[Manga] OneManga Shutting Down

Someone at another forum answered that one pretty easily:

Originally Posted by Zorak

Manga distribution is at its core driven by the Japanese home companies, which are anything BUT innovative or willing to take risks.

The original companies control how licenses they sell are used, and how much it costs to do things with the licenses.

You have to realize that for example, the Japanese business model still relies on selling two episodes of anime per disc for something absurd like $40-80. The concept of supply and demand is literally lost on them and convincing them that going fully digital with stuff like manga is a fight you're never going to win.

Edit: That said, some companies ARE trying to work out a kind of inbetween. Yen Press is trying an online access of it's monthly titles (limited to the current month and the previous month though, you'll have to buy the actual books if you want older stuff), and there's Square-Enix doing this:

Quote:

"LOS ANGELES, July 21 -- SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. (Square Enix®) today announced that it will launch a digital manga store serving customers in North America and France in the fall of 2010. Localized electronic editions of such popular Square Enix manga series as Fullmetal Alchemist® and Soul Eater® will be made available for the PC via the Square Enix group's North American and European websites.

Square Enix will be demonstrating the new service on machines at Comic-Con International, which starts today through July 25, 2010 in San Diego, California. In addition, the first chapters of Fullmetal Alchemist, Soul Eater, Black Butler and O-Parts Hunter™ are available for download free of charge on the Square Enix group's North American and European websites in advance of the paid service's launch, with other series planned to follow."

Also of note is that their previews aren't region locked, so hopefully people will be able to "import" the digital english version to their country if it isn't licensed there.

But that's pretty much it. It's just those two.

Jam it back in, in the dark.