The best way to support the actual artists is to buy Japanese raws. The compensation for English releases varies but since so many of them sell in such small numbers many of the authors don’t get any payment at all for the book sold and only get the initial licensing fee for the series.

Depends on the series, obviously. A huge series that moves tons of books, like one piece? Different story. But the latest niche release that will sell maybe 4k copies at most? Nahhh

Piracy is justified, viz/kodansha/etc are pieces of shit. unless you specifically want to support the localization teams I guess, but they also aren’t getting royalties. It’s a company of suits who “buy” creative works and earn money off them in perpetuity.

As for recommendations: you and I are polar opposites, the summer hikaru died, after the rain

Yeah, I figured they're probably not going to see much of my money, but was hoping having some sales would benefit them, at least in future deals even if they don't get royalties. I'm not against pirating, just wanted to show my support since I get enjoyment from their work and so there's incentive to continue putting out content (for everyone involved).

Appreciate the recs, I'll check those out!

The one thing that sales do benefit is the potential for future localization and to be fair that does matter if you can’t read the raws

This is why niche titles are shifting. People complain about companies like viz doing less with niche shonen and yuri and stuff, instead translating tons of BL. But you know who buys tons of physicals? BL peeps. And when the expected sales are 3-5k units, if that, might as well go for the ones that drop cash

That said it’s still crap that viz doesn’t localize smaller titles. They can do digital only releases. They have a one time fixed cost of the licensing and localization then just bandwidth, which is not much for digital books, and still make a bit of profit. But their mission isn’t to bring media to people, it’s to make fat stacks

Full disclosure: I don’t have a dog in this fight really bc i can read Japanese and just get raws in Japanese. I typically pirate everything and I do for big titles like oshi no ko (which had a weak ass ending) and shit but for small titles I do buy them to support the creators. Buying from Japanese sites gives the artist (typically) an 8-10% cut and with the weak yen digital titles are real affordable

I read several this past week, but out of those only Kyatapi Land.

It's oh so dumb, and I absolutely love it.

Prepa9for insanity, this is not what I usually post. 😂

I read A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow yesterday, haven't stopped thinking about it. The characters, the art, just wow. Perhaps not for everyone, and don't go in expecting a lot of romance, but I think it's one of my favorite things I've ever read.

So what's the deal with the two versions of Solo Levelling? One set present day with cool abilities and monster fights and the medieval/fantasy set one that seems like it was written by a horny 13yo where characters recharge by cuddling chesty women?

Both are fantasies of 13yo

I picked up Yukizuriman's One Night Stand.

It reminds me of Kamui, the One Standing Behind You.

Sure, but the writing quality of the present day version is well above 13yo level.

I like MangaPlus, but I reckon buying ebooks is a better way to support mangaka than a subscription is. I use Kobo a lot for this.

The a manga I'm reading seems to have seems to have started using AI for some illustrations... They used it in the latest chapter for a crowd here and it looked awful. While it was probably touched up, making me second guess, the shading and style was so typically AI-gen on top of the perspective and relative sizing being way off. It's way different from the mangaka's style and how crowds looked before.

Hopefully this is just a one off thing...

The manga is The Executed Sage Who Was Reincarnated As A Lich Started An All-Out War.