This morning, I would like to issue a public letter to all otaku in America. I hope you will be empowered by it.
As a fellow otaku, I am deeply saddened over the closing of OneManga.com. I have been to the site since last year, and they have allowed me to go around the world and see manga that I would have never seen on my own resources. This will eventually hurt not just us, but the very beings that wish this to happen. In a tough economic climate, we all need things that can take us away from the fringes of reality. Manga is one of them. I strongly believe that with this move, new manga, in which the future is, will never see the light of day, and be placed into the trash can, making way for more promising projects to suffer the same fate. This will lead to a chain reaction until eventually, people will think of anime the same way Americans treated the gaming industry of the 80s – a passing fad, never to return. This is the future I don’t want to see happen. Manga no longer belongs to the Japanese people. Manga belongs to the world. And if these publishing companies have a heart, they should not be acting like it. Otherwise, somewhere down the road, the sales figures for manga will be as worse than they thought. It’s your call. It’s absolutely your call.