The manga industry has a big problem, and it’s not a lack of demand, it’s a lack of formal supply.
“There’s a global demand for manga all over the world, much more demand than any content currently being officially translated, and this is a huge problem,” Shoko Ugaki, CEO of manga translation company Orange, told Variety in an interview through an interpreter last month.
According to a recent study by Orange, there are approximately 30,000 manga titles translated into English, while the number of pirated English-translated manga is “approximately five times the number of officially translated manga,” according to Ugaki.
Orange’s mission is to release licensed manga, and their most notable project to date has been The Gene of AI, which was released in Japan in 2016 to critical acclaim, as well as an animated adaptation released worldwide on Crunchyroll in 2023. However, despite its success, the original “The Gene of AI” manga was not officially released in English until May of this year, when Orange partnered with publisher Akita Shoten to release the edition through Orange’s emaqi platform.
“Most of the manga fans read are pirated versions, so that’s a bottleneck,” Ugaki said. “There are approximately a few thousand officially translated manga titles, which currently equates to 20,000 books and comics. I personally own 30,000 manga volumes. Therefore, I personally own fewer officially translated manga titles. 5-10 times) are translated by volunteers. That is, if manga fans like manga more, they will read more pirated copies. The problem is that there is no return for the creators of these (pirated) manga, and that is the bottleneck. ”
Mr. Ugaki said that there was “an economic loss of nearly 6 trillion yen last year alone” due to manga piracy.
Ugaki said, “There is no proper compensation for manga authors, and at the same time all publishers are also not receiving income or profits due to the piracy issue.” “Then you won’t be able to allocate enough budget to make the next one or the next one, which will affect this whole ecosystem of the manga industry.”
Orange aims to make a real difference with its cross-publisher digital manga app emaqi, which aims to expand official translations of previously unavailable titles in a creator-friendly way.
“If we can establish this system and create more official translations, it will be beneficial not only for the creators but also for all the publishers participating in the system, and within that system, everyone will be able to create a more profitable cycle of producing more and better works in the future,” Ugaki said. “We believe that we need to focus our efforts on the industry itself to increase more official translations and official services to reduce the number of people using or relying on pirated copies.”
Ugaki attributes the increased demand for official manga translations to the growing popularity of anime in the United States and anime adaptations like Netflix’s One Piece.
“I think anime started this demand for manga globally. But I think we’re still in the early stages. There’s still a lot we can offer as people and viewers around the world are starting to realize or realize the appeal that manga and anime have,” Ugaki said. “However, there is a lot of work that needs to be done to convey the appeal of manga compared to anime. We must make more efforts to make the appeal of manga more understandable to audiences around the world. In Japan, it is common knowledge that all these anime come from manga, or that they are based on manga and then adapted into anime. However, this trend is not well understood overseas, so that is also an issue.”
