Categories
Manga

Going Beyond Scanlations

Kotaku has a great piece about how people working at producing “scanlations” (the unauthorized scanning and translation of manga) who are now trying to get publishