[Locked] FAKKU State of the Union 2016

Screw this shit, I'm outta here.

This has been suggested before, but would probably not be a good idea in most cases, especially once we start getting more content. With ~50 chapters per month now and more in the future once Fakku can get more partners on board, it's more than likely that you'll find more than 13 (or 6, with the $2 option) chapters you'll be interested in in a given month, which would already mean that you'd pay more than the current subscription fee.

i've been a subscriber for a few months now but i do think $12.95 is a bit too high.. heck even netflix is only $10. I am looking forward to more content and to whatever the fakku team has planned for us this year so I will stick around a bit longer.

Yep, there's an important distinction to be made between content actually being free, versus not paying for it. We've had the latter all this time. It was never free, because those providing it didn't have the legal right to do so. Not saying I didn't partake as well, but I'm not so entitled to think that something is being taken away from me, as if I had a right to it.

Fakku got me as a member by giving me a way to throw money at my favourite artists of a particular type. Adult. I could buy Lone Wolf and Cub, I could show Kishimoto when Naruto lost me by not buying it anymore-- now, I can let NaPaTa and Homunculus and others know that they have fans outside their homeland.

Speaking as a writer trying to hack out a living with his own words... maybe it's just easier for me to wonder if maybe the new debuts in the last X-Eros are there because the Wani editors thought they had a little extra cash to risk because of the Fakku deal.

Because I've sat there wondering if this will be the month the freelancing will let me quit slinging coffees for other people all night. Hoping that next time I'll be writing my own script instead of doctoring someone else's.

As an artist, I can't help getting a little less sure that'll happen when a 'fie on you if it's not free ' post is made.

Without referring to the content being unlicensed hence Illegal for Fakku to have on site, while trying to be Legal.

First and foremost, Most of those content wasn't uploaded or worked by Fakku themselves. Hence creating all kinds of hoops Fakku has to do to keep them in the site. It's much easier for Fakku to remove them completely and have the authors themselves confirm that they want it.

and Second, Some of those are chapters from competitors Magazines of the sole publisher that fakku is currently partnered with.

These are all moot if we refer them back as being Illegal.
As if Fakku did that, it will be Like Steam if they had a free torrent section filled with games that they don't have license to sell. Or Crunchyroll having anime episodes uploaded without their licenses.

Yes, Fakku is thinking about the artists, Remember Bosshi? Who was invited to attend Anime Expo. Fakku made that possible.

I get what your saying, but backdoor in subscriptions using PayPal won't change them not finding out. It still using an adult service with a payment comany who said no. It only take one person ratting Jacob out to screw all of us. Square Enix doesn't sell or provide porn so they won't get banned or sued. I'm sure if it was possible then Jacob would of did that over paying credit processing fees.

Yeah if Fakku wants to appear legitimate to everyone, then they can't be trying to use loopholes or workarounds. It's a shame they can't use Paypal, but it's not for a lack of trying. Like it or not, adult content is treated differently.

Been a silent Fakku member for 4 years wish I could stay or in fact afford the subscription, but as a college student doing classes and working around the schedule I just can't afford it, wish I could. I hope Fakku continues for many more years.

This honestly makes me really dissapointed. While I understand and respect your decision, with all my subscriptions with Hulu, Funimation, and Crunchyroll and other bills I just can't see spending an extra $12 a month. While I'll simply purchase a book sooner or later a subscription is a no go for me.
Jacob, thank you for the many years of entertainment you've provided me with this site and good wishes to it as it takes this step.

god damn this thread lmfao

Read through every post on here, gonna reply to a few things I saw that I think I can answer.

Just a small brief blurb about who I am (cuz I tend to get "who the fuck is this guy?"):
I'm a web developer at FAKKU who has been working at FAKKU for a year now. Before FAKKU, I worked at Digital Manga Inc for a year. Before Digital Manga, I worked for Anime Expo for almost 5 years. I have extremely close ties to a large number of Japanese companies within the anime and manga industry.

Why can't you offer PayPal / Circumvent their rules by doing donations / points?
PayPal allows merchants to sell physical adult products, but once you start doing digital products that are of adult nature, that is where they draw the line. For them it's seen as a high risk. There have been waaaaay too many instances over the years of people buying porn and then doing a chargeback. Or using stolen PayPal accounts to pay for porn. On top of this, the banks and credit card companies PayPal works with also don't really like it. So they allow put pressure on the situation.

In regards to trying to go around their system by doing "donations" or points. It's still the same situation. We are still as a result of that "donation" or point purchase allowing you access to digital 18+ content. PayPal does have a group of people that monitor things like this. It's not worth the risk of possibly losing PayPal all together.

Why did you have to remove parody doujinshi? They aren't licensed anyways.
There are a few reasons.

