Inside Scanlation

Manick: I'm Manick, the main coder for MU. Back when the site first started, I focused more on site administration and adding content. The focus shifted as time went on. As we hired more people, I began to focus more on the coding part. Nowadays, I don't do much from a content point-of-view. I moderate a little here and there, but I've since graduated from college, and I've been focusing a little more on real life stuff.

My main duty is... well, I don't really have one... I guess I'm the guy where the buck stops... or however you want to put it, though I've come to rely on lambchop's opinion a lot more.

MangaUpdates, originally Baka-Updates Manga, was a site spun off of the concept of Baka-Updates, which is mainly a site which can quickly list releases about fansubs to the community. While we had long been a part of the anime community, there had been discussion in the ranks at B-U about creating an equivalent manga site.

I came along around Sept. 2003 to B-U as a PHP/MySQL coder with a lot of free time. We had discussed making the addition, and around May 2004, we got a site design lined up, and I began work. When we launched, we had some stiff competition in the field, and rightly so, from sites like MJ & DM. But we added a new interface, which the other sites lacked, and the ability for users to add their own releases (to be approved by admins, of course). This was something the other sites didn't have. It was slow moving at the start, but the boost we had from our sister site, Baka-Updates, gave us some steam, and we eventually got moving.

lambchopsil: I'm lambchopsil. On the manga scene, I'm mainly known for being an admin for MangaUpdates (basically 2nd in command after Manick). My main duty is to oversee all the other admins and forum mods in their activities, and I'm a liaison from Manick to everyone else since Manick is so busy...

Manick: The community was definitely smaller.

lambchopsil: Less speed groups...

Manick: But anyways, it was more centralized I think, bigger groups, but lots of yaoi/shounen-ai. Honestly, my impression was that half of all manga readers were yaoi/shounen-ai readers, haha. I honestly believe that my impression of that has changed over the years.

Manick: Having been in the anime community, the founders of Baka-Updates didn't really feel like they had a complete service for the community. They knew that they were missing out by not offering a similar service for the manga community, and they had actually discussed it internally for a while.

It wasn't till I came around and offered to code it that they started talking about it seriously. We discussed the idea and came up with some good reasons for doing it (that didn't exist in the community as a whole already, mainly the users being able to add their own groups and releases). We got a good design from one of the founders' brother (who was a professional), and we went from there. The original site took 7 days to code, in June of 2004.

lambchopsil: For me, when I first joined MU as a regular member that added releases (so before I became an admin), I actually found new releases on MangaNews (Manga Jouhou) and DailyManga that weren't already in the MU database and added those, because MU wasn't the fastest in updating for new releases at the time. Then I eventually found other ways to do things. Manick noticed that I added a lot of releases, so I was invited to be an admin for MU.

Manick: I would have to say they partially played a role. If you take a look at the original design of the site, it is very similar to the site design and content of Baka-Updates. There is a releases section, groups section, a series section, a reviews section, an admin section, and a news section. We essentially modeled the design off of Baka-Updates. When we did the original domain analysis, we looked at DM and MJ and their offerings, and it looked fairly similar to what we were planning to have, minus the user-interactive input.

That's for design... as for operation, we were not directly influenced by MJ or DM back in the day. Realizing that competition would be a problem, I made it a point not to use updates/releases from those sites until the release was reported independently to MU, or I found it via other means.

Another thing that helped us... was that we were modeled off of Baka-Updates, which allowed all forms of releases and download links, licensed or not. This, I think, more than anything else, contributed to our success in the beginning. MJ was closed to licensed releases, making DM our direct competing source for licensed information. Our views have changed over the years, and we eventually stopped allowing direct scans, and eventually, with a C&D, all licensed download links, and here we are today.

lambchopsil: However, in my opinion, because DailyManga is partially French, it kind of put off people, which helped us attract them. Also, I've found that because our information is given and edited by the users, we have a very good series database going on.

Manick: The site was built using PHP and MySQL. In the beginning, we were on shared hosting. We hosted both the manga and anime sites on the same shared server, MU being a subdomain of Baka-Updates, manga.baka-updates.com at the time. We survived like that for a few months until the DoSes (DoS: Denial of Service attacks) started. Someone really had it in for the Baka-Updates main site. As a result, our host gave us just about no notice, and kicked us out.

