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wMay 12, 2010 | |
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About That For those who don't follow anime/manga news as it relates to the U.S., distribution companies have been tanking for the last couple of years. Geneon, Central Park Media, and ADV went out of business. It came to most people as a shock when the powerhouse TokyoPop slashed both its title list and its staff members. In the last couple of days, it's been reported that Go! Comi has let its website lapse and is out of business, and that Viz has had to cut its staff a lot, too. It sucked when Viz stopped putting out issues of Shojo Beat (containing manga written for women) and only ran Shonen Jump ("for boys") monthly. But budgets matter, and it was the first inkling. I didn't read a lot of stuff by Go! Comi, but I enjoyed their releases of Her Majesty's Dog and Cantarella. It's sad to me that these companies are going out of business, as it will ultimately limit the diversity of titles available in English. On the Internet, there seems like a lot of things are he-said, she-said. Many fans and commentators seem to blame the digital distribution of fan-made translations ("scanlations"), but I've never seen proof to support these claims. For example, I would never spend money on anime DVDs unless I had already seen the series first. I might buy a manga volume I've never read before, but only if I've heard a lot about it from other people who have. Etc. I'd like to be able to better support companies like Viz, Funimation, Right Stuf, Del Rey, and Yen Press. Other than making my own purchases (which to me is a very obvious way), maybe the best way to ensure that these companies can continue running and producing great products is to make more of our friends into people who consume in these two forms of media, rather than constantly pointing fingers.scribbled mystickeeper at 11:30 PM  
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