A very long and serious talk about the scans and official release

So as you might’ve heard already, yesterday some big news broke: Mangastream decided to drop all the Jump series they were working on (and appears to be down entirely) and Jaimini’s Box has decided to use this chance to drop their Jump series as well. At first glance this seems like great news: it’ll help support the official release and could pave the way for everybody reading the manga on the same day as it legally comes out. But on the flip side, this could be the same as Roger’s death and usher in a great new era of piracy that could just make it worse for everyone.

The timing of this was pretty bad on my end. I was planning to address this matter incredibly soon, as I was planning a switch of my content to be out alongside the official release starting from next year, a change I’ve been working towards for quite a while, which I’ve mentioned a couple times in the past. However, there’s a lot of issues that come with that and there’s a lot of misconceptions I wanted to clear up as to why me and many others have to end up reading scans. I want to give a serious and honest look at the situation and I’ve been wanting to talk about some of this stuff for a long time.

I know this is lengthy, but please read through to the end, as this is quite important for anybody within the community that enjoys One Piece.

There’s a lot of confusion and misconceptions around this matter, so let’s make it clear: One Piece serializes weekly on a physical magazine known as Weekly Shonen Jump which comes out every Monday in Japan only. Currently, this is accompanied by Mangaplus, the official English release of One Piece (which is free and available in most places of the world, a big misconception). When you’re in Japan though, you can go to any retailer and buy the Jump magazine every Monday for just a few bucks. However, as happens with a lot of products, sometimes these break street dates. To “break street date” means a product is sold at a store ahead of the official release date. For example, I know of cases where friends of mine (and once even myself) have managed to get some video games a day before they officially released because a store already had them. In this case, it really isn’t something that morally bad, you get to enjoy a game a day early but you didn’t really commit anything illegal in buying said product.

Inherently speaking, early releases aren’t illegal in most countries. A company could still sue the shop if selling early breaches their contract, but the truth is, they almost never go after these shops, so street date breaking can be surprisingly common. But hey, like I said, it usually doesn’t cause much harm… except when it does. Last year, the much anticipated Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was leaked online. A Mexican store had already gotten the game to prepare for the upcoming release day, but they decided to sell it three weeks ahead instead. This caused people to put the game’s files online, so those who had hacked switches could play the game weeks before the release many anticipated. Thankfully, most of the community was mindful enough to scorn this activity and most waited patiently for the official release, which ended up being a fantastic one. I’ll get later into why this is different for the OP community instead. But yeah, while breaking street date isn’t the worst, sharing that stuff online illegally is and that’s where the problems come.

So in a sense, the same happens with Jump. Many shops will break street date and sell Jump early, with people simply buying the issues, taking them home and scanning them, giving them to scan sites who will post them on Friday, with early info and pics early on Thursday. Lots of times scans are taken by storeowners and other people involved too, but scan releases are usually after street date has been broken so that’s beside the point. In the time I was in Japan, I witnessed more than one store breaking street date on Jump. It’s rare, but more common than you’d think. And while some imagine these are shady, black market deals in dark alleyways, it couldn’t be further from the truth: these are big shops, up in the open in large crowed streets, with the new Jump issues adorning the front of the shop in full view and people of all ages gathering to buy them. As I mentioned before, companies hardly ever bother with early release shops at all, so it happens way more naturally than you might imagine.

The easy fix to this would be to have an early digital release: just like it happens with music, tv shows, movies and other industries, having an early/digital release allows to mitigate piracy, as many services have done. But Shueisha has stubbornly refused and wishes to stick with the physical release. Japan is a country stuck in the past in many cases: it still uses faxes, music sometimes only releases via physical CDs, etc. And in this regard, Shueisha is incredibly old fashioned: while they have adapted a bit to digital releases, they still refuse to release them early, causing this whole inevitable cycle of early leaking.

Look at Kodansha, the rival publisher to Shueisha, who serialize many famous manga (Seven Deadly Sins, GoToubun, etc.): they’ve created a system where the digital release is always before the physical one. Granted, this is only a day prior (causing some early scans to still leak out a day before even that), but it’s already a massive step towards bridging that gap, with usually only a day between scans and official releases, allowing some communities to wait it out.

There is no denying that those who sell scans online for money are criminals. Absolutely. But part of the blame should also fall on Shueisha for their unwillingness to adapt. It’s as if a store left their doors open at night and then blamed thieves for stealing their contents. The thieves might be thieves, but if the company’s stubbornness to not change to protect their items is what causes this whole issue then I feel part of the blame falls upon them too. Thieves will always steal, you can’t ask them to behave, so Shueisha should still be the one take action and adapt, rather than stubbornly stick to the past. Countless industries have done so, as have other companies within the manga industry, Shueisha just needs to adapt. Mangaplus is a great start (the scenario before was just a mess), but it’s still a long way from the ideal situation.

