Anime & Manga News

Manga Author of Kuroshitsuji Deplores Moral Deterioration of the Fans

by dtshyk
Aug 17, 2010 7:56 PM | 164 Comments
Toboso Yana posted an entry in her blog about illegal manga and anime downloaders. She often receives letters from fans writing that "I borrowed scanned manga in ROMs from my friend wwww (i.e. lol)" "I've watched Kuroshitsuji on foreign video sharing sites!". She insisted that such acts are definitely criminal and stated that sending such letters amounts to an insult by saying "I love Kuroshitsuji, but I wanna let the creators starve to death."
"Quoting from Fullmetal Alchemist, it's against the rule of Equivalent Exchange to spend no money on anime making excuse that you cannot afford DVD or Blu-ray. ... Paying a little for rental DVDs or character goods will greatly help the anime and manga industry. Otherwise, we cannot continue creations."

note: Watching illegally uploaded anime on streaming sites is legal in Japan. Deliberate direct downloading is illegal.

Mangaka TAGRO responded to Toboso's post that it's encouraging to see such a distinguished creator has spoken out about the issue. Illustrator Shimada Humikane said illegal uploaders won't listen to her, but he wants the fans to refrain from talking openly about watching pirated materials.

Sources: Yana's blog, TAGRO's tweet, Shimada's tweet

20 of 164 Comments Recent Comments

I intend to buy anime. ._. But only the ones I am comfortable with my family taking off my shelf and popping in the DVD player.

Is it illegal to watch streamed anime? I don't download. I'm serious, someone please tell me. Because it's an awful lot of money to purchase it before you watch it.

I start by watching an anime on sites like Anime Freak(not sure if that is legal o.o) But I am going to buy the Durarara DVDs, that's for certain.(And they add up to like 150$ >.<) And Tsuritama when it comes out for DVD.

Jun 21, 2013 2:48 PM by WithoutIdentity

She's just a little butthurt over being trolled... She'll cool off eventually.

Nov 27, 2012 7:47 PM by Ochimusha

dtshyk said:

note: Watching illegally uploaded anime on streaming sites is legal in Japan. Deliberate direct downloading is illegal.
That's why I'm a streamer. *puts on sunglasses*

Aug 1, 2012 9:13 PM by Edefrem

What Yana is saying is true, whatever you think of it, its true.
Those of you who works because its fun and dont want to get paid for it, raise your hands please!
I love my job but I wouldnt do it for free, gotta pay my bills people!

This discussion is ridiculous and filled with ignorance and lack of knowledge.
And Im from the country where The Pirate Bay and Spotify was created.....

Also you cantl to work for free in my country, because that is called slavery. And slavery is illegal.

Whatever opinions I have on the subject doesnt cancel the fact that work=pay.

This is about (saw a comment on it earlier i think) making it easier to have legal access to the material, instead of downloading. for example Spotify.

And to be honest, I read scanlations and stream anime, but Im not that immature and irresponsible that im gonna try to justify what im doing by trying to make Yana Toboso the bad guy in this situation. I know that what im doing is not helping the industry, but i try to buy material when I have access to it.

TV= she gets money for it to be showing on tv, they buy the rights to air it.
Manga= well 2 ppl sharing a bought copy is better than 2 ppl sharing scanlation where neither paid for it. ?

Apr 23, 2012 2:39 PM by lillemmi

I find Kuroshitsuji boring as hell..
I understand the author not liking people reading illegal stuff, but he/she could be a bit less stupid with his "fans", afterall, they like his/her work.

Feb 25, 2012 8:08 PM by Raisu_

I didn't know that Anime fans outside of Japan are "this selfish" before reading their comments on this topic.

YagokoroEirin said:
There are two types of mangaka,the one who draw for money and the one who draw for self-sastifaction.

shadowsword said:

If I were a mangaka, I would very much prefer my work to be enjoyed and to have people who admire me for what I do instead of lots of money. Yana seems to think the opposite - I think she doesn't really like her fans.


Reading those idiotic comments made me just sad.
To them, drawing manga is just a hobby for self-satisfaction and making "fans who just admire her work and don't pay any money"
How dare they call themselves "anime fans" when they don't consider drawing mangas as profession?

Feb 22, 2012 9:53 AM by ddiddo

Pretty sure more than 80 % of the people who learnt about what she said weren't affected by it in the slightest.

Jan 5, 2012 3:09 AM by spinecollect

Funny, that she doesn't complain about how the people watching the anime at the TV airing are letting her starve, or two guys sharing a single manga magazine volume are letting him starve.

The anime industry is BUILT ON the fact that only a small percenage of viewers are paying consumers. This is just all about control.

Jan 5, 2012 2:56 AM by Alterego-X

Well even if she knows the truth she still gotta try to make someone flip sides.The author does realize the fact that there is illegal copy's t,makes her works more popular.Same think on music industry,do you think industries are expecting to make money from CD sales?Hell no,those days are long gone.They make money from concerts,rights and other stuff.Piracy will be there as long as there isnt a better way to make a product popular.Im not gonna make excuses like some lameasses,i dl anime and i will as long as they dont find a way to stop piracy and that's about it.

