Scanlations Part One: What the Heck is a Scanlation?

A scanlation is a scanned copy of a manga a fan has uploaded onto the internet.  These are usually translated from Japanese by the fans who upload them.  Unless they don't have internet access, your teens are most likely reading them.

Why Teens Love Scanlations:

• they can't afford to buy as many series as they want to read
• the series they want to read aren't available in the west yet.
• they've exhausted their school and public libraries' collections
• there's a big gap between when a series is released in Japan and when it is released in English, and they are desperate to find out what happens next.
• a series is out of print and it's impossible to get ahold of either some or all of it.

Where Teens Find Them:

Scanlations are usually done by a group of fans who choose a number of their favourite series to work on, and update their sites as they finish translating each chapter. 

Scanlations are also collected by websites set up for that purpose, and this is where most of the teens do their reading.  There are many of these sites, but most of them have discussion forums, an index of some sort, and a search bar.  Some sites also have an anime section, which makes them a one stop shop for fans, and some allow you to download anime and/or manga.  Several teens have come into my library with long faces after Mom banned them from reading scanlations because of all the viruses they've downloaded.

Doesn't This Violate Copyright Laws?

Yes.  The scanlation websites are often required to take down series.  The smarter ones do it themselves as soon as a series is released in North America.

Some western publishers are fighting scanlations with simultaneous releases of manga.  Yen Press started this around the end of 2011, releasing issues of Soul Eater Not in their online magazine, Yen Plus, the same day they came out in Japan.  Viz Media announced at NYC Comic Con 2012 that they are working to get their readers up to speed with Bleach and Naruto so they can start simultaneous releases of those series in their online magazine, Shonen Jump Alpha.  It's a smart move, and I really hope more publishers follow suit.


Stay tuned for part two of this series to find out how to use scanlation sites as a reader's advisory and collection development tool without breaking any copyright laws!