Even in an industry with as much history as that of manga, innovation continues to be a necessity in order to keep up with the demands of consumers. In my personal opinion, no development has been as fascinating as the rise of simulpub manga since it is one of the most obvious responses to a major problem that I’ve ever seen. Alongside the fact that there are numerous advantages and disadvantages with this release format, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at this fascinating development, the history leading up to simulpub manga and my thoughts and opinions on it.
Let’s start with defining what simulpub manga is. The word “Simulpub” is a portmanteau of the words “Simultaneous” and “Publication” and refers to releasing a chapter of manga digitally outside of Japan near simultaneously with its Japanese release. What this usually means is that the chapter is released outside of Japan within 24 hours which is a remarkable, I might even use the word incredible, release schedule and much, MUCH, faster than the historical release of chapters.
So you might be wondering what prompted manga publishers to implement such a strategy. It might be somewhat reductive to point out a single reason as I’m sure there are other factors to do with promotion, economics etc. but the most solid reason I found for simulpub manga was to do with piracy. As noted in an interview with Kodansha executives, their logic behind simulpub manga was to combat piracy by trying to release digital content before it can get pirated.
So having established why simulpub manga was developed, let’s discuss the advantages and disadvantages of it. First off, an advantage that has already been touched upon is the potential to combat piracy and to provide people with a legal alternative. It’s also been noted that these simulpub releases can be a good indicator for what series should see a physical release based on their popularity. There’s also certainly money to be made through ad revenue, subscriptions and purchases and a lot of potential for promotion when it comes to franchises, series etc.
As logical and helpful as it is to publish manga chapters as simultaneously as possible, that’s not to say that there aren’t significant disadvantages with this method. The first and most obvious is the speed at which the translation must be done. Given the limited timeframe, essentially 24 hours, a chapter’s translation isn’t as carefully edited and subtle as it would be given more time. Ambiguities in the original chapter can also prove incredibly difficult to translate in such a short timeframe and this can result in errors down the line. This is an unfortunate reality when it comes to translating content so quickly and, in many ways, is an inevitable consequence.
The development of simulpub manga is fascinating and, while it’s not an area I examine too often due to my preference for physical media, it’s an invaluable service as long as you’re aware of the problems that can arise from such a tight schedule. Let me know your own thoughts on the fascinating development of simulpub manga, any other reasons you may be aware of when it comes to why publishers would want to release simulpubs, advantages or disadvantages that I may not have been aware of and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs!