there’s a *difference* between paper books going away (the X here) and electronic books arriving. They’re not the same thing. They’re *especially* not the same thing when many publishers IRL *already* publish the *same* books in *both* paper and electronic editions *at the same time*. :D
For one of many examples, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and his publishers *still* make his book Dreams in a Time of War : A Childhood Memoir available on paper. That’s not a conservative thing for them to do and for me to like at all, because *at the same time* they *already* make that same book available in electronic formats *too*. :D
“‘I’m not impressed when I say something and my *family* gets mad at me for saying something else because they forgot some of their ESL lessons and got the words wrong. I’m no more impressed when you do it. ;)’
“It doesn’t really matter what language you’re using: if you’re mean, the smiley won’t soften the blow. It will only make you look worse.”
When person A says something and person B complains at A because B thought the words A said mean something that those words don’t say, A’s not mean for pointing out the problem and B is the one who looks worse.
“I can understand why somebody who just posts a knee-jerk reaction might not want to go through the hassle of registering, but seeing how much time and thought you have invested already on this thread, that obviously doesn’t apply.”
Still don’t wanna go through the hassle of registering, still don’t want this comment to get lumped together with other comments of mine on other blog posts. ;)
@Anonymous
“…except when they’re not conservative in the first place.”
I believe I was not clear with my using the word “conservative.”
I meant definition 3-a of Merriam-Webster (see http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conservative),
which is : tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions.
With that exact definition, I say that the undertone of all your comments on book publishing on this current thread is conservative.
By my comments on your usage of “until” and “for now”, I meant that using those words did not change the tone, even though it changed the meaning.
“When person A says something and person B complains at A because B thought the words A said mean something that those words don’t say, A’s not mean for pointing out the problem and B is the one who looks worse.”
I do not say you are mean because you expressed your personal opinion that I misunderstood you, but because you did so in an extremely patronizing way. And I wonder why you keep using friendly smileys while being condescending, dismissive and disrespectful.
“Still don’t wanna go through the hassle of registering, still don’t want this comment to get lumped together with other comments of mine on other blog posts. ;)”
Again, you make me curious. Why wouldn’t you want to stand by the comments you made on this thread in any context?
@Atarun, Anonymous –
I think this conversation has gone as far as it can here in the comments. ^_^
FWIW, Atarun, I think you are correct in calling these views “conservative” in the sense of relying upon and preserving status quo.
Anonymous – You’re asking why both books and digital aren’t an option (among other things you’re saying.) They are, for now. I am not saying books are going away this very second. I’m not advocating for you to throw you books away. I’m simply mentioning that this trend is clearly, irrevocably headed toward digital. The Libraries you mention (btw, I am a Librarian and very proud of that) recognize this and are sharing digital books as well as print. When I discuss fans supporting manga, I consider that an entirely different issue from Libraries. Librarians are, IMHO, heroes. Free Public Libraries provide entertainment and information, computer access and education to anyone, without reservation. Librarians do not ask that an industry give things to them for free, they pay for what they buy. I have no problem at all with the library model – and have given books to several libraries who merely requested them. Fans, are not libraries, however. Relatively few of the scan reading fans think to use their local libraries. (And of course I hear more complaints about “my library sucks” than “I’ve helped my library create a graphic novel collection. Entitlement sits around and whines that people aren’t doing things for them, it rarely gets up and does a thing itself.
When I say I prefer to be ahead of trends, you made a statement about me side-stepping some trends. Frankly, that’s just silly. You have no idea what my plans are for the future. I can tell you this – you’re wrong. ^_^
This industry is in the middle of massive flux. I should say “these industries.” Anime, manga and publishing are all shifting and changing as fast as you can imagine – even if you don’t see it all at the consumer side.
Personally – I look forward to the day when everything I read is on a tablet, so I can not have piles of books filling my house to bursting. My Grandmother occupied one room in her last years, she had no room for books. I won’t need much room, if I have the world on a chip. I think it’s cool to imagine a world with all the information available in an eyeblink. ^_^
In any case, I’m closing the comments here. I think we’ve all made our positions plain. Atarun – I love the fact that you said “We meaning Erica and the readers of Okazu.” Bless you for that. <3 I do indeed like to think that we here at Okazu do not fear change, but embrace it with open minds and hearts – and spend less time being *angry* about everything.