Kimagure Orange Road Kickstarter

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Akage
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Kimagure Orange Road Kickstarter

Post by Akage »

It looks like DMP wants to release a new translation and omnibus edition of Izumi Matsumoto's Kimagure Orange Road.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/di ... ssic-manga

The campaign has just started and features all sorts of goodies.
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Re: Kimagure Orange Road Kickstarter

Post by Kame-Sen'nin »

Thanks for sharing; I backed the campaign. Now we just need someone to re-release the anime!
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Re: Kimagure Orange Road Kickstarter

Post by usamimi »

I am very Not Happy about this campaign, for several reasons:

1. DMP has been super shady lately. ALL of their manga has been released via KS lately, with no real breakdown of what the KS funding is actually paying for.
2. DMP crowd sources their translations, and lately they've become notorious for "forgetting" to pay these people for their work. Which makes the high prices they want for their KSs all the more suspicious--who's testing the money if they aren't paying their translators?
3. The KS says it's for the first volume, but if you read more, the rest of the volumes are the stretch goals. That means if all the stretch goals don't get unlocked, the series won't be finished.
4. They have stated in the comments that they have no intention to sell the printed volumes in retail stores. That they MAY have extra copies of volumes to sell in their online store & that's it. That means only people who back the KS AND manage to add on the other volumes to their order as they're unlocked will get them. So this classic won't be able to be enjoyed by the masses at all. Only people who can shell out all the money all at once for the series before the KS ends.
5. The fact that you have to wait til the other vols are "unlocked", then manually have to add them to your order yourself is pretty annoying. Having the rest of the series only available as stretch goals is annoying. The wholes thing seems like a mess.

I love KOR with all my heart, but there's no way I can afford to shell out money for the entire series in this fashion, and given how mediocre/terrible their first KOR ebooks were, I'm not sure if I trust them completely. Which kills me...I wanna support this series (I bought all their crappy ebooks!), but this seems like a terrible way to release such a classic. :cry:
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Akage
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Re: Kimagure Orange Road Kickstarter

Post by Akage »

usamimi wrote:1. DMP has been super shady lately. ALL of their manga has been released via KS lately, with no real breakdown of what the KS funding is actually paying for.
Not all their recent manga has been released via Kickstarter; Several yaoi titles such as Even so, I Will Love You Tenderly have been released outside of the KS platform. However, DMP is struggling financially, so seeing as how their last two KS campaigns made well over their goal, DMP probably sees KS as a solid way to make money without much financial risk.

Most of the corporately sponsored projects do not provide a breakdown of expenses. The Escaflowne Kickstarter didn't provide a breakdown, and DMP's last hentai Kickstarter didn't have one either. It's been a while since DMP provided a breakdown; The last one they did that I sponsored was their "Finder" release.

As much as I don't like it, I think companies using KS to fund future releases is here to stay. With Funimation's successful Escaflowne KS, I think it's only a matter of time before Sentai, Viz, etc. start launching their own fundraising campaign.
5. The fact that you have to wait til the other vols are "unlocked", then manually have to add them to your order yourself is pretty annoying. Having the rest of the series only available as stretch goals is annoying. The wholes thing seems like a mess.
It is. The way I see it is that DMP is trying to take advantage of the Indiegogo feature of "Keeping the money even if the project doesn't succeed" by starting with a low goal and then offering the rest of the series as a stretch goal. So even if DMP can only release two or three volumes, they could use whatever funds are left over towards the next volume(s).

TBH, the only reason I'm supporting this project is because I love Izumi Matsumoto. If he weren't such a cool guy, I probably would not be bothered to support this project.
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Re: Kimagure Orange Road Kickstarter

Post by Char Aznable »

Very tempted to back this. It looks like there are some genuinely great, albeit pricey, reward incentives.
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Re: Kimagure Orange Road Kickstarter

Post by usamimi »

Akage wrote:
usamimi wrote:Not all their recent manga has been released via Kickstarter; Several yaoi titles such as Even so, I Will Love You Tenderly have been released outside of the KS platform. However, DMP is struggling financially, so seeing as how their last two KS campaigns made well over their goal, DMP probably sees KS as a solid way to make money without much financial risk.

TBH, the only reason I'm supporting this project is because I love Izumi Matsumoto. If he weren't such a cool guy, I probably would not be bothered to support this project.
I should've said, "all their non-yaoi manga". ;)

I don't mind KS being used to help a smaller company, but the fact that they haven't been paying their workers, yet are OBVIOUSLY getting money from these KS campaigns is a bit worrysome. Even if people don't mind them not breaking down their finances, where's the money going if translators, letterers, & other crowd sourced employees aren't getting paid for their work on these books?

I love Izumi Matsumoto, but man, I wish they weren't treating his manga this way. It was kind of irritating to see DMP write in their email about this KS that this series had "finally proven itself" to deserve a KS, which...is a bit frustrating, considering what a classic series this is. His manga deserves to be treated well, and to be widely available. Not just doled out to a small circle who can afford it all at once. :/
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Re: Kimagure Orange Road Kickstarter

Post by Akage »

^ Aww...why no love for the yaoi manga? :lol:

The excess funds are likely going to not only keep the company afloat (and certain personnel paid), but DMP announced a couple months ago that they were expanding YaoiCon to the East Coast with a convention start-up in New Jersey slated for March 2017.

