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700+ titles removed from MangaDex
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- Title
- 700+ Manga Wiped Overnight: Manga Industry Declares War on Piracy - Anime Senpai
- Authors
- Senpai
- Published
- May 16 2025
- Word count
- 811 words
So in major manga news, this week Mangadex got hit with a massive wave of DMCA requests from the major publishers. It's being called the largest purge to date.
As the article I linked notes, this is a tricky situation. While piracy is illegal and can cut into sales, many of the manga subjected to the purge have no legal avenue to access them in English. Either no translation exists, or they're massively behind the Japanese releases. Which obviously sucks for manga that fall into the weekly update schedule and have heavily active fanbases. Some of the purged series are old and/or very niche, and will likely never receive a license of any sort. Fan translations are the only option.
Along with that: manga aggregator sites will still exist. The translations aren't completely gone from the internet (or at least, most of them aren't), so this move just provides an inconvenience at best, and has potentially created some lost media at worst. It's definitely caused some groups to leave some series forever unfinished. I know at least one niche horror manga got purged and the translator said they're dropping it, so that one will likely never be translated again.
So, yeah. Not a good week for manga readers.
A final, more personal opinion note: MangaDex is probably the most "ethical" option to read fan translations. They don't profit off ads like aggregator sites, and actually try to play nicely with official publishers and ban reuploading official translations (unless the license is expired). Other sites don't have that rule. So by default, it actually has one of the smaller libraries of any manga site.
The main advantage it has over other sites is a lack of viruses, a good UI, and accounts we can use to track manga we're reading, which makes it a convenient option for users. Enough to ignore other sites... Unless a specific manga we're reading is unavailable on MD for whatever reason.
So this purge has created 700+ reasons for people to look outside MD for manga. It leaves room for a competitor to set up shop in a country that doesn't care about enforcing DMCA. If it has a good UI, copies the more convenient features of MD and isn't a virus-infested trap, users would easily make the switch. Actually, just allowing accounts for reading lists and having no viruses is probably good enough for a lot of people.
So, yeah, this move may cause some new issues for all the publishers.
There is an important caveat to this. For over a year now, MangaDex has been routing their subscriptions through and pinned to their front page comics from NamiComi, a for-profit entity co-owned by MangaDex developer Tristan9. He may also be employing multiple MangaDex staff members, going by their statements and NamiComi advertising in their Discord servers. Tristan's company also states in their terms that they will eventually take a cut out of creators' subscriptions. He's directly enriching himself by funneling this piracy site's traffic (and reserving the right to tithe their subscriptions) to his company, and this conflict of interest has never been directly disclosed.
Update: NamiComi CIO Tristan Deloche has now officially assumed control of MangaDex, free of charge. It sure looks like his plan is to directly use his American for-profit organization to intentionally violate artists' and publishers' copyright until they submit DMCAs. Not that MangaDex has ever been free from these parasitic profiteers (the original owner, Holo, stated a desire to "go official" in the hidden Group Leaders channel on Discord), but it is disappointing to have ended up this way.
I think I'd take it one step further and say that a large open source public library like Mangadex eventually becomes the most ethical way of consuming art.
I have a pretty sizable library of physical media. I've got bookshelves overflowing with comics, and crates full of CD's. I try to see movies in theaters and then buy the Blu-ray afterwards. I really try to patron the arts I love as much as possible, but eventually it really just feels like it becomes consumerism. Your treasure just becomes a mountain of trash for your family to throw away when you die. The most joy I've ever gotten from buying a book was being able to share it with someone else to enjoy. Having a centralized place that people can contribute to and freely take from is a way better system than everyone being forced to create their own dragon's horde.
Much like endgame collecting not really being a positive outcome for the consumer, the endgame of trying to profit from the art is not really a positive outcome for the art. Like you said, a lot of those series were essentially in the dustbin of history. Long completed series with no official translation, and most likely haven't seen a Japanese language reprint in years. I'm not oblivious to the effort required to make manga, nor am ignorant to the economics of the ordeal. I think people should buy things from creators, because the creators need money to feed themselves and their families, but the profits to be found by keeping something behind a paywall erode as time marches onwards. Free for everyone is much better preservation than being locked in a vault.
While unfortunate, it’s not like people have a God-given right to read any particular manga. If the author wants to be obtuse about it, it is what it is in the end.
True, which is why I said it's a tricky situation. Piracy arises in response to demand for media, particularly when there's no legal avenue to access it. So long as there's no official English option, fans will arise to translate it themselves. I've seen many groups drop series once they finally get official releases.
So this attack may potentially take down MD, but it won't really impact the overall issue. People will just look for other sources to read series they're invested in. I already got recommended an alternate site that has most of the MD series and translations that weren't on MD, and a glance confirms it includes official translations (literally labels the group as "official"), so... Yeah, they kinda opened the gateway for people to find free alternatives to the currently existing legal avenues.
It doesn’t need to completely eradicate piracy to be successful. The issue with most of the illegal scan-hosting websites is that they’re terrible to use by necessity. Most of these are for-profit endeavors, but it’s pretty hard to make money doing something that’s illegal in most jurisdictions.
Most ad companies won’t be willing to be on your site, and most payment processors will refuse to onboard you. As a result, to make enough money to cover server costs and profit for the owners, these sites tend to have a) bad ads b) A LOT of ads. Being forced to use shittier websites is additional friction that can cause more sales.
There’s also the POV that it may not even be about money. Some manga authors may just not want fan translations because they would rather their work be unavailable, than available in a modified (translated by a 3rd party) form. I can respect that as well.
