4 ms·

I'm glad to see this service making it off the ground. With the rising popularity of manga globally there's a lot of room for innovation in this space, especial

I'm glad to see this service making it off the ground. With the rising popularity of manga globally there's a lot of room for innovation in this space, especially transcending the sometimes myopic focus of more traditional publishers on those "safe" titles which might be perceived to sell well (an attitude which both keeps excellent manga away from the Western market and foments the scanlation scene, for better or worse). Seeing you guys work with Glacier Bay and Star Fruit, acting as an intermediary with regards to digital content distribution, makes me hopeful that the conditions are ripe for even more indie publishers to spring up in the near future, and that this won't be the end of new resources that help facilitate that. I suppose I would be most curious about your opinions on the viability of the simulpub model at scale. Viz, for instance, fully redoes their simulpubs for popular series like One Piece when releasing volumes, and it's not hard to see the challenges associated with rapid and consistent delivery of high-quality simulpubs on a tight schedule. I ask especially since you mention quality as one of your selling points, and beyond the major established print publishers quality has often been hit and miss, especially for digital-native services.

BasouKazuma 5y ago
Thanks! We’re also really proud of our partnership with smaller publishers like Kaiten Books, Star Fruit Books, and Glacier Bay Books. It’s been great sharing their titles with more fans. The simulpub model is definitely expensive to run at scale, especially if the localization staff is paid fairly, which is something we believe in very strongly. We’re currently experimenting with some other models as well, including serializing completed series one chapter at a time. There’s a balancing act between quality and speed obviously, and one nice thing about releasing digitally on a streaming service is that we can more easily experiment to find the right balance compared to a print publisher.

BasouKazuma 5y ago

Thanks! We’re also really proud of our partnership with smaller publishers like Kaiten Books, Star Fruit Books, and Glacier Bay Books. It’s been great sharing their titles with more fans. The simulpub model is definitely expensive to run at scale, especially if the localization staff is paid fairly, which is something we believe in very strongly. We’re currently experimenting with some other models as well, including serializing completed series one chapter at a time. There’s a balancing act between quality and speed obviously, and one nice thing about releasing digitally on a streaming service is that we can more easily experiment to find the right balance compared to a print publisher.