JaneDrew sent me this link and SLURP it sucked up an hour of my life. So, what better to do than inflict it on all of you? Midnight Secretary is, well, kind of awesomely addictive. A secretary, a mysterious boss, insane demands, egocentrism, adorable looks hidden behind big blinky-owl glasses? Sound familiar? It’s like Harlequin: Presents crossed with manga and vampire romance.
Enjoy. Mwaaaahahahahaa.
ETA 9/2015 – it’s available legally! Legit copies! Oh, this is glorious. But again, I’m going to re-read and lose hours of my day. Oh, well.
Sounds awesome. Thanks
The group who’s doing the scanlation (scanning + translation) is link redacted.
*grin*
I second that evil laughter. It’s a fantastic amount of fun; great characters, great art, addictive story.
(and, yes, I am stalking the scanlation group’s website, eagerly hoping that they will soon get the next chapters finished)
JD
Great. Thanks. Like I needed another time sink.
Ah. A manga after my own Harlequin Presents-addicted heart. I love the scanlation site’s description of the male lead: “Kyouhei is a capable director, but his arrogance and sluttish behavior are almost legendary.” And he’s a vampire to boot. What’s not to love?
Why don’t you guys review it?
I LOVE Midnight Secretary! I’ve been following it on MangaFox.
It’s not only boss/secretary, but vampire too…and it works. Really well.
Oh, my god. This is too awesome. If someone took all of my guilty pleasures and wrapped them up in one package, it would be Midnight Secretary.
Yeah, I clicked this when you twittered about it. It fed into what was already going to be an all-niter. Sorry professor, I meant to study these images more but was sucked into a story about vampires and business deals.
Wow, that was several hours of awesome!
i tried but half the images wouldnt load for me 🙁 maybe i’ll try it again another day…
I actually just discovered this manga two days ago. 😛
I like it, but my personal favourite would be the josei (adult female manga) artist Yoshihara Yuki. She’s incredibly hilarious, and romantic, and also includes things like cross-gender and homosexuality in her stories, in a refreshingly non-condescending way.
Oh, it’s not finished yet? I was wondering why I couldn’t get any further than page 19.
I just spent the last 4 hours reading. CURSE YOU, BITCHES!!! *shakes fist*
That stuff was massive crack. I have it bookmarked and cannot wait for the next volume.
(BTW for those wondering, there are TWENTY FOUR volumes of crackity vampire boss/virgin secretary goodness.
So let me get this straight, you folks report on the evils of copyright infringement of ebooks via esnips, p2p etc but post a link to a site that is infringing copyright? Ok I can see how that is different. Japanese copyright doesn’t count.
Once again its a case of do as I say not do as I do with the romance community.
OH MY GOD!!
I just glommed that manga-ka last week. Yay!! Someone else can appreciate the utter cracktasticness of it. I wish that Aerandria gwould finish it. So sad that this is not being translated into English officially. But the art is very nice.
More josei!!
But is anyone else a little more curious about this whole vampire clan? hrmm
Amused: You’re right. You’re also an asshole.
In my personal answer to the question, “How do you say ‘noob’ in Japanese,” I thought that the artist had a part in the translation, because the comic in between each chapter that asked for more translators seemed to be drawn by the same hand as the manga itself, and I thought featured a younger version of the President.
After more diligent Googling, I was wrong. Boneheaded mistake on my part, and hence the redaction above.
But to paint the entire Romance community as hypocritical because I made a mistake?
Fuck you.
That was dreadful and trashy and I loved every minute of it. I had all this work to do and I just wasted like, two hours reading all that. You did this on purpose, I’m sure of it.
I have come to the conclusion that you are a very bad woman. >:[
I’m amused at Amused’s random finger pointing at the romance community on this issue. After all, it’s scores of anime fans and community members that spend their time translating media that is only available in Japanese.
Then again, maybe Amused makes condescending comments on their websites too.
Hoooollly shit. I will be up all damn night reading this. Ugh! morning53 – yeah it’ll be 5:30 in the bloody morning by the time I’m done.
THANKS ALOT… no really I mean it!
CRAAAACK! Not only am I addicted to this one, but there are hundreds and hundreds out there!
Curse you SB Sarah!
O and bite me Amused.
Seeing as how most of these ‘scanlation’ sites remove their content if the series is commerically licensed in English, I’d say the outrage over ‘copyright’ is ridiculous. As if any of us who don’t speak Japanese would ever be buying these in their original language. The publishers aren’t losing potential customers, they’re gaining potential fans in the event that these series ever do come over here officially.
Actually, speaking as author, and not because Amused isn’t an ass, (he/she is) but it doesn’t matter if it’s licensed for English or not-if the creator hasn’t authorized the distribution, it’s still piracy.
