[Locked] Discussion: Simulpublished Magazines and Licensed Content

A few weeks ago on Anime News Network I talked about publishing, censorship, and the future of FAKKU (link here). I highly recommend listening to it if you have an interest in the industry and what's going on with FAKKU, but the most important topic covered was the eventual removal of unlicensed content from the website. As we talk with more manga publishers, artists, and animation companies one thing has become apparent: we need to remove unlicensed content.

Within the next few months we will begin releasing English simulpublished chapters from Comic X-Eros and Comic Kairakuten. We will be translating and releasing both magazines in their entirety, resulting in over 40 chapters and 1000 pages of new content each month with chapters uploaded daily. A more in-depth official announcement will go live in the next couple of weeks where I will go into full detail about what we'll be doing and what you can expect.

The most important part of magazines is that every single artist will be working directly with FAKKU. Right now we usually work with 2-3 different artists each month depending on what books we're currently working on and what projects we have hidden away. Once this new service goes live we'll be working with 40 - 60 artists each month and each of those artists will be visiting FAKKU to look directly at their English chapters.

The opportunity to work so closely with these artists and make their stories available officially is incredible. I hope that everyone can accept that although the loss of unlicensed content definitely sucks, the end result is significantly better for everyone. Fans get to support and consume more content and the artists have a new source of income and the chance to interact directly with their fans outside of Japan.

We've already started work on the magazines and have a couple back issues ready to release and final preparations are being made to get them online. To put this in perspective, from the last two months alone here's a list of artists directly involved in this new project: NaPaTa, Bosshi, mogg, LINDA, Gomennasai, Koume Keito, Nishi Iori, DISTANCE, Higenamuchi, Karma Tatsuro, Ichimatsu, Makio, Mizusaki, Meiyamamo, Akiya Akira, Inuburo , Sakurai Energy, Ishikawa Shisuke, Shono Kotaro, Mojarin, isao , Hinahara Emi, Azuma Tesshin, Usaginagomu, Itouei, Sumiya, YUG, Katsurai Yoshiaki, Namboku, 40010 Protoype, E-muse Aki, Fujimaru, santa, Key, Okara, Matsukawa, Harenochiame, Kamiya Zuzu, Mitiking, Mozu, Uo Denim, Kishikaisei, Niimaruyuu, Yoshima Nikki, Katase Minami, Kai Maruco, SAVAN, MG Joe, Asagiaya, Hachiya Makoto, Ishikei, Kekemotsu, Ban!, Kamizuki Shiki, Morimiya Masayuki, Tamatsuyada, Inue Shinsuke, Rakko, Kurokosiyou, F4U, Yurikawa, Knuckle Curve, yozo, Naganoro, Ayane, Yazaki Suigin, Karasu, Kerorin, Kanna Tetsuboku, Misaoka, Misa Wasabi, Satsuki Mikazu, Sanadura Hiroyuki, Akizuki Itsuki, Suruga Rinu, Mg Kurino, Heriyama, Oda Non, Mozuya Murasaki, MGMEE, Tsukino Jyogi, E-musu Aki, Kosuke Haruhito, Kito Sakeru, Shirotadai, Kazuma Muramasa, Mutsutake, Bonza, Akinosora, Kokonoki Nao, Natsuki Kiyohito, Tamon Ketsuyuki, Kamishiro Ryu, Leonardo Sixteen?, Shiden, and Yamada no Seikatsu ga Daiichi.

Like I said above we'll be releasing these magazines in their entirety. That means every single chapter regardless of the content. Both big name artists and newcomers will be treated the same, we won't be favoring one artist over another. This means you'll get to read everything without worrying about if your personal tastes don't align with the majority of users. Here's a preview of the English covers for two of the magazines:

I posted this on the first thread before Jacob locked it and didn't get a response so i'll copy and paste it here.

So a question for Jacob or a Fakku staff. How will the release of chapters go for this new service? Will it be like Fakku books where it releases a chapter a certain day or will the magazine chapters be released in one go?

And another question I got, this one is important to me. If the answer to the question above is the first choice, will we be able to download individual chapters instead of waiting for the whole thing to finish then wait another week for a download link for the full content. I believe we should be able to download the chapters we want because like you guys said it wont cater to everybody cuz of different artist and different genres. So I think individual download of chapters should be a must.

I will support Fakku for making such a choice since it supports the artist directly and they can see the fruit of their labor and Fakkus as well. My only gripe is I hope the subscription fee ain't high. What I would like to see is a type of membership like $59.99 for a year or something. Oh and will this service have a DRM of some sort? If so that will be bad.

Hope to see a response :)

You had me at "Okara".

I assume that these releases will also be 100% uncensored as well?

Keep in mind that all of this is subject to change until we officially launch the service. Think of this as more of a preview.

@SpeedPunk
As mentioned above, updates will most likely happen daily as we finish the individual chapters, instead of one big update at the end of the month.

The rest of your questions touch upon details that would probably have to wait until we make the real announcement, since it's too soon to comment on things that have yet to be decided (like pricing). Offers like "$10 for one month, $25 for three" (example figures) make sense for a subscription service, but this might not be available right at launch.

@TrixieTang
Most likely, yes. The teaser chapters that have been posted over the last month should be fairly representative of what's to come.

Okara's chapter in July Kairakuten is insanely, mind-blowingly, unbelievably cute.

Can you expand on how you're going to handle controversial content in magazines?

