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JManga is shutting down
As you may have heard, JManga is shutting down at the end of May. This was sad news for me, as I've been an avid supporter of JManga--despite having reservations about their "read online only" system, I was really thrilled with the diverse selection of titles that would probably considered too obscure or niche to be profitable for a print company. And of course, I was happy with the license rescues like my beloved Tactics (formerly published by TOKYOPOP). I gave my initial reaction over at Manga Bookshelf in Mourning JManga:
Details have been few, but someone from the JManga staff came over to comment on the post and explain that "we simply don’t have the revenue stream to continue." I suspect that many potential customers were deterred by the lack of a downloadable copy, and by the lack of iPad and mobile phone apps (though they did apparently eventually add an Android app). JManga is at least going to issue Amazon gift cards to compensate customers for their unused paid points--I have about seventeen dollars worth left on my account, which I will probably end up using to buy a volume or two of print manga, ironically.
Some JManga users have said that they are using screencaps to save their manga which will otherwise disappear on May 30th, though I didn't really feel comfortable discussing it in a public post that the JManga staff were reading. But that is a possible (unofficial) solution.
Now that the initial shock has worn off, I'm mostly left with a sense of resignation and sadness. I am still upset about losing my manga and monetary investment, but the JManga people will be losing their jobs--something I can certainly sympathize with, since I have family and friends who have been laid off due to the bad economy. And from what the various bloggers have said, the JManga staff were nice people who were passionate about their work--I'm sure that they didn't want the business to fail anymore than we did. They did offer up a great selection of manga, and I liked their manga viewer, but I think that the majority of customers just won't accept the stream-online only model, and I can't really blame them after what has happened. (I know some of you on the F-list have expressed reservations about that in the past, and about Kindle ebooks which readers technically lease rather than own, but I'm a lot less worried about Amazon going out of business.)
To be fair, I knew that signing up for a site like this involved a certain amount of risk, and at least they gave their customers some advance warning so that we can finish reading any unread purchases. I would have been even more upset if I'd lost my latest manga volumes without ever having read them! Viz, SuBLime, and eManga do allow you to save files of purchased manga, so I may be checking out their online manga in the future, but right now I'm busy catching up on my JManga volumes, and I also have a pretty big backlog of unread print manga, too, so I won't be rushing out to buy anything just yet.
MangaBlog rounded up reactions to the news here.
And here are more Manga Bookshelf discussions on the subject:
Some Thoughts on the End of JManga
Goodbye JManga
JManga: The post-mortems begin
Pick of the Week: JManga Scramble
When I got that email from JManga last night, I was frantic (I have several purchased volumes I haven’t gotten around to reading yet) and more than a little angry that all the hard-earned money I spent on JManga is soon going to vanish with nothing to show for it (I’ve been subscribing since Oct 2011 at the $10/month rate, so you do the math). But like you, mostly heartbroken because there were so many great obscure series that I loved (Ekiben Hitoritabi, Edo Nekoe Jubei Otogizoshi) that I know will never see print status in the US, and rescued titles like Tactics. (No matter what, I am still glad that I got to read volumes 9-12.) I really wanted JManga to succeed and did my best to support them, and I’m really sad that it didn’t work out. I did urge friends to try out JManga, but a lot of people were leery of investing in a “read online only” system for fear of exactly what just happened: losing all your content if the vendor goes out of business.I don’t entirely regret subscribing to JManga–I got to read a lot of great titles that aren’t available anywhere else, but from now on, I’m not going to purchase digital manga unless I’m able to download a copy.
Details have been few, but someone from the JManga staff came over to comment on the post and explain that "we simply don’t have the revenue stream to continue." I suspect that many potential customers were deterred by the lack of a downloadable copy, and by the lack of iPad and mobile phone apps (though they did apparently eventually add an Android app). JManga is at least going to issue Amazon gift cards to compensate customers for their unused paid points--I have about seventeen dollars worth left on my account, which I will probably end up using to buy a volume or two of print manga, ironically.
Some JManga users have said that they are using screencaps to save their manga which will otherwise disappear on May 30th, though I didn't really feel comfortable discussing it in a public post that the JManga staff were reading. But that is a possible (unofficial) solution.
Now that the initial shock has worn off, I'm mostly left with a sense of resignation and sadness. I am still upset about losing my manga and monetary investment, but the JManga people will be losing their jobs--something I can certainly sympathize with, since I have family and friends who have been laid off due to the bad economy. And from what the various bloggers have said, the JManga staff were nice people who were passionate about their work--I'm sure that they didn't want the business to fail anymore than we did. They did offer up a great selection of manga, and I liked their manga viewer, but I think that the majority of customers just won't accept the stream-online only model, and I can't really blame them after what has happened. (I know some of you on the F-list have expressed reservations about that in the past, and about Kindle ebooks which readers technically lease rather than own, but I'm a lot less worried about Amazon going out of business.)
To be fair, I knew that signing up for a site like this involved a certain amount of risk, and at least they gave their customers some advance warning so that we can finish reading any unread purchases. I would have been even more upset if I'd lost my latest manga volumes without ever having read them! Viz, SuBLime, and eManga do allow you to save files of purchased manga, so I may be checking out their online manga in the future, but right now I'm busy catching up on my JManga volumes, and I also have a pretty big backlog of unread print manga, too, so I won't be rushing out to buy anything just yet.
MangaBlog rounded up reactions to the news here.
And here are more Manga Bookshelf discussions on the subject:
Some Thoughts on the End of JManga
Goodbye JManga
JManga: The post-mortems begin
Pick of the Week: JManga Scramble