So as I just said, scans release early on Fridays, while official releases are later on Mondays. As I illustrated before with the Smash Bros. case, usually people tend to wait these things out. Some people decided to pirate Smash, but most waited patiently: we had waited months, a couple extra weeks wasn’t the problem and we all wanted to support Sakurai and his team, there wasn’t much to lose. But then why do most people always read OP early instead of waiting? Well, no matter how much some people might like to portray those who read scans as greedy rebellious jerks who just like to pirate, there’s many more personal reasons why this might be the case:

Very quickly, as this is a bit minor, but the official release is only in English and Spanish. People not fluent in those languages (especially given the advanced vocabulary Viz likes to use) just can’t read them and that’s a big barrier. Let’s ignore the fact that up until a year ago, this release was exclusive to the US and few select English-speaking countries (UK, Australia..) and it was literally impossible to read OP legally overseas. Mangaplus mitigates this majorly (language barrier aside), but it’s still a major reason for the rise of scans

Being forced to wait three whole days every week (some may argue two and a half for the US, but for any other timezone it’s always 72+ hours after the scan release) for your favorite manga can be downright a torture for many. There’s plenty of people that are patient and can wait; hell, I’d include myself among them, I don’t usually have a lack of patience in regards to this stuff. I can do it. But some people can’t and it can become downright frustrating and depressing to do so.

But people will say “but the official release has the same wait time, it’s always one week no matter what”, but that just isn’t the case for many. People have different lives and the community will always be talking about the chapter with the scan release. Some people work shitty jobs or have tough schedules and once they arrive home after a rough week on Friday, they just want to enjoy their favorite manga. I’ve seen many of these cases first-hand. They don’t want to endure a whole three days of blueballing themselves and missing out on their greatest joy and being involved in the community just to compensate for Viz being unwilling to adapt. Scans will always leak early and the community will still hop onto them early, that’s an unavoidable reality. People who want to wait will have to endure this test of willpower and endurance and for some, that’s easy, but for others, it’s just isn’t, down to a mental level. For a lot of people their lives are shitty enough they can’t afford to torture themselves waiting it out. People shouldn’t be labeled as “ungrateful impatient jerks” because this is a lot more than just being impatient for many. Having to miss out on community discussions and being involved with everyone, having to deprive themselves of one of their only ways to escape their difficult life, there’s so much more than just being “an impatient jerk”.

And here comes what has been one of my personal struggles in following the official release. Because of the reasons above as well as the others I’ll mention later, the gross part of the community reads the scan release. It’s just a fact and no matter how some might say “but you shouldn’t”, people will. It’s ridiculous to expect that everyone won’t do it, just like with the store scenario I explained. As such, if you want to stay up to date with the community and be involved in any way, you must follow the scan release, it’s not an option. When I bring this up, I’ve seen people say “but just leave the community! Go offline and don’t get involved with them!”…

Are you kidding me? How could I? I adore this community. I love scrolling through the comments on reddit, seeing the discussions on forums, seeing the reactions on twitter and getting involved with each of them, being a part of the moment. I could never give that up for anything in the world. Living that is my One Piece experience. Telling me to go offline and detach from this community I love is just something I cannot do, even at the moral cost it comes with. It pains me that I can’t support the official release this way by reading the chapters the day they come out, but I just cannot abandon all the friends and amazing folks I’ve met along the way. This would have to be for three full days every week (half the week!), after which the discussion has already died anyway. I’d have to not just leave all forums and communities regarding OP, but even stop talking with my personal friends and the community, not to mention stop using any social media, even outside One Piece, due to fear of spoilers.

And hey, there’s the matter of those spoilers. Even if I consciously stopped getting involved, I’d still have to treat the internet like a spoiler minefield. Even outside the community, you can still get spoiled in other communities, because it’s unavoidable. Doesn’t matter who we ask to behave, it will happen. Unless you are up to date, you are easily going to ruin yourself on all the big twists and great surprises you could’ve otherwise had. It sucks that it has to be this way, it really does, I wish it wasn’t, but that’s just reality and we have to deal with it. For a lot of people, including myself, avoiding spoilers can lead to paranoia (which is why I hate it when stuff like Smash fighters leak), great stress and especially disappointment when some of the manga’s greatest moments are ruined for you. That’s not something everybody can deal with mentally and can be downright detrimental to the health of many.

Here we start to get into reasons that are more a direct effect of Viz. Before I get into the matter of translations, I’d like to get into the aspect of reading them, being that the official site mangaplus, for lack of a better word is… how to put it, just god awful. Sorry if I get a bit foulmouthed here, but the site is a buggy glitchy mess with awkward navigation and readability to the point that it’s embarrassing. Reports of the site bugging out are many and while others have issues, the fact that even a decent group of people have issues is problematic. Yet a year later it still hasn’t improved.