1) We have had a few instances now where Japanese companies we've wanted to work with have straight up told us: "not until you remove parody doujinshi". Why would they say this? Well, a number of these companies work with the companies that produce those series being parodied. They do not want to risk ruining their relationship with them in Japan by associating themselves with a company freely distributing that content.

2) Doujinshi are only allowed to exist in Japan due to the fact of how they are released. Doujinshi are released in limited numbers and only during a specific period of time (typically only at an event). This is the absolute reason why it's allowed in Japan. Once you start allowing unlimited quantities of parody doujinshi to be sold, that's when you have a problem.

Bye Fakku
Cya :) hope you will give us a chance one day. Happy new year.

It's too expensive / more expensive than netflix
When netflix first came out with their streaming service, it was pretty terrible you know? You were given one hour of streaming per dollar spent on the monthly subscription. The smallest plan was $16.99 which gave you 17 hours of streaming a month. Keep in mind by this point, netflix had already been operating as a highly successful subscription service for physical discs. By the time they went full digital they had enough subscriptions, and no longer having the cost of physical disc operations, to allow them to reduce the price to $8.99/mo, Which then increased in Oct 2015 to $9.99/mo.

* But it's not the same price as Japan's version.
We are still new. Our team is still small. We have to translate, re-draw sound effects, typeset, prepare for digital distribution, have meetings with the artists to make sure it has their approval, and in some cases having to go back and change things if it doesn't.

All of this takes time. These things are done by our small team of only 10~15 employees.

I only support things that aren't censored or changed for US release.
All our content is uncensored (no black bars, no glowing dicks) and are not changed from their original source material in Japan. We do not change relationships of characters, we do not remove chapters. We strive to make sure our content is on par with Japan.

You are going to lose traffic.
We are aware of this. We knew this since day 1. It's still a necessary step to allowing us to support the artists by providing a legitimate method of consuming their works.

The artists don't really make money.
I can assure you they do and are really shocked that their works are selling outside of Japan. Most artists in Japan are pretty humble and learning that they're popular overseas has a huge impact on them.

Can you allow us to pay with another currency?
I can look into it, but off the top of my head I want to say it's not possible since our bank is based in the US. So a conversation still has to take place. We will have other methods like Bitcoin though, which don't have to worry about such things :)

I want to try before I buy.
We have some ideas about this, but we have to figure it out both logistically and technically.

Guest Passes
I'll bring up the idea during our weekly web team meeting.

I only support artists through scanlations.
I don't know if there's some kind of confusion about scanlations or what but just purely reading scanlations online does not support the artist in Japan financially. Scanlations are produced when someone buys the doujinshi, scans it into a computer, removes the japanese text / cleans the pages, translates the text, and adds english text. Then they zip it and upload it online. The only point in this process where the artist is supported is the initial person (1 person) buying the doujinshi. Even then, most the time this doujinshi was purchased from a third party store who bought it 2nd hand from someone else. Having a digital platform for allowing us overseas to legally support their works allows us to have a constant method of supporting the artist.

FAKKU doesn't read any of our posts / feedback
How am I replying to that post then? ;p we read everything you post on the forums. We take your feedback very very VERY seriously. But when your feedback is "keep scanlations / parody works" we honestly just can't. I'm sorry. I love parody doujinshi as much as the next person but we HAVE to do this to move the industry forward and allow a legitimate method for fans to support the artists in Japan and allow us to work with more companies.

I can't remember my favorites
We have had an export function for favorites for a few months now. We also put out an announcement saying to export before we made the switch. I know some of you may not have seen it though. We will talk about this during our meeting to see if we can maybe come up with a solution. In the meantime, try throwing your favorites url into Wayback Machine on Archive.org.

FAKKU is dead
Actually, it's the beginning of something beautiful. When you buy a book or subscription on FAKKU. A percentage of that cost goes back to the original artists. This allows you, as the fan, to support your favorite artists.

On top of this, we now have the ability to show a lot of artists in Japan that their works are popular and will sell overseas. For the most part, doujinshi artists currently view the rest of the world as a bunch of pirates, who don't want to support them (supporting financially is way different than just saying you like their work). Word is already spreading between artists in Japan that FAKKU gives them the ability to sell their works to the english speaking world. This is great because it gives us the ability to provide you, the fans, with more content.

This is just the beginning. We have a ton of awesome things coming soon :) I can't really go into detail on them right now but major things are happening.

Thanks for the very detailed response, Kisuka. Is it at all possible that we could get some more feedback from our impact on the industry? I think it helps us build confidence in your business. People will surely look at what you've said and just think "Well that's nice but you can't prove it". And more importantly for loyal fans it's great to see that we made a difference somehow. I don't know if it's asking a lot but I hope it can be done.