We set up a temporary server on one of my personal machines, while we looked for hosting. We eventually found it, a dedicated server with Layered Technologies. During the next 6 months, many epic battles ensued between the DoSer and me. I would scan Apache logs, ran several DoS modules, ran IP Table blocking, and even called up the abuse networks for many of the IP addresses that were attacking us.

Eventually, we won out on willpower, and the attacks stopped. Since then, we have slowly evolved our servers as the sites grew. Today, both sites share two dual-core machines. We'd get more, but that's all we can afford, haha... it turns out that ads for the manga/anime niche don't pay very well.

Manick: Now the name thing, the reason I used it is because people were calling us "mangaupdates" anyway. Also... I did it for search engine reasons. Back in the day, I was working SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for the site, and figured that a real domain name would help our chances. It just seemed like the right moment. We'd grown to the point where the title "Baka-Updates Manga" just wasn't sufficient.

lambchopsil: Well, for me, I wake up, take care of the personal hygiene, then it's logging onto Facebook and working on MangaUpdates stuff. I've done it every day without fail, except for like 2–3 times I was on vacation... Stuff to do would be to take care of approving releases that piled up overnight (if another admin didn't get to it already), moderating series comments (for spoilers, people asking for download links, people posting really retarded comments...).

Manick: We get a few hundred or so of those a day, right?

lambchopsil: Umm, maybe 100 new series comments per day on average... I then approve new series additions (again, that another admin hasn't gotten to yet), then I take a scan of the main release page to check for any screw-ups by my admin team (happening less nowadays, but they still screw up on some releases...). I mostly edit release entries to keep the site consistent in formatting, etc., then I'd complete any change requests from our members such as changing series names, correcting old release entries, special requests from members like name changes, etc. Then it's onto the forums: skimming every forum post. Yeah, I've skimmed every forum post made... almost 30,000 of them now, I believe.

lambchopsil: I'd then upgrade user accounts. That would basically be upgrading regular members to "updater" status, which basically means they can update series info (like a Wikipedia account). As for scanning through forum posts, that would of course be for the purpose of moderating them, your basic run-of-the-mill moderation for impatient leechers looking for downloads, members being jerks, double posters (I'm really OCD against people double posting...).

I used to moderate the forums by myself until we got some forum mods, so now I'm kinda taking the backseat on forum moderation and take care of only the top-level stuff or the things that catch my eye when I'm scanning forum posts. It really helps to have a team of people doing things, especially since college is eating up my free time. Typically nowadays, I'd log onto the site at least 2 times a day: when I wake up and right before I go to bed. Depending on my day and whenever I get back to my room, I'll log in more times. Obviously there's like a 14+ hour time gap between waking up and sleeping, so I'm really glad for my team of admin and moderator minions. =P

Manick: To be honest, I have a few different thoughts on the matter. At the time, I was looking for competition. I had consistently mentioned to people who would ask this same question that I believed that the competition was good for the readers and users of the sites. It looked at the time like it could be a healthy thing for us all. One thing that I'd come to respect a lot more in recent years was Jouhou's decision not to show licensed releases...

lambchopsil: Less trouble by doing that. One thing I like about MangaNews is that they have more and better news (as their name states). They even have interviews of different people/companies and a translator for Japanese news (or used to at least). I definitely want to get someone to do news for us.

Manick: I really think they had good news too over the years. They totally beat us out on that. Honestly though, I felt MJ and DM didn't really put up that much of a fight over the years. We'd add a new section here and there... but MJ is essentially the same site it was a few years ago... with a few notable exceptions.

lambchopsil: As a former update staff at MangaNews, I didn't see any hostility between me and the other staff (even though they knew I was with MangaUpdates too), it didn't really feel like competition. As for DailyManga, I never really associated with them; I don't know who runs it or anything like that. The only time I visit DailyManga is for old release info (since they have older archives than us), but we're slowly getting there with old archives...

lambchopsil: Nowadays, I'd say that in new release information, we definitely beat MangaNews and DailyManga (just look right now and you'll see what I mean). MangaNews has the community of the old crowd. The new crowd is all about speed scanning... and leechers are a lot more impatient. Actually, in terms of new release info, I think we're competing more with the download sites now, especially after our policy of not putting any download links for licensed series (after we got a C&D). Download sites would be like One Manga, MangaFox, StopTazmo, just to name a few popular ones.

