Popular scanlation website OneManga announced last Thursday that it will close this week. For once, I think the fan reaction means nothing. Whether fans like it or not, OneManga is over. The importance of this is in the industry. I admit, I read Naruto, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Eyeshield 21 all on OneManga. I also buy all of those titles, which doesn't make what I did any less wrong, but it makes me feel better. Now, I will still finish buying those titles.
What does this mean to all the people who only read things online and did not pay? Theoretically, it will help the manga industry. There are other manga scan websites, though. Mangafox, for one, which has no notice of closing. Some people will shift to other websites, and some people will try to buy. There will always be somewhere online to find these things. But it's possible that OneManga closing might trigger some peoples' consciences, and they'll feel bad about not paying for the manga. I certainly do. I don't have the money to spend more than I already do, so I'll order more manga from the public library.
The industry's response should be to put manga online, but I don't know if it will happen as readily as it did for streaming anime. People are used to getting manga online, and they will want to continue. I hope some will be free, and some will be paid-only. For example, 3 chapters free, pay to download the rest of the volume or series.
This shakes up the industry all the way to Japan, though. Manga is printed. It's always been printed. Putting it online takes away the point of printing it. It hurts the printers, too. Anime has TV, DVD, and internet, but manga has only printing and internet. People like to own hard copies, but print is not as suited to download-to-own as video. It will be interesting to see if the manga companies offer download-to-own or not, and how well it does. Ad-based revenue might start to crop up to allow people to read manga online.
It's good of OneManga to step down. Now we wait and see what Viz, Tokyopop, Del Rey, and the like do with their new opportunity to reach the internet manga readers. I'm not too optimistic. Images are harder to control than video. More sites will pop up. Manga is harder to stick ad-based revenue on. I think that someone else will replace OneManga, and publishers will only have single chapters or the like available to read on their sites. I want to be optimistic because of how great FUNi has been about posting shows for free on youtube and its website, but I just don't see online manga taking off right now. A lot of people, myself included, like having a book in their hands. I'm glad their closing, and I hope this means that more titles get printed, not that another website takes over.
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