Nymphet [Kodomo no Jikan]

[the.Merines]

Well done, Maids! Maids! Maids!. It just goes to show that Seven Seas, which I'd so held so highly after the little note from it's president about how they believe in keeping the original work without editing, etc. (which can be found earlier in this thread IIRC), simply caved in to social pressure from outside sources like vendors and angry internet usernames, which is really sad. Almost as sad as how long that sentence is.

[Vexx]

Well... in minor defense of Seven Seas... they made a business decision. For the overall health of their company it wasn't worth pushing the envelope here.
However, I think what really killed the project (and we'll never know for sure) is that when Jason went to discuss the controversy with the distributors -- I suspect he actually made an error in how he presented the situation. This speculation is based on his mis-analysis of the "over the line" events in the manga. So he shot himself in the foot with the distributors and vendors (who don't seem to have any issues selling all sorts of other titles that actually contain debauchery of various levels). Once that happened, SevenSeas was looking at a loss no matter what. Now he's shot himself in the other foot by trying to justify it by flipping through the book and picking a few pages that, on analysis, don't hold up to "over the line" when compared to many other popular series.

I still hold the instigators of the faceless bookburning mob primarily responsible (the amount of backpedaling and claims of innocence over at ANN is a hoot. I'm especially fond of all the posts that start "I haven't seen the manga but..."). SevenSeas would not have balked without it (they seem to hold ANN in some unrealistic level of esteem). SevenSeas *could* have taken the Del Rey Negima route, said that this was not meant for younger teens and shrinkwrapped it. That might have required temporarily shelving.

I think its ?hilarious? that Del Rey no longer shrinkwraps Negima though the actual levels of sexualization have skyrocketed in the series (not complaining though).

End result? I'll continue to read KnJ the "hard way" and my interest in buying their other title "kashimashi" just considerably diminished. I have no interest in their other products.
They need to relinquish the license for KnJ and not sit on it. I've heard another company might be interested in it but I didn't catch which one.

[the.Merines]

It just bothers me that they'd drop it totally, after volume 1 was totally done. I feel incredibly bad for the people who worked hard to put out quality translations, the editor/English language adaptors, typesetters, and everyone else whose work has gone for naught.

Heh, I guess if it was 3rd grade male students harassing a female teacher, it wouldn't receive as much attention... or would it...? Hm. >.< I do agree that they need to get rid of the license ASAP. Whether it's to another manga producer or dropping it outright so I don't feel bad downloading scanlations, I don't care.

[grgspunk]

The more I look into this, the more I embrace the concept of commiting genocide towards conservative people.

I'd say Seven Seas I just at fault for their cowardice as people who complain too much about anything. I was looking forward to reading He Is My Master too, but now I'm no longer convinced that they'll stay true to its original form, so I'll just have to boycott them altogether.

[Vexx]

Well.. be sure and label them properly. "conservative" people does not describe the group we're discussing here (I could be regarded as conservative). We're talking about people who don't have critical thinking skills and a strong sense of the liberties all should enjoy. They *want* to be told what to think and do. They want to prevent other people from being different.

That mindset applies to groups of people up and down the political spectrum. Some of our most absurd rules about entertainment and free speech come from "do-gooder" liberals who "think of the children" rather than thinking about the big picture. ((I don't guess some remember Mrs. Gore's stint into record censorship, or the DMCA, or the Clipper Chip, or the democrat ties with the mega-corporate entertainment people who want to create something called "intellectual property" and extend copyright unitl the Sun burns out))

[GammaRed]

Meny things in this froum have become a socal comintary on the state of things in both Canada and the U.S. And your compleatly right that conservitive dose not always = mindless drone.

I beleave that the power should always be in the peoples hands, but to counterpoint that, there should be ways to avoid abuce of this power. Because there is not, a small group of internet sights and naysayers have won a battle that should never have come to the frount.

That being said... Its time for some real action from the comunity who suports this title. Because I for one do not want to take this laying down. If SSE is not going to drop the licence and sit on it because of this whole situation. It is unfair to those whom are potentaly taking risks to obtain this media through other means while the licence is still held tight in the grip of a compnay that is afrade of its own shadow.

(The only way I would retract that they are afade is if they releaced the licence for others to pick up or leave it unlicenced)

I dont know wot else to say other than... this seems like an abortion to me.

[MakubeX2]

Preview of what is to come :-

[cyth]

After a few days of reading various discussions over the Internet, I don't believe the fault for this mess lies solely in the Seven Seas' camp. Actually, I think it's mostly our own damn fault.

Each and every hardcore anime fan I know has his/her overzealous side. We don't do well when our hobby gets criticized and this is what makes some of the American fans tremble with fear each time the press does a story on our "perverted hobby". As Tempest from ANN said, it's not the closet otaku that's going to be affected by the negative press coverage if they ever dug up this controversy, but the people attending conventions, people who are not ashamed of showing off their hobby in public. Our overzealous nature guarantees that we would cause a massive backclash against negative press critiques and that would only escalate the situation until we were to see it on Fox News.
That's just the way things work in journalism: Make a story interesting enough and people will take the bait. After that just ride the wave. If the American fans were to show some wisdom and constraint when dealing with harmful ("mainstream") media outlets, the whole "anime is pornography" stigma wouldn't have ever happened.

P.S.: I keep reading people's responses on this issue and most people are defending the manga saying it's not child pornography. So what if it was? It's drawn, it's legal. Period.

[grgspunk]

Originally Posted by MakubeX2

Preview of what is to come :-

Looking good there, MakubeX2. Be sure to tell us when you're done. I'm looking forward to downloading it!