Notice that MangaHelpers isn't included with that. I consider MangaHelpers more as a scanlator site with downloads. I've always disliked the speed scanners, and MangaHelpers has a ton of those, but with its existence, there's been a lot more people interested in scanlating. A lot more 1-man teams too... So there are "groups" listed on MangaHelpers that aren't in our database at MangaUpdates.

Manick: There are 2 reasons. The first is that we modeled the site off of Baka-Updates, and since they have it separated that way, we have it separated that way. The second is that I've been trying more recently to move the site to a series-information based database rather than a release aggregation focused site.

The reason for this is that it's very easy for us to lose visitation if a new site pops up that happens to be better than us at release aggregation. I've been trying to diversity our site so that we become known more as a manga database than as a release aggregation site. As for the design, we have a new design currently sitting in the back-burner. We've been in a stalled mode, trying to get some time to work on it. We'll get it out there eventually :)

lambchopsil: Memorable story... I dunno about that >_> except all the times I made mistakes and got corrected >_< or the times we broke the site while updating it, lol.

Manick: We've broken the site many times. I've learned never to test stuff on the production site before testing it on a dev site, but you know, I still break that every once in a while, haha.

Manick: We only have 2 servers, and we have performance issues. Slow downs... especially with the search bar. So we constantly have to change and update the site to work better, with slightly more hackish things worked in every once in a while. The problem is—when you design something, you don't necessarily think about it getting hit 15 times a second, and then all of the sudden you're dealing with locking issues, slow queries, slow hard drives, 400 concurrent MySQL threads, etc. it's been a long road, and I'd say that I've learned a lot about optimization over the years.

lambchopsil: Once Manick actually made genre searches a lot faster, that's when we broke the site >_> and if you try using the global search bar at the top-right of the site, notice that it says "Global searching is currently undergoing a fix. Please use the search feature for the individual section you wish to search, or click on a release below."

lambchopsil: We got so many people using the global search bar that the site noticeable slowed down like crazy sometimes. So we just divided up the search functions the way it is now. Solved the issue... sorta... I doubt it'll ever be fixed, at least on our current # of servers.

lambchopsil: What about that time for the guy with backwards text? What's the HTML entity for that again? Ah, &#8238;, it's this member. Notice how his member info backwards? (Member title, date joined, etc.)

lambchopsil: Like Manick said, we're trying to focus more on series info now, although I'd lose my job if we focused ALL on series >_> (since I do releases mostly). I had this whole idea for centralizing group recruitment on our site (instead of using the forums, which is the current way), but that's been on the back burner. We also should improve some of our existing features, like the lists, and probably some new additions to the info sections for releases, authors, and publishers, especially the way magazines are currently listed on our site.

Manick: From a content perspective, I think we're heading in a steady direction right now... There are things I want to do design/feature-wise that I haven't had time for really. We're here for the long haul, so as long as there is a community to serve, we'll be here. We have a lot of suggestions and feature possibilities that we could roll out with a little bit more work, but as far as what we'll actually be able to accomplish, I think only time will tell. So as a summary answer to your question... We will continue to exist, and hopefully, we will eventually organize enough to expand our current offerings.

Manick: I'd say some of it speaks for itself, online reading sites, YouTube, Lurk... speed-scanners. I still, to this day, get at least 2 PMs on my site asking for help on how to read manga. I have 58 pages of PMs on my site, about 52 pages of that are "how do I download this."

lambchopsil: Attention is turning to the ones that hold downloads. Like the online reading sites, the download sites, etc. The faster they get download links up, the more popular. The shounen weekly series are turning into 1st day releases... more like 1st hour releases actually.

With speed groups, I guess there's good and bad. The bad being that a lot of series are over scanned now, like Naruto, Bleach, One Piece. It'd be great if resources could be moved to the lesser-known series.