Once you go full legit and start simpublishing, will you keep controversial content blocked by default? I'm talking about the 'Show Good Controversial Content' setting. I haven't turned it on yet but I can still see and purchase Hanafuda. Comic X-EROS #31 has a Gomennasai chapter according to the cover. If I get a mag subscription without having that option enabled, will that chapter be completely hidden for me even though I bought it? Will I completely be unaware of its existence (unless I notice the cover) or will its link only redirect to a 'does not exist' meme page? Of course I'll be turning that content on for myself because that artist is based, but I feel like it's unfair that the uninformed customer will miss out. I mean- the setting isn't very obvious to the new user. This might actually lead to harming artists' works. For example, Akatsuki Myuuto's (not Wani, just an example) Natsumitsu X Harem has loli only in its 3rd and 5th chapters. I remember, back when you had just (re-)removed controversial content on the site. For a while, only chapters 1, 2, and 4 were accessible. Even though the link and Western-approved tags for chapter 3 were still there, it just redirected you to smug panda/ Fakku-tan. This series has a connected story arc, so it really skrews up the development if you skip a whole chapter and the freaking ending.

I just didn't like the clandestine way you guys handled content blocking. It felt too much like secret panda bullshit. I really hope whatever final system you implement is more fair. Like how about actually prompting the user somewhere and not blocking anything for US accounts by default?

As I need to discuss with my comment again because former thread was locked and I don't think anyone will come to read this for sure. But it's just my idea of FAKKU (some are out of topic) I think it worth enough for everyone to read it. It's here....



PS. (Just off a topic. I sorry for this if it cause trouble in this thread.) I have little it bad about my debit card that I used to bought hentai comic. I will get in jail someday if my bank check my payment history and notice it suspicious for values of my spend (Only good thing is debit card will show statement only on internet banking and didn't sent statement to my house).

"Throws Wallet at Screen"

Part of the reason for the filtering is to protect users who live in countries with harsher censorship laws, so an off-by-default approach might not be the best solution. You raise some good points though, so we should look into ways to make it more apparent that the option is there for new users.


This is the first step towards achieving that. We're starting off with tankoubons and these two magazines, but in the future we will approach other manga publishers, as well as makers of doujinshi, anime, games, light novels, etc.

I spy Range Murata... My interest is peaked!

I just realized something... there's no Homunculus in that list. You guys have worked with him though, so what's up?

I don't think he published anything in the last few magazines.

Oh... okay. :(

Another point: works like NTR^2 are 100% controversial content. Blocking by default will sabotage sales, potentially skewing market analysis more biased towards non-controversial titles than it already is.

You should really just present the option at user registration or in the moment the user first encounters a controversial chapter. Then, have users agree to a TOS with some sort of indemnity clause to protect the site and place the legal onus on the them to interpret their own country's laws. At the very least, just leave the blocked-by-default for places where you're certain there are issues like the U.K. And if they have opted to keep it hidden, for personal taste, personal legal concerns, or in the event that this site is legally obligated to do so, then you should be more transparent when you have to censor things. Like, instead of 'Content does not exist' (which is totally a lie), display something like 'This work contains controversial content and has been blocked per user request. You have shit taste. To re-enable go to https://www.fakku.net/users/mspaint-6653013/books and click 'Send Gift'' while displaying exactly what was blocked and why. Or in some circumstances, 'This work has been blocked in your country. Get a better country.' This is the most honest approach to censorship since it gives the consumer awareness of the situation. It's like what they did to the Nazi Scenes in that South Park game for Germans.

I apologize if I sound too bitchy about little things. I'm really excited about this Wani Comics partnership and more so about the fact you are willing to publish everything. You're setting the model for how any western company in our hobby should handle these issues. In my opinion, you're so close to perfect and it's just these little things which I bring up that are in the way: user prompted settings, transparent censorship, and possibly IP location based policies.

That's actually a really good idea, I like that.

He has been making drawings for Wani for some time now.

I don't mean to be presumptuous, or anything of the sort, but I would like to suggest some potential ideas to you Jacob. I had recently posted a topic regarding the future that Fakku is heading towards. While I think it is great, there are quite a bit of things left untouched, primarily the portion of the Fakku community that is, and perhaps will always be, die-hard non payers.
Since the next step is to go towards a Crunchyroll-like subscription method, then perhaps it is possible to copy some more things off of their format. I don't know to what extent this would be possible, but there could be something similar to the early access that Crunchyroll-subscribers get. The same content would be available to those that do not pay, but there could be a placement of ads that will generate revenue. This could go towards the artists that create these works.
In addition, perhaps some content should be out-right available to only those that pay. Premium content if you will, or even additional content.

If you ever come around to reading that topic that I posted, it was not meant to offend you in any way. I appreciate all that is being done for this site, and in securing its future. To be honest, I came here three years ago not knowing what to expect, having heard rumors about hentai and whatnot, but it all drew me in. It is perhaps one of the greatest things to be able to speak to someone that has created such a place. Thank you, and please take my thoughts into consideration.

Are you guys thinking of licensing hentai videoes as well as manga?

This would also be awesome. I have an awesome voice for a cucklold husband getting mind break watching his wife get the bottom knock out of her ass out. Daughter also raping poppy.... i made myself sad.



Well that would be fucking awesome, but not feasible since printing would take a long time since there no local printer willing to print cartoon porn or Jacob would of done it. They tried for the next round of books.