Kadokawa goes.... Direct!
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So I just watched a video from Justice R. Stone, and it looks like that Kakokawa is going direct, translating at the source and bypassing everyone else now. They appear to have started with Manga at the moment but will be announcing more Light Novels and Manga soon and are saying to have 100 titles in circulation soon. WHAT!?
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Here are some more details on this: https://www.theoasg.com/articles/kadokawa-begins-translating-and-distributing-manga-and-light-novels-directly/26312
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Well, I read their answers and I have to say that they make a lot of sense. This is definitely good for the Light Novel and Manga community since it will get more content out there. I just hope that JNC is not negatively impacted by this development. I will mention that they did say that they would still maintain their relationships with the companies they already have an interest and partnership in like JNC, so that's good.
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Well, that is certainly... interesting.
Though the press release does make a lot of good points arguing for the move, it definitely shake up the market dynamics.
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will be released by their partner BOOK WALKER Global and other digital outlets gradually over time
That at least provides some peace of mind. I would hate it if their stuff would only be available on Book Walker in perpetuity, as I refuse to buy from a store where you have no means of ensuring at least some degree of ownership of the books you buy (by them being DRM free, or the DRM being possible to strip).
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Didn't Kadokawa just buy into J-Novel Club a few months ago? Interesting that they would be using a similar business model, but this does make me worried. Are their enough quality translators for this sudden influx of just-in-time book releases. As a consumer the last thing I want to poorly translated text that kill my interest in a good book. But a new major player that does not have to bid for titles and automatically gets a large set of them, defiantly puts pressure on the remaining open titles. While we can see titles we might never have seen before, I worry about the unintended consequences.
Could this also be the reason why J-Novel started releasing non-Japanese light novels, now? they might have had a heads up?
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@bunnyfufu said in Kadokawa goes.... Direct!:
Could this also be the reason why J-Novel started releasing non-Japanese light novels, now? they might have had a heads up?
Well, considering that they never, ever talk about stuff like that...
We'll probably never know for certain.
But I doubt it, honestly. I think it was more of a case of, "There's some demand for translation here, and the market is strangely untapped."
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100 titles within 3 years! Also, I'm glad someone pick up one of my favourite series, The Insipid Prince’s Furtive Grab for The Throne, I'm really looking forward to that one.
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@waterdweller I'm glad to get more titles, but I agree. I don't like the book walker app and being locked in to a system where I can't have my books or rip them for safety.
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Here's the reddit thread. My basic stance is that it's Kadokawa trying to fix a problem they caused with a solution that isn't actually consumer focused. Translations done by outsourcing, digital only with no DRM-Free option, and competing with JNC now while also owning JNC. "More licenses" wasn't a worthwhile tradeoff for all the negatives that come with this when "more licenses" was always possible had they not been so stuck-up in regards to licensing to other publishers.
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@aruseus493 said in Kadokawa goes.... Direct!:
competing with JNC now while also owning JNC
For the record, the deal for JNC only went through in April of this year, whereas OASG's article says this:
But regarding its own translation and simulpub project, we spent around a year to date.
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
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@myskaros I'm aware. Doesn't make it any less weird that they still went ahead with it in the end. Sounds like a case of sunk-cost fallacy to push through what is basically an inferior version of JNC.
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It does feel a bit weird to move forward with 2 highly similar services. JNC and Yen Press made sense as Kadokawa operate many separate labels in Japan and they can focus in different areas, but this sounds highly similar to JNC's methodology, with a lot of series similar to ones JNC already does.
I'm not overly optimistic (I don't mind bookwalker's DRM personally, but I get that others do), so I'll just have to hope it doesn't deteriorate anything that already exists.
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Well, judging by the covers, looks like there will be at least three titles among the first batch that I'll gave to check...
I won't lie, while I hope JNC won't be negatively impacted by this development, the chance of having even more LN available in a language I can understand really intrigues me. -
@aruseus493 I mean, frankly, not having 10 projects dumped on us out of nowhere is preferable to JNC, especially if they already signed contracts with translators/agencies that we'd have no influence over.
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@waterdweller
Yep, Kobo is the only place I buy from anymore. Easier to deal with than amazon. -
I hope they will release print versions too, because I only buy print for collection purposes. I don't like reading digitally. Sometimes I read/buy e-pubs digitally if I know a paperback is coming later or to try out a series before I decide to buy it in print, but it's mostly physical editions for me.
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Yeah while in theory more licences are a good thing... Having a bad publisher with a licence is often worse than waiting in hope for a good one to pick a series up... (I.e. The misery of Sol Press)
It's to early to say either way now, but I guess we will soon see
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In theory this could create an imbalance, where they are keeping their best titles for themselves to release this way. Based on what they have chosen to announce along with this plan I don't know that it'll really be an issue though. Not that any of them are bad - I for one will always be happy about official English Touhou releases - but none of them are crazy eye-catching announcements.