Sucks that English readers can’t legally read it, but I’ve got scores of people translating my books into other languages (illegally) and pirating them out there and when I take the proper channels to get them removed, I get all sorts of nasty emails about how I’m robbing/depriving people.
No, I’m protecting my work. If people want it translated, they need to take the proper channels and contact my publisher. It’s my work, I’m entitled to compensated for it. Piracy is getting ridiculous and I just made the decision to table one of my ebook series indefinitely just because of how outrageous piracy has gotten.
I’ve got a rough estimate that I’ve had about ten thousand illegal downloads of my books in the past two years. And I know I’ve spent hundreds of hours fighting to protect my work on sites that are pirating it.
People use all sorts of excuses-it’s not in my language, I’m too broke, and I can’t afford it, books are the only escape I have, I can’t find your books anywhere…etc, etc, etc. So they merrily download away, depriving me of thousands and thousands that I’m entitled to as the creator of the work. And here I am, considering on whether to go back to work part time, fighting to protect my work, and all of that means I write a whole lot less than I could.
This is a moot point-people are still violating copyright. I’m sorry, but they are.
Again, my experience, I’ve had pirates tell me, “but you have people then go out and buy two or three legit copies.”
That doesn’t matter. I can’t afford that kind of ‘free promo’ when I’m debating on whether or not to go back to work part time because my ebooks just aren’t giving the same income they used to-here I sit debating and I read all of these comments on message boards, Oh, I love sites like this…I used to PAY for these books and now I don’t have to. They are free!!!
Ironically enough, as pirating soars, that income drops, more and more.
If people want this series translated, they need to follow the proper channels and not explain it away. Otherwise, it’s still theft and nothing that is said excuses it.
(sorry, Pai, not really trying to come down on you, but people who engage in piracy hurt authors in ways they just can’t even imagine, and this Midnight Secretary thing does look like piracy)
/end rant
To Shiloh:
I’m a fangirl of yours.
Er, fanwoman.
Okay, make that old-lady fan *sigh*.
I’m so sorry you have to spend your time tracking down thieves instead of writing and I can’t believe the justifications people give for stealing from authors. You are way entitled to your not-a-rant and I hope the new year brings the financial rewards you need to keep you writing full time.
To “amused”:
The SB’s are stand-up women. An email to Sarah would have gotten the same result without making it obvious how petty and juvenile you are. Trolling a site just so you could jump on someone is a suck-ass way to exist.
To Joann:
I’m a fangirl of yours. I ? Joann.
Yeah. Tell me about it. 😐
*Sigh* And I was enjoying this series so much. Lost an entire writing day because I got sucked into Midnight Secretary.
I was unaware of the dynamics of the website. If it’s illegally uploaded material, I’m going to stop reading it. I have to agree with Shiloh on this one. Piracy is piracy, and theft is theft. If the author isn’t getting paid, it ain’t right.
My books have been translated into Estonian. Estonian, for cryin’ out loud. And I got paid for that, and my agent took his cut, because it was done legally and legitimately by an Estonian publisher. That’s how I make a living, and I cannot support taking money away from other authors and agents, even if their work would not otherwise be available in English.
Thanks for wanting to share, because it was vastly entertaining, but I’ll wait for the authorized version.
I think Tokyopop has picked up this manga, so hopefully there will be an authorized English version coming out in the next year.
Until it’s in English for me to buy, it’s all fair game.
Harsh as that is, I love Manga and Anime. But I simply CANNOT get it here in the US for a while. And even then it’s usually Westernized. I appreciate the scanilations and the translations which include the explanations of humor that we don’t pick up because it’s not our culture.
It sucks that people are swiping eBooks. But it’s not surprising. The value of literary work and artistry and musicality is simply “Do I want this? Yes? Then I will take it.”
As a culture we don’t really put a high value on the arts. We don’t see it as a business lifestyle. It is simply ENTERTAINMENT.
Now clearly on THIS site that is not true. But the smartbitches readers are STILL a small portion of the whole of the Western world.
Change the minds of people doing this, change the cost of books in general (WTF… $10 for a PAPERBACK??? Does it sing and dance out the scenes?) and you’ll see a return to steady book buying.
Crap! Add me into the noob club. I’ve been devouring on-line manga since I discovered it this past summer. It never once occurred to me that it was pirated.
I has caused me to buy the very few examples of translated manga that I’ve been able to find in bookstores. They all seem to be aimed at kids, none of the josei stories seem to make it to my neighbourhood.
Now I’m wondering about PVRs and their pre-cursors, VCRs. Is recording a show for later and repeated viewing a copyright infringement? Or does that only happen when you share your recordings with friends, instead of making them record their own?
Re: Anne’s comment
It’s been licensed? Really? That is FANTASTIC! I have been hoping that it would come out in English.