Not sure if I can respect that. I can understand having reservations modifying your work, but I don't view translation as "modification". Language is communication, and a good 90%+ of it is mechanical enough that very little/nothing is lost when attempting to make sure ideas are understood. Not wanting your ideas to be known by other people who were raised differently seems to border on gatekeeping more than a preservaation of art.
Localization, on the other hand, can in fact cross into "modification". Localization is partially about appealing to the sentiments of another culture. I can respect not wanting your work localized. Though in cases with publishers, the authors don't often get to make that call.
There is no such thing as translation without localization. Even if you translate something by as closely as possible replacing every element of a sentence with its dictionary counterpoint, that too is as much a decision as any other form of localization.
I think authors have a (moral) right to gatekeep their art as much or as little as they want.
It's a spectrum. you can never truly translate one culture to another, but there is such thing as a "faithful translation". Likewise, some that take more liberties or change ideas to placate an audience and it's essentially not even the same work anymore. I do think these are very different kinds of ideas and worth distinguishing
I'll point out the obvious issue here: is it okay for a bakery to not sell wedding cakes to a gay couple? Recipes are art, after all. My country determined the answer to that is no, and I am in agreement with my country's ruling.
That's the line of reasoning that makes me reject such a notion. Once it's out in public, you don't get to determine who reads it or how they think of it. Nor can you discriminate against who gets to read it. Given the nature of these manga, they very much are out for sale to the public.
I don't think they're different at all. There is no such thing as a "faithful translation", other than perhaps a translation done by the author themselves, which is fairly rare. Everyone has a different intepretation of a work, and how the nuances in it present. If you look at it from a "death of the artist" perspective, not even the author could completely faithfully translate a work.
Either way, most manga translations are not that to begin with. There's been a lot of drama in the past based on how fan translators have translated works in the past.
But that's beyond the point: the general philosophy I believe in, and copyright law mostly adheres to, is that the author ultimately has power over distribution and presentation. The "bakery and gay couple" is a special carve out in the US because sexuality is a protected class - a bakery can fully refuse to sell out goods because, say, you're a republican, or you have ginger hair.
Moreover, this is more like if people were buying goods from the bakery, adding some additional toppings, then selling it at their own store, which a bakery would fully be able to use as grounds to refuse sales.
I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on the philosophy, but thankfully copyright law mostly works how I model an author's rights. I'm fine with the publishers killing mangadex. Is, what it is.
"Localization" when used to discuss manga, anime and other Japanese media usually involves radical changes such as changing names from Shinichi to Jimmy, butchering the story or changing characters to try to make it meet certain local expectations, or setting the story in America so you have to come up with increasingly creative explanations for the increasing number of very clearly Japanese areas and characters.
Yeah, localization has a bad rap among manga and anime fans for good reason. It's usually not as extreme as what I mentioned above these days since western companies acknowledge adults can also like anime, but the word alone still gets some reflexive shudders from the community. (I'm pretty sure Detective Conan still uses the English names for the main cast in the official release... shudder)
less the author and more the publishers. It's a weird situation that shows how archaic Japan can be when it comes to understanding overseas demand. Most of these publishers by now have e-books and their own reading sites, but most are are only in Japanese.
regardless, I think we're missing the main point. If you take the "nice" site down, there will be 3 more "mean" sites that will happily play cat and mouse with them. In comparison, Shueshia of MangaPlus does in fact have a decent online manga model and Mangadex is happy to steer towards Mangaplus (while preventing pirate uploads). Being able to outsource your "piracy control" to volunteers while also getting a lot of foot traffic from an overseas audience should be a business' match made in heaven.
That's fine. The mean sites are shitty. They're shitty because they have to be - only shitty advertisers are willing to do business with illegal sites, so they're plastered full of shitty ads. That's friction.
There's also a general chilling effect - the people doing the translating aren't doing it for the shitty sites that don't give them credit. Many of them will just stop, without a clean way to show off their hard work.
You never have to eradicate piracy to make it more difficult.
it's friction for the business at the end of the day. Especially if they see piracy as "lost sales". Why make your job harder and make less money?
I also think friction is a horrible way to police the internet in general. That's just admitting that you don't care if the actual dishonest people get away with crime, and the honest people suffer. It's not really a stance to take if your goal is to protect the artists.
You're essentially hoping you can drown all the cockroaches in a sewer. But they are tenacious beasts to defy logic to preserve themselves.
Likewise, this isn't really a business for a lot of groups out there. some will leave, but you'd be surprised how much effort and time a single group, or even person can make to translate hundreds, thousands, and more chapters just because they are fanatics and really want others to enjoy what they read. They want any site that cares to grab it. Their goal isn't to pad a portfolio nor make ad revenue. It's just a strong sense of mission.
If you think "well, good enough": again, that's not a sentiment that someone who cares about an artist takes. It's one rooting for a business.
Always “own” the media you care about or it might disappear at any time
There are multiple ways to self-host a comic/manga collection
Welp, I can fight back in my own (incredibly petty and small) way. There are a few mangas I'm reading through official sources (e.g. One Piece). I have now switched them to full pirate.
Neener neener, I guess.
One Piece wasn't on mangadex in the first place, and the viz stuff is probably the most customer friendly for English manga, so this response seems fairly misplaced. Kodansha can eat a dick though.
Well yeah, that's why I was reading OP on manga plus, not on mangadex. It's not on there. The big ones were not on Mangadex, and I was happy to read them legally. Even though Viz doesn't play nice with my country sometimes.
I'm not really willing to do extra work and carefully select which publishers I pirate from when they band together and do this. I'll pirate from all of them, and there's not much they can do about it.
Like I said, I fully acknowledge it's petty, but this has mildly inconvenienced me, so I don't mind mildly inconveniencing them.