There are some good people that work for DMP that I enjoy working with, that are hard workers and do their best with the time and resources they have. They are the ones that want to do the right thing, and that includes paying for translators. But there is one person in particular that squashes their requests and I have found him very difficult to work with in the past. I could see that, in the case where translators are told that they're working on a voluntary basis, many may be under the impression that, if they do a good enough job, they might eventually be hired. And that's exactly what this guy wants them to think. When DMP brought over two doujinshi artists to Anime Expo last year, they worked them like dogs. The two artists were more or less forced to work in their "Hentai Paradise" lounge, which was really more along the lines of a stuffed panel room with workers manning tables to sell hentai in the back of the room, with the two artists were cramped in a corner in the front of the room. For lunch, they were given half a Subway sandwich and a soft drink, but were expected to work through that lunch. One of the artists complained that they couldn't give her a chance to go to mall for some shopping. The guest that DMP is bringing to Anime Expo this year, SAKIRA, publicly mentioned how upset she was that they couldn't fly her to the con at least in Premium Economy. While that might sound like she's finicky, at the same time, the Kickstarter for her books raised over 92K, more than double DMP's initial goal. I admit that it is very difficult for me to support DMP. But at the same time, Funimation and Aniplex also engage in shady deals and I've seen both of them run off with artwork that was intended to be sold to benefit charities. At this point, I don't know who to trust anymore.

I agree that it is unfair to release manga in this arrangement, and I also agree that corporations shouldn't be allowed to use Kickstarter to gauge interest or to treat it as a pre-sale. However, even if Kickstarter were to prevent companies from using its platform, there's always Indiegogo or another crowdfunding site to take its place.
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Re: Kimagure Orange Road Kickstarter

Post by usamimi »

:lol: I got nothing against the yaoi manga, no worries!

Yikes, sounds like a mess. I have a couple of friends who've worked for DMP who were never paid (even after being promised "the money is coming!"), and I've seen at least one person on Twitter who actually helped with KOR...and never got paid. So all this stuff def. doesn't make them look good. I'm also still kinda miffed that the last time I paid into a DMP KS, they sent me a book with missing pages, then made ME mail the book back on my own dime to send me a new copy (to " make up for it", they sent me a sticker...lol). I backed a comic anthology last year by a much smaller indie pub & when my book came damaged, they mailed a replacement at no charge.

With the Funi missing sketches, I can at least imagine it was one or two jerks who decided they wanted to take em & ruined it for everyone. DMPs KS campaigns seem to be one mess after another, and I wish it wasn't the manga that suffered because of it. That said, I DO hope that, maybe just maybe, DMP will listen to people and KOR won't suffer as badly as I fear it might. I want to be optimistic all around, esp for series I love. (But I didn't back Escaflowne for similar reasons as well ).
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Re: Kimagure Orange Road Kickstarter

Post by Animusubi »

I just saw this today...does any of the tiers (besides the redonkulous $1,400 something one) allow you to get all 6 omnibus volumes (once the stretch goals are reached)? I'm just interested in the manga, all that other "junk" is just fluff to me. I really don't care for items with the title plastered all over it, what they hell am I gonna do with it? I get enough con swag that just sits in a bag in my closet. My comp is old, so it lags when I visit the KS site.

The whole thing definitely looks like a mess. I'm actually more upset about it not being available to new fans and sold in stores, than I am trying to get the books myself. I was planning on buying the entire Japanese version anyways, since I want several of my series like that (like Patlabor, and Ranma 1/2). So if I miss out on this, ah well. It's rare to get a series from the 80's, let alone a title I feel would do VERY well with those who might be interested in it.

Bad form.
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Re: Kimagure Orange Road Kickstarter

Post by usamimi »

Since the other volumes are "stretch goals", if you just want just the books, you would have to manually add the tiers for "just the book" once they're unlocked, or so the comments in the KS say. DMP likes to make a confusing mess outta all their campaigns lately, so much so that even THEY get confused (case in point: they sent dozens of people who backed Unico the first time copies of Atomcat as well because the person packing orders didn't understand how the tiers worked!)

Yeah, I'm also pretty disappointed that not only will KOR NOT be sold in stores, but they won't even have it available in their online store, they said, unless they get "extra copies". DMP doesn't seem to give a crap about reaching new readers or even older ones that have no idea wtf Kickstarter is...they seem interested in printing just enough books to make a quick buck, then having a series go out of print forever. It's depressing. If they'd partnered up with Rightstuf or something, they could do a print-on-demand kinda thing like Tokyopop did for Hetalia or whatever. That'd be relatively safe & then people could order it & they'd still make a profit. I think it was Mike Toole who was speculating that they might not have warehouse storage facilities anymore, thus don't have anywhere to put a lot of books. If that's the case, I wonder how they still publish anything!

I had to laugh when someone pointed out yesterday that in their new reward tiers they added new Madoka figures...but you can order those off Amiami for a fraction of the cost (apparently they're having Matsumoto sign them but....I'd rather have him sign a copy of the actual manga, not figures! That Madoka figure doesn't even look very good IMO)

It's so conflicting because I WANT to support Matsumoto & KOR, but DMP has been treating their properties so badly lately & I just know if this one fails they're gonna be like "oh, see, classic manga just isn't popular enough! No one wants it if it's not Tezuka!" :roll: ugh.
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