I feel like I’m kind of coming late to the discussion about fan-made scanlations and the legality thereof. I would like to point out that this particular website (OneManga) not only notes on the pages of licensed manga that those works _are_ licensed in English translation (and by whom) and tells fans to buy the official versions, they are also quick to remove scanlations when the publisher requests that they do so. In my experience, that’s the position taken by responsible scanlation and fansub groups. The fans are not making any money off of their work—they buy the manga in the original Japanese, and all of the translating and copy-editing and text-placement, etc., is done in their spare time.
Meanwhile, US publishers of manga track the popularity stats on scanlation websites when they’re deciding what to spend the time and money on translating and publishing over here; much better to pay for rights to publish something you know has a built-in fanbase.
I honestly don’t know what the Japanese opinion of English-language scanlations is. It’s not exactly like doujinshi (fan-created manga, using licensed characters, which are sold very openly, including at major conventions and in bookstores), but I suspect it’s similar. Am happy to be corrected if anybody knows better on this one. There was a great article about this in “Wired” magazine last year that talked about doujinshi and copyright law in Japan which makes some points I suspect are also true for scanlations:
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/commentary/circuitcourt/2006/08/71597?currentPage=1
That same issue talked more generally about the history and current status of manga in the US, and about why the Japanese publishing/US-fan/US publishing relationship has evolved the way that it has.
My personal opinion is that scanlations are a way to introduce a new audience to manga which otherwise might not ever get translated. I can’t read Japanese; I don’t have time to learn to read Japanese. For stuff that isn’t translated into English yet, the best I can do is read the translation work done by fans, and hope that someday the stories I love make it to my local bookstore, where I will eagerly snatch them up in order to spend several hours gleefully enjoying the tale of a perfectly professional secretary and an arrogant, womanizing vampire.
JD
(hmmm… sorry; that turned out rather long and rambly…)
Scanlations are illegal, that’s undeniable truth. There are scanlators out there that scanlate manga which will never get published in English (for example series from the 70s or 80s or not mainstream enough), that’s true – but they’re still stealing and not asking the mangaka or any representative.
Sometimes in the case of fan-written visual novels or manga which hasn’t been professionally published the authors are quite pleased to be translated and give their permission, but most published authors don’t.
If you don’t know where to get Manga that suits your taste or even what English licensed manga for what tastes is out there, there are some great resource sites like
Mangablog
Manga Recon
Slightly Biased Manga
And if you’re also interested in the Japanese manga scene, there’s Manga Cast with a view at Japanese and US releases.
Genres for romantic readers would most probably be shoujo (for girls) and josei (for ladies).
Thanks, Estara! Those are great links. I wasn’t familiar with the last two, and they look like great resources for tracking down new titles and titles getting published in the US.
Now if I can just figure out a way to get the local public library to start stocking more manga…
JD
Re: Anna
I hope that Tokyopop DOES NOT HAVE the rights to it because it most likely will not be published in the US since TP is in serious financial trouble and is laying off personnel and delaying/stopping releasing the manga they have no. That is why most of my manga collection is from Viz Media.
And the sad fact is that this is the same opinion of those who want to read my work in Spanish or whatever else it’s being translated into.
The sad fact that thousands and thousands of translated, pirated files of my work are out there.
And that’s money I don’t see, and yes, I’m entitled to it. It’s money that might have been able to keep me from debating between giving up some ebook writing and going back to work part-time.
Piracy is still piracy. Wrong is still wrong. There are legal channels people could try. If the scanlations of these works aren’t licensed, then it’s stealing from the author, no matter how pretty a spin is put on it.
I’m sorry, but considering I spent half of the past work week fighting pirates-yes, half…as in 20+ hours that weren’t spent writing books, I’m not going to see anything beyond the fact that it’s copyright infringement…and that’s kind of the same thing people came down on Cassie Edwards so hard for. She benefited financially, true, and I don’t know if those translating these works benefit, but it’s still violating copyright. They may not be claiming ownership of the author’s work. But it’s still violating their copyright.
Here’s one way I look at it, when I’m trying to explain it from a non-writer point of view. Imagine you’ve got a friend that lives in a huge, really cool house…kinda like Roarke’s maybe, a pool, a theater system, whatever. The friend gives you a key and says “You’re allowed in whenever you want. But please don’t copy the key. You can invite a friend or two in, but don’t copy the key and pass it out left and right. It’s for your use.”
This key is an all access pass. You can go whenever you want. You can bring friends.
But then, after receiving the key (:ie: buying the book), bringing friends with you (lending one book to a friend), you’ve got more friends who want inside (want to make copies, illegally distribute/read/upload/download).
But you can’t be there to escort them in (you’ve only got the one copy of the book and you can’t lend it to everybody, or the people who want to read it don’t speak English but a friend can translate)…and you really don’t want let go of YOUR key, because you want to use it whenever…so instead you make copies and hand it out left and right. People, uninvited, go in whenever and then THEY make copies to pass out.
