Odds and ends

I think this post at MangaCast on Infinity Studios’ plan to ship ebooks on some kind of physical media, rather than being downloadable as just about everyone had initially assumed, probably reflects a majority opinion.  It’s difficult to see the advantages of ebooks on physical media, which provides no more protection against piracy than downloads.  However, the storage capacity of even a CD does allow Infinity latitude to make high-quality, or even print-quality ebooks (not that they necessarily would, mind you), and there are probably still many on dial-up who would prefer buying a CD over spending anguished nights trying to re-establish a broken download.

Still, the one major factor in this decision that I’m hedging my money on is the reluctance of their licensors to fully allow digital downloads… and this applies not just to Infinity, but practically all manga licensees.

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This essay from a high school sophomore Korean student touches very briefly on cultural tensions few westerners experience… Korean manga and anime fans are sometimes viewed as “traitorous”, due to the difficult wartime past between the two nations, in spite of the prosperous relationship the two have had in more recent times, and wide mutual appreciation of each other’s pop culture offerings.

In some ways, these same memories of past aggressions are what drives the Chinese government to tighten reigns over import animation and video games, although the communist regime have always exercised draconian controls over anything that doesn’t strictly fit their doctrine. 

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This has the makings of an international incident not seen since the Beatles visited the Land of the Rising Sun in ’66.

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ADV VP of Sales Mike Bailiff spends half dozen paragraphs worth of time with ANN to say almost nothing about the licensing hiccups they had at the beginning of the year (amid various reports of an anime bust, and Geneon’s exit from the business still fresh on the minds of fans - a most unfortunate bit of timing).  But that’s no one’s business but theirs, really… all consumers need to know is that many of the affected titles have been re-scheduled, and the company plans to make new acquisition announcements soon.

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From a Reuters article on the female otaku movement:

But recently, businesses have discovered another type of free-spending Japanese consumer: the female otaku, who tends to be better-looking, trendier, and more sociable than her male counterpart.

Read the rest.  You know you want to.