My 2 cents on this drama called piracy.

Jan 4, 2012 3:48 PM by RawElements

Jrittmayer said:
Queen_Stars said:
It's a viscious cycle she'll have to learn to accept until the world enters an era of peace (2012?).

I'm a Brit, we have Pokemon and I think, I badly dubbed Bayblade, they are our only anime!?
When Pokemon began back in teh 90s, there was a boom in anime, we had; Shin Chan, DBZ, Sailor Moon, Pokemon, Digimon, Bayblade and Flint the Time Detective, yet in only a few short years, they all dissapeared; repeats aren't even screened as the channels they belonged to have died.
We have no anime, yet were teased into getting addicted!

I have bough a number of boxsets of serise's I like (8/9, I gave one away?), yet how else can you decide if you like them if they aren't avaliable to watch or rent (our videostores are boring too), you have no choice but to watch via streaming or download.

Buying a series is another struggle; many serise's aren't picked up by the US and are not avaliable on DVD (Funimation distributes everything), therefor, we don't have the option of buying them down to the dreaded 'region code'; something else that needs to go.
Also, there are a lot of people online selling pirate anime boxsets (not Onepiece :P), passing them off as genuien.

If every country allowed its residents to view a serise, dubbed or not, on TV, there would be a lot more anime fans.
If there were no region codes, we could purchase from virtually anywhere easily.
The world is narrow minded and nowhere near united, so back to my first statement, she's stuck in a rut!

Talking about 'equivalant exchange' and 'starving to death' is just plain old odd and eccentric. Quite funny.
What's more funny; those openly admitting they watched illegally.
This author is welcome to come to England; she'll se how boring it can be. ;)


I'm American and even I'VE heard of Manga UK

One of many websites we have online that simply tells us when selected stuff are avaliable; scanning Amazon does the same job.
(Also, yes, I for one am aware of this site, threr are a few similar too)

There's plenty that hasn't been licensed and their are numerous of licensed stuff that aren't avaliable still.
Conbined with our TV networks here in the UK showing (virtually) no interest in the likes of anime (or world shows in general); how's anyone suppose to preview a series and know it's any good?

Large video rental stores hold a (very) small selection of only the very popular stuff in no particular order.

If you hope to buy a boxset from Ebay or Amazon for example, you pretty much have to have watched it online first, just as you'd watch a drama series on TV (Like me); that, or you'd just have to be REALLY confident you'll enjoy it based on discription alone?

No British anime viewers are pleased at only getting their anime fix online.
Honestly, research what's avaliable in the UK. ;)

iamnoone said:
You could always buy a region 1 dvd player or get a multi-region one and then import the dvds - play.com I recall sell region 1 anime. As far as TV is concerned, unless it can be sold in something other than DVDs, then it's unlikely to air if it can't be aimed towards children. Which is a shame in a way, the only broadcaster who I could see barely giving anime ago is the BBC. Also some of the channels you're necessarily referring to haven't died, they just got worse.

Sorry, didn't notice you...
I have a few legal, region free boxsets and am very greatful to own them, yet they're getting harder to find down to greedy corporations running sellers offline. I better add, I'm hopeless with technology, yet to be fair, things shouldn't be this difficult (I'm just really not a fan of region codes!).

As for channels, I assure you, these channels are dead:
- Toonami = dead
- Anime Network = dead
- Bravo = apparently use to show a (very) few stuff (a movie from time to time), but the channel is now dead
- Jetix = pretty much dead; bought out by another channel that doesn't show the small, child friendly stuff they had
- Sci-Fi/SYFY - apparently use to show the odd few stuff, but doesn't anymore; now and then, the Akira movie is on
- Channel 4/ Flim4 - they have a few Studio Ghibli movies on from time to time
American Disney XD and Nickelodeon apparantly have a few, child friendly stuff, but not ours. :(

Yet you have a point with BBC...
BBC 4 screen world shows and we're all charged for the BBC simply for owning a TV, so in a way, they owe it to us to explore anime. ;)

Sep 19, 2011 3:55 PM by Gleam_Queen

Looks like they were bragging how they got free animu/manga on their hands, anyways this is so trolololo.

Sep 19, 2011 8:09 AM by Lightyear8684

Queen_Stars said:
It's a viscious cycle she'll have to learn to accept until the world enters an era of peace (2012?).

I'm a Brit, we have Pokemon and I think, I badly dubbed Bayblade, they are our only anime!?
When Pokemon began back in teh 90s, there was a boom in anime, we had; Shin Chan, DBZ, Sailor Moon, Pokemon, Digimon, Bayblade and Flint the Time Detective, yet in only a few short years, they all dissapeared; repeats aren't even screened as the channels they belonged to have died.
We have no anime, yet were teased into getting addicted!