Manick: Part of that is probably spillover from the anime community... and just increased interest in general as the Internet has become more widespread and part of people's lives. Some of the old community is still there... manga channels have always been historically a little smaller than anime channels. I don't necessarily think it's getting "worse" so to speak. More like changing... kind of how anime fansubbing changed when BitTorrent came around. That was a huge shift for the anime community.

lambchopsil: With speed groups, quality is always an issue. Some scans look pretty crappy, at least to my standards. Other people probably just wanna read the latest chapter in 5 minutes and go. The leecher community has also changed. More impatient in my opinion... but a lot more people are IN the community now, just like how BitTorrent changed anime, I think online manga reading sites are changing the manga scene. One potential future problem I see is action taken on part of the publishers... like C&D's and the like. And if it gets any worse... who knows? Let's face it, we're illegal.

Manick: What the community does, as a whole, information will flow... how it does is not really controllable. I think that to win on the Internet, it seems that the defining features are speed, speed vs. quality ratio, price, and availability. To hold market share, you offer things quickly, at low price, with high availability. It's difficult to hold on to market shares in other ways on the Internet in my opinion. This is why speedscans have become so popular, as well as downloads sites—that's the speed and availability parts right there, and of course, they're free...

I see a difficult challenge ahead for the industry to try and combat this, and I do not envy them in their challenge, but part of the reason that MangaUpdates has remained relevant is that we are still the most complete, quickest update site around. Once we lose that, we're old news. It's sort of how Google's business model works, once someone makes a better search engine, that's it, they're gone.

Manick: Well, we've considered a lot of things, or at least I have apparently, haha. I've considered both of those items. The first ... is really difficult. We try to get people to submit scanlation news to us ... but it's just hard to keep it flowing... being a reporter is a full-time job, and we just don't have the staff for that. The second... I've always had an aversion to social networking sites. I do not have, nor have I ever had, a MySpace, Facebook, Delicious, (insert social networking site name here) account. So, I see it being difficult for me to move the site into that sort of a direction.

One thing that I have considered for the future is a Web 2.0 way of aggregating releases and other content. Sites that allow additions, and allow the general populace to vote them up or down, thus getting them on the front page, I think that is probably the direction that we need to go in to stay relevant. I think we're fine for the time being, but we need to eventually make some tough choices.

Manick: Oh, there has been drama... Stolen scans, stolen translations... Pay sites... We've been asked on several occasions to arbitrate these types of disputes. Let me first say that this is not a duty that I like or enjoy, as I'm sure lamb will concur.

lambchopsil: Same.

Manick: However, the pay sites have been out there for a while, and it's not a problem that's going away any time soon... so some members in the community have fought it by opening free download sites, while others have tried to spread the word. The best we can do is make sure people know what's going on and let them make their own decisions... or at least, help to inform people.

I've always wanted to try to position MU as a neutral entity... This has in some cases caused us to not add features to the site which could otherwise be seen as useful, such as group and release rating. We are a site that's dedicated to reporting the releases, whenever and whatever they may be, so it's important that we project this neutral image to the community, and it's something that I'm very proud of.

While it hurts us to see these types of problems exist in the community, some of them are inevitable, and the best you can do is move on.

lambchopsil: I follow series more than scanlation groups, but for a single series, I usually stick with the HQ group.

Manick: Yea, I'd have to say the same... I tend to look for series based on genres and then read based on the criteria... >_<

Manick: I'm a big fantasy/adventure buff, but I have to admit, I've enjoyed a shoujo/romance or two from time to time, or shounen/romance like One Piece, Skip Beat, Suzuka, Mx0, Gantz, Claymore, Death Note. Lots of popular ones, Ippo, big one.

lambchopsil: Uhh, look at my lists? Negima, Suzuka, Ai Yori Aoshi, Chrno Crusade, Ichigo 100%, Hikaru no Go, Mahoraba, Mx0, 1/2 Prince, Full Metal Alchemist, Kimi no Iru Machi, Open Sesame, Pastel, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles.

Manick: Haha, I have to admit, I don't surf the Internet that much. I typically check the headlines on cnn.com, check slashdot.org, and then a quick glance at digg.com. That's about 99% of my surfing right there. I spend most of my time off the computer nowadays.

lambchopsil: Tokyotosho, MangaUpdates, Facebook, AnimeNewsNetwork, Mininova, How-To Geek, TweakGuides, XKCD, Abstruse Goose, LifeHacker, Ars Technica, Tom's Hardware (all in no particular order). As you can see, I'm a anime/manga nerd that's also into computers and the like. Unfortunately, I'm beginning to spend more of my time offline (hanging out with real life friends) or gaming.