The Yaoi Review :: PUBLISHER NEWS: Go! Comi Gives Status Update

Sunday, Jan 24, 2010

Posted by Jennifer LeBlanc AKA Asami's Girl ()

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Post belongs to the Netcomics category

PUBLISHER NEWS: Go! Comi Gives Status Update

Go! Comi isn't a huge publisher of yaoi so you may or may not have heard the 'rumblings' about the publisher facing economic troubles. Like many, they have stayed pretty silent on the matter until a few days ago. Since many publishers choose to stay silent or not update their websites, it is always hard to speculate until we hear at least a little something directly from the publisher themselves.

The update is lengthy so to read it in full please visit the post in their forum, which can be located here. Your thoughts? How will this affect you if at all? I encourage discussion here on the site so please do speak up!

*Thanks to togainunochi on twitter for the heads up

So far there are 13 comments on this post - join in and add one!

Comments

Cait says:

January 24, 2010 at 8:03 PM

The only Go! Comi title I own is After School Nightmare, and I already own the whole thing, so this news doesn’t hurt me as much as it might if I was waiting on releases from them.

I do have to wonder, though, what the cryptic statement about “digital theft” was in reference to. MangaFox posted scans of their English printed books, maybe? I don’t even go to sites like that, so I don’t know how bad it really is.

What I’ll say, though, is that their willingless to be open about what’s going on is admirable. Way, way more admirable than the lines of bull and constant waiting we’ve been getting from the likes of DQ (and CPM before their collapse).

[Reply to this comment]
Jennifer LeBlanc AKA Asami's Girl Reply:
January 24th, 2010 at 9:05 PM
I have the same title and also Japan Ai and was contemplating getting Cosplay Ai but it looks like it was never released.

I missed the digital theft reference. Interesting. Maybe the titles are posted in their original language (scanlated) and this is dragging down English sales?

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sunflower says:

January 24, 2010 at 8:52 PM

Sadly, the only title of theirs I like is Cantarella, and I’ve bought all of them. But if they have the continuation that she’ll be doing I’ll buy those too. I’m glad to hear they’re weathering the storm so far though.

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Jennifer LeBlanc AKA Asami's Girl Reply:
January 24th, 2010 at 9:07 PM
It’s concerning that they’re talking about bringing down the site though. That makes me think this is pretty bad. You never want to get rid of your online presence but maybe they just want to scale back the forum part of it. I’m sure there are ways of simplifying the site a bit without losing their retail presence.

After School Nightmare is an awesome title. You should check that one out! It’s great!

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sunflower Reply:
January 24th, 2010 at 10:17 PM
Yeah, sites don’t cost much so that is alarming, if they’re dollars and cents-ing it on that low a level.

The theft is ridiculous. Just last week I noticed someone had made a free Google app for phones to connect to a pirate manga site, and they had all kinds of licensed and unlicensed manga to read for free (no yaoi or smut though, thank god). The app was removed a couple of days ago, but within hours another had taken its place. I looked for a manga I knew was licensed and opened it, and it looked like a scan of a printed book. I know that some mega sites will respond to C&D letters by removing things; hopefully they’ve tried that.

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Jukebox says:

January 25, 2010 at 3:08 PM

I don’t really buy anything from Go! Comi. Their ‘yaoi’ line is not really yaoi, from what I heard though I could be wrong. I’ve thought about Crown, and Masque of the Red Death, but that’s about it. Cantarella never appealed, though I love that manga-ka. I hope they can stay afloat. I hope all the publishers can stay afloat (did you get your latest Deux newsletter today?) The economy’s hurting everyone.

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Jennifer LeBlanc AKA Asami's Girl Reply:
January 25th, 2010 at 3:46 PM
I have volume 1 of Masque and the way it’s looking, I won’t be able to get volume 2. That sucks.

I did get Deux’s newsletter today. I had emailed them about the sale to see if it was still on and they never replied. At least now I know.

[Reply to this comment]
grooveygirl says:

January 25, 2010 at 6:29 PM

The only series by them that I enjoyed was After School Nightmare, other then that I never gave any of their other series much thought. But it is really sad to see another manga publisher suffer during these hard economic times.

It looks as if getting licensed titles state side might become limited to a few publishers which will leave manga fans (who can’t read Japanese) scrabbling to find alternative means to keep up with their favorite series or mangaka’s work. I know a few of the DQ titles that were licensed were in the process of being scanlated but was stopped when it was licensed. Now they look as if they will never finished.

As far as the “digital theft” goes I can see where it can help but also hurt publishers. It can help by getting titles knew to the fans but it can hurt when fans continue to post scanlations of that title (most fans won’t buy it when the already own the translated scans) or fans will scan the licensed English copy and post it on different fan sites. Just recently I saw Net comics English version of “Do Whatever You Want” by Na Yeri posted on posted on one of the social networking sites and needless to say people where downloading and thanking the person who posted it.

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Jennifer LeBlanc AKA Asami's Girl Reply:
January 25th, 2010 at 8:21 PM
Yeah, posting English versions online for free downloads is just ridiculous. These are probably the same people who can’t understand why the publishers aren’t making it or why we aren’t getting new titles. It really peeves me.

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Cait Reply:
January 26th, 2010 at 6:29 PM
No, these are the people who get upset when a title is licensed and available in English because now it means they can’t get the scanlation anymore. I saw this one girl on yaoi_daily one time bitching because someone posted a preview for some licensed title that was in stock at Borders at the time. I tried to explain to her that if she wanted to read it so bad, she could just drive down to the local Borders (oh and I searched to make sure there was one based on her “location” in her profile, and in fact, I think the book was actually listed as “in stock” in several area Borders near her) and read it on the goddamn store shelf. These people want it free and they want it now and they don’t give one shit if the legitimate English licensing companies go out of business or not.

It used to be that there was a better relationship between scanlators and the English licensing companies, but when people start scanning the English books and sharing them for free, the English companies stop being so happy to see those scans of any kind at all.

And seriously, Netcomics titles?! You can rent entire volumes of their titles for $2! You f-ing people don’t have $2?!

[Reply to this comment]
Jennifer LeBlanc AKA Asami's Girl Reply:
January 26th, 2010 at 6:34 PM
I wonder if it’s an age thing? It seems that the younger generation has quite a sense of entitlement. Not that people of other ages don’t download but I’m thinking it’s a bigger deal for the young crowd who either just like the idea of ripping someone off via the internet or just don’t have the money so they feel justified in doing so. I don’t know.

[Reply to this comment]
Cait Reply:
January 26th, 2010 at 6:55 PM
I think they are just used to having the world at their fingertips and they are used to getting it for free, so they don’t want to pay for it, even if they have the means as they get older. They treat manga as a disposable medium in the same way that anime fans have been treating anime for the past 5 or so years. Consume. Fandom. Move on to the next thing. There’s no substance to it anymore. It’s only a matter of time before all the manga is moe and self-referential tripe the same way that anime turned in on itself to survive in this new climate.

[Reply to this comment]
yblees says:

January 25, 2010 at 8:26 PM

After School Nightmare is their only title I’m interested in, & I already own that.
But I’m glad they let us know what’s going on. All the best to them.

[Reply to this comment]

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