[MakubeX2]

Originally Posted by grgspunk

Looking good there, MakubeX2. Be sure to tell us when you're done. I'm looking forward to downloading it!

Technically, the first chapter is done. Just need some cleanup.

But you'll see it once it's ready.

And we are targetting 1 chapter per every 1 or 2 days until we reach everything that had been published in Japan so far and that's the time where everything goes downhill to 1 chapter per month in accordance to the serie's monthly run.

[grgspunk]

Originally Posted by MakubeX2

Technically, the first chapter is done. Just need some cleanup.

But you'll see it once it's ready.

And we are targetting 1 chapter per every 1 or 2 days until we reach everything that had been published in Japan so far and that's the time where everything goes downhill to 1 chapter per month in accordance to the serie's monthly run.

Just two questions, although this may sound rather n00bish. Which FTP client do you recommend me using? Or is it downloadable via Bittorrent?

[togupheaval]

Originally Posted by MakubeX2

Technically, the first chapter is done. Just need some cleanup.

But you'll see it once it's ready.

And we are targetting 1 chapter per every 1 or 2 days until we reach everything that had been published in Japan so far and that's the time where everything goes downhill to 1 chapter per month in accordance to the serie's monthly run.

It looks fantastic early on. I can't wait to see the final results!

[bleakessence]

*first post: stalking this thread*

Well... as the saying goes: the more controversial something is, the more people want to see it...
(^indirectly saying that the ruckus ANN is causing over KnJ is making more and more people interested in it... nice marketing strategy XD )

@makube
erm... i'm also a newbie at internet stuff. how exactly can we know when you've got the chapters done and where can we DL them?

[Maids! Maids! Maids!]

Originally Posted by bleakessence

Well... as the saying goes: the more controversial something is, the more people want to see it...
(^indirectly saying that the ruckus ANN is causing over KnJ is making more and more people interested in it... nice marketing strategy XD )

Quoted for the truth. Let's think about this for a moment and consider the ramifications of the ANN forum's Pyrrhic victory. Anime/manga fans are an odd demographic -- even by fandom standards. They're disproportionally bilingual, (by necessity) extremely tech/Internet savvy, networked to the hilt, and one of the most anti-censorship populations on the planet.

Rightly or wrongly, ANN has a reputation of being very anti-fansub and scantillation. If this is true, how did they think this was going to play out? People who never heard of the title are now aware of it and curious. Angry Japanese-English literate fans are paging though the raws with visions of piracy dancing through their heads. Answerman's real name is all over the Internet, and people all over the world (again, rightly or wrongly) are angry with him. The people who would have purchased the U.S. release will now read it for free, and hundreds of people who never considered or even heard of the title will download the translated chapters.

[Vexx]

Why did I feel like playing something patriotic during that post?

[Diedrupo]

So ANN is full of morons and their actions resulted in Seven Sea's overreaction which resulted in the cancellation of this title.

Although honestly I have to say that i'm not going to miss it... But as a fan of free speech and a liberatarian who believes obscenity should be legal, I still believe this title should have been published.

[Vexx]

Hmmmm, "obscenity" has proven to be legally and morally hard to define except at the extremes. It isn't really that obscenity should be legal, but that trying to define the line in the sand always gets you in trouble.
For example, I think the doctrine of some religious sects are obscene, do I get to shut them down?

My son has this shirt that says something like "Sometimes the fools are in the majority" or something like that. They're often certainly the loudest.

[MakubeX2]

If anyone is interested.....

First prelimary chapter is out.

[FatPianoBoy]

I never read/cared about Kodomo no Jikan untilled I caught a whiff that something was amiss about it (still haven't read it, but I plan to), but from reading nearly this entire thread... I can't figure out for the life of me why Seven Seas didn't just sell the thing direct online. If the retailers got spooked, which is rediculous (like Vexx pointed out) because this appears to be the exact same thing as Lolita only now with over-the-top humor and pictures (and I can walk into B&N, pick that book up, and never get so much as a funny glance as I walk to the register. Heck, I got weird looks buying Yotsuba&! when it was still being released) then why not eliminate them? The internet is a medium for getting things out as well as shutting them down.

I used to find Answerman at least mildly amusing, but knowing that he made this big of a stink over something so rediculous when he could have been crusading against the extremely explicit BL series that keep paddling their way over here really makes me wonder. I'm a pretty conservative Christian type myself (don't get involved in politics, though), so it's interesting to see which moral issues get attention and which don't these days. Homosexuality is pretty heavily condemned in the Bible, but in the last ten or so years its become such that, if you find something wrong with it, there's actually something wrong with you. So now the target of people who like to raise a stink about such things is this paedophilia thing, with anyone who even glances at a kid a second too long being dragged out behind the barn and shot in the name of protecting our children. This is almost irrelevant here, since no real children are involved at all, and therefore there's no one to protect but the reader. Such people are afraid of one or all of these: That people will accidentally buy this for their eleven-year-old (these people should be forbidden to have children, not researching the kind of entertainment their children are exposed to - especially if they're that concerned about exposing them to things they consider harmful), that people with "special tastes" will get off on it and go out and grab themselves a real kid (like was mentioned before, they would have done it anyway with or without KnJ), or that this will convert otherwise normal people into paedophiles who will go out and try to snag the real thing. That last one is the only slightly legitimate excuse, and even it's pretty flimsy - especially considering that things like A Clockwork Orange have been popping up on highschool reading lists lately, which I think is far more disconcerting than a manga version of the very risque, but ultimately harmless, Lolita.

[Vexx]

We're having a special burning this week, all the clothing store catalogs contain pictures of young children that send shivers down the spines of "those people" so we must think of the children and burn it all