You’ve violated a trust and you’ve also aided an illegal act-because those who weren’t invited in had no right being there.
Buying a book comes with a trust, whether people want to see that or not. Authors trust (or rather we hope) that people won’t violate our trust, they will respect our right to earn a living.
When you pirate, whether you’ve illegally uploaded, scanned, downloaded, whatever your excuses are, you show us no respect for the work we do. Even if you love every word you read and praise that author to the roof, you haven’t given us the respect we’re entitled to and you’re impacting our way of life. You’re impacting how we view our careers. You’re impacting our careers.
That is no way to show respect and it doesn’t matter how you pretty it up or explain it away.
Loving a book is wonderful-but you loving an illegally downloaded copy of my book doesn’t help me meet my obligations as a person. It doesn’t help me provide for my livelihood. It doesn’t help me feed my kids, clothe them, buy all the nice things every parent wants their kids to have. It doesn’t pay my bills, it doesn’t pay for the money I put into my career.
It’s empty-actually, it’s worse than empty. It’s a vacuum and it takes from me. Sorry, but that’s how I see it, and I imagine that’s how a lot of other authors see it.
Am I blind? Where did the link go?
No it wasn’t. A bunch of the stuff that Edwards plagiarized was in the public domain. She was dinged for lack of attribution, and for copying—not for copyright infringement. Edwards would not be any better of a person if *everything* she’d copied had been public domain. She would just be immune to suit from copyright infringement.
What is legal and what is moral sometimes overlap. Clearly, Shiloh, what you’re talking about is both illegal and immoral, and it really sucks to be in that situation. Sorry to hear about it.
But it’s not the same moral sin as plagiarism. One of them is the sin of failure to attribute, and passing someone else’s work off as your own.
The other is … well, it’s not respecting the authors right to control the distribution of her property up to the point of first sale. But it is most definitely NOT the sin of “depriving an author of revenue.” I don’t think borrowing books from a library is a sin—or swapping books with friends—or buying a book used. And those all deprive of an author of revenue.
If you want to explain why illegal copying is also immoral, you need a better argument than “it’s robbing me of revenue.” Because there are a lot of legal, moral things people can do with books that will reduce your revenue.
I have no problem with libraries, and I have no problems with swapping books.
That doesn’t infringe on copyright.
Perhaps Edwards wasn’t a good example.
I can only admit that I’m not going to see shades of gray when it comes to piracy. It’s hit me too hard.
Juanita, the link was pulled. I’m not entirely clear on all the details, but it doesn’t look like the site that did the translations had the legal right to do so~ Sarah pulled the link after a snide comment by Amused way up yonder.
@Shiloh:
I don’t think we disagree all that much. What I’m trying to say though, is that if you’re trying to reach the people who pirate—the generation of kids that’s growing up thinking that if it’s online, it’s free and there’s nothing wrong with it—you need to use a different argument than “It’s cutting into my revenue.”
Because these kids don’t know what it’s like to be an author, have never thought about it, and what they’ll hear is: “She just wants her money.” And of course, they don’t give any thought to what it means morally. In fact, most kids these days don’t see copyright as a moral thing in and of itself.
All I’m trying to say is that emphasizing the creative end of it—and respect and support for the author, as opposed to the revenue stream—is probably more likely to get through, and more likely to have an effect on the mindset that is causing the problem in the first place.
It’s not about black and white or good and bad. It’s about effective and ineffective, and quite frankly, if we want this business to survive, we’re going to have to convince enough people to pay good money for something they can get for free.
Well, yeah… you hit the nail on the head all around there.
What really sucks is that explaining to people that something was wrong DID used to have an effect…right? I’m not totally delusional, right? (see my hopeful look?)
No, you’re not delusional! I think the problem is trying to find a way to explain it to them that works needs to focus less on the money and more on the control. It needs to be less about earning a living and more about “this is my work, and if you translate it into Spanish without my permission you might do a crappy job and then someone will think I am a bad author.”
After all, even if the author has a bajillion dollars, it wouldn’t make it right. If, for instance, someone pirated J.K. Rowling, of course it wouldn’t change her lifestyle or make her have to get a job and reduce her writing time. But it would be just wrong. And fans probably don’t realize how little money writers make, and how long it takes to write a book.
I think the most important thing is that if the fans feel like it’s us versus them, authors versus readers, they won’t give a lot of the author’s rights credence. I think a big part of what happened in the music industry is that the RIAA went so extreme that people felt like it was their moral *duty* to pirate.
It’s a hard problem and if I had easy answers, I’d be very wealthy right about now. 🙂 But I do think it’s important to try to talk to these people in language they can understand and respect.