At approximately 3am Eastern Time on July 22nd 2010, a major contributor to the wildly, and sometimes silently popular, online subculture of manga scanlation announced its eventual end.
In about 7 days time, the legendary OneManga will come to an end.
If you log on to the OneManga website now, a disclaimer will pop up before you reach the main page. The message that appears is quoted below:
“There is an end to everything, to good things as well.”
It pains me to announce that this is the last week of manga reading on One Manga (!!). Manga publishers have recently changed their stance on manga scanlations and made it clear that they no longer approve of it. We have decided to abide by their wishes, and remove all manga content (regardless of licensing status) from the site. The removal of content will happen gradually (so you can at least finish some of the outstanding reading you have), but we expect all content to be gone by early next week (RIP OM July ’10).
So what next? We’re not really sure at this point, but we have some ideas we would like to try out. Until then, the One Manga forums will remain active and we encourage all of you to continue using them. OMF has developed into a great community and it would be a shame to see that disappear.
You can also show us some love in this moment of sadness by ‘liking’ our brand new Facebook page. It would be nice to see just how many of you came to enjoy our ‘better than peanut butter and jelly’ invention.
Regardless of whether you stay with us or not, on behalf of the One Manga team, I would like to thank you all for your unwavering support over the years. Through the ups and downs you have stuck with us, and that is what kept us going.
As a certain Porky was fond of saying… That’s all folks!
Time for me to go lay down and let this all sink in.
- Zabi
For those who are not involved with the culture of anime and manga, OneManga.com would probably mean nothing more than a website of Orientalized still-image entertainment. But for those of us who are part of this infinitely captivating universe of narrative, creativity and wonder, this is truly a great loss. For years OneManga has provided us with speedy scanlations and translations of manga, both mainstream and cult, both popular and unpopular, for the supportive masses of the Internet. The powers to be may consider the act (in our case, ‘art’) of scanlation as a violation of copyright and infringement laws. In some cases, that may be true, but in many other cases it is most certainly legitimate. With the advent of cyberspace, all traditional methods of advertising, corporation, and capitalism, were undoubtedly challenged. Many large corporate businesses have failed to keep up with activity of the instantaneous Internet that unconsciously distributes to the masses whether or not legality is involved. From my perspective, the art of scanlation is most definitely assisting the companies with their manga products. This recent online subculture may not abide by conventional rules of product distribution and advertising, but it certainly betters the global phenomena of manga and anime. Without the Internet and scanlations, giving manga the identity of ‘global’ would be much less worthy. What OneManga has provided the world in the past few years was a great and vast access to this revowned Japanese cultural art, media, and entertainment, and to have it end is a monumental shame.
Regardless of legal issues constantly hovering over the art of scanlation, the fact that it has grown to its current prominence, and will continue to grow, is a testament to not only the power of the Internet but also the power of readers who undyingly support this culture. The polite disregard scanlators have towards legality shows what they do is filled with passion and energy. Scanlated manga provides a potential and effective counter-culture to large corporations that back smaller entities responsible for manga publication. In short, it provides them with a loud but subtle middle finger to the captains of industry.
Without getting too long winded, I would like to end this tribute post to OneManga.
I hereby formally salute you, OneManga family, and may the waves of cyberspace reincarnate you into something even more grand and spectacular in the hopefully not so distant future.
Farewell.
-Philbert: @philbertlui
July 22nd, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Goodbye onemanga you are the best online manga reader.
It is completly unfair that onemanga has to go!
but still it goes.
goodbye
July 22nd, 2010 at 1:49 pm
This so royally ****s.
But yeah, OM’s death is just the beginning of the fight. They think they have won? Ha!
July 22nd, 2010 at 4:32 pm
*Cries*
I can’t buy manga because I’m broke. Now even when I do get rich I won’t be able to buy manga, because I wouldn’t know any good new ones D:
July 22nd, 2010 at 6:26 pm
July 22nd, 2010 at 6:45 pm
OM is the greatest thing that has ever happened. They think they can kill it without a fight? This will not go down quietly! Rest in Peace, OneManga, and thanks for the many years of greatness!!
July 23rd, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Ha! do you think you have already won the Battle? Lets fight for this crap, lets win the war!!!!
July 23rd, 2010 at 3:21 pm
OM will be missed, mostly because it is one of the only sites where HXH could be found, but from now on i will be at http://www.Inaruto.net
July 23rd, 2010 at 5:33 pm
Uh…question?
Why is everyone giving up on OM? It’s not dead YET! sheesh! Alright so it’s chances of living are slim, but not impossible! I was on their forum (more like lurking) and completely agree with this guy (or gal) Accelionus here:
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Huh, actually I had another thought. Let me ask a rhetorical question. What happened when America passed the 18th amendment banning alcohol? Did people become sober from 5-10 years of alcohol addiction? Or the segregation that plagued America since the Civil War? What did the African Americans do then when they weren’t allowed to sit in the front of a bus or sit next to Caucasians in a diner? Do you know what these people did?
They got dirty. They boycotted. Alcohol became one of the best selling “drugs” in the black market at that time. There are even pictures of drinking in the WHITE HOUSE during the ban.
So if you tell me that people now aren’t gonna do the same things they did back then, then you are sadly and sorely mistaken. I mean seriously, OM have abided by their rules, they took off mangas when they asked them to, and now all of a sudden they want them gone. If they wanted them gone so badly they would have put their foot down months, no YEARS before. Them doing this all of a sudden makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Heh, if they think that American manga sales suck NOW,*chuckles* just wait five months from now.
(Note: I’m not advocating any of this, i’m just saying what’s most likely going to happen)
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Personally i’d love to do that. Anyone else? (theirs powers in numbers you know.)
July 23rd, 2010 at 6:01 pm
I’m confused. I don’t think I wrote anything about giving up on OM. I’ve been giving my two cents on the OM forums for the past 35+ hours as well as reading what others have to say. I’m merely writing a tribute commending the impact and significance OneManga has become in the past years.
July 23rd, 2010 at 6:07 pm
Sorry, just that I was reading all these topics and forums and got a bit hyped up I guess. Just that most people are like, “aw sorry to see it gone i really liked it!” when it still has 7 days left. It just really annoying.
July 23rd, 2010 at 7:40 pm
Goodbye and thank you for all my time consuming and enjoyable hours, I hope one day everyone will realize you actually contributed to the selling of the manga that you have provided to us. We will no longer read unknown but awesome manga probably ever again. I shall cry when you actually close in a few days time 3:
Lots of love Sashka. xXxXx
August 9th, 2010 at 1:23 am
Two things:
Firstly, manga fans should actually go out and buy copies of their favorite titles to show the publishers they are interested. The Manga companies are in the business to make a profit, after all, and if they feel that they aren’t making money then they will take action to increase their bottom line.
Of course, even if they somehow managed to delete every single scanlation and manga site on the internet, they’d still be ignoring a large part of the problem; they should be reading the comments that people are making on the subject, seeing what complaints fans have about manga releases (censorship, release dates, etc) and adressing those concerns, lest they lose a large parcentage of their profits from fans who are unwilling to buy their products.
August 15th, 2010 at 4:12 am
We personally believe that the relationship manga publishing companies and online free scanlations are cyclical. They depend on each other in some way or another, some beneficial, some are not. But if publishing companies were to truly push themselves in trying to obliterate all “illegal” or “free” scanlation sites, it won’t be a complete victory for them either. They get indirect positive revenue even if readers and fans don’t directly purchase manga books because of what they read on scanlation sites. Other forms of profit are usually generated.
Don’t we need both to keep the international manga community and industry afloat?