I have bough a number of boxsets of serise's I like (8/9, I gave one away?), yet how else can you decide if you like them if they aren't avaliable to watch or rent (our videostores are boring too), you have no choice but to watch via streaming or download.

Buying a series is another struggle; many serise's aren't picked up by the US and are not avaliable on DVD (Funimation distributes everything), therefor, we don't have the option of buying them down to the dreaded 'region code'; something else that needs to go.
Also, there are a lot of people online selling pirate anime boxsets (not Onepiece :P), passing them off as genuien.

If every country allowed its residents to view a serise, dubbed or not, on TV, there would be a lot more anime fans.
If there were no region codes, we could purchase from virtually anywhere easily.
The world is narrow minded and nowhere near united, so back to my first statement, she's stuck in a rut!

Talking about 'equivalant exchange' and 'starving to death' is just plain old odd and eccentric. Quite funny.
What's more funny; those openly admitting they watched illegally.
This author is welcome to come to England; she'll se how boring it can be. ;)


I'm American and even I'VE heard of Manga UK

Sep 18, 2011 5:20 PM by Jrittmayer

Both sides are equally stupid. It's like telling the guy who you stole from the other day "hey I took your money the other day!" and then the guy rants about how people can't steal.

Sep 18, 2011 10:06 AM by GodlyKyon

And i do think scanlating for free online is not that bad, i usually search a little about the manga before really buying it, or else i'll end up buying something i don't like. I like to check the art and even some characters before buying it. I do feel bad for the author, but it's really inevitable.
For example, Pandora Hearts manga. I imported the manga last month - and it was damn expensive -, that's because i read online and i fell in love with it, so i decided i should have it on my collection. If there weren't online scans, i would never even know the manga existed, wherefore i would never buy it.
Plus, i'm planning to import Kuroshitsuji's manga too, when i get money enough.

Sep 17, 2011 3:13 PM by Liinah

Let me tell you guys another funny news like this. (some peoples should already know about it)

- Author of The Breaker manhwa posted his disappointment on his blog about how his work has been translated illegally, even his rants pages (from volumes)

- Scanlation Group make a fuss over it and told everyone if author contact them directly, they will drop the project. (lol announcement)

- Someone sent email to author. "I love your work and blah blah blah. please let them scanlate and distribute your work for free" :D

- Author posted another blog entry with huge disappointment. (that was inevitable)

You see. that guy was genius and true fan to send email him directly for permission. s/he tried to resolve situation with legal method. :3

Well.. author didn't bother to contact scanlation group because he know even if this group drop his manhwa, someone else will pick it up next day.

Sep 17, 2011 1:07 PM by Han-yuu

Lulz, I remember this news.

Sep 17, 2011 12:36 PM by 09890

Oh, that's stupid. But the people writing letters telling her about this is even more stupid.
How she expect everyone to be able to buy mangas or anime dvds? Not everyone live in Japan, where it has everything, and not everyone live in another contries where it sells those stuffs, like me. I'm not rich to import manga from who-knows-where so i can read. I do respect and think it's better to buy it - and i do that with the mangas that are avaliable here where i live -, but it's not that easy.

Sep 17, 2011 8:30 AM by Liinah

well instead of we not knowing anything about it, i think even watching streaming episodes, you can
share it with ur friends
and the friends maybe even have money to buy ur stuff. and friends can spread among friends...

and if we just dont know about it
those friends are never gona know, and ur never getting ur money :I

Sep 6, 2011 3:28 PM by darknessneko

Watching illegally uploaded anime on streaming sites is legal in Japan. Deliberate direct downloading is illegal

this idea should be world wide thats would loosefunimation Grip on the Idustery in the US if one comply owns upward of Sixty per cent thats not a Helthy Market

alot of Natve sreatming sties are part owned by Insiders of if you pnay ofr a premuim member ship your paying PPV syle per say

like me i can watch animax i loe legaly as long a one of the Comapny that own Animax Now MY IP Adress like say for me badai to cyuase im i by alot of stuf f from Bandai's Visual emotion Club Web stie

comapy ownwd web stes hav been keeping IPs since wiiny and share were made in to big news

Sep 6, 2011 2:09 PM by DateYutaka

True, what kind of retard would tell the mangaka that they downloaded their stuff instead of buying...

I read manga and watch anime online. If I wanted to, I could easily buy it in the stores, but I HATE how they dub and translate them ( I end up saying, "THAT'S NOT RIGHT!!"). I do buy anime merchandise though...(If I like the series). People don't like buying stuff very much... which is why there are libraries. :O

I'd be glad to buy raw manga and anime, once I get around to learning Japanese well enough to, though...

Sep 5, 2011 5:29 PM by Mirorin

Related Database Entries

It’s time to ditch the text file.
Keep track of your anime easily by creating your own list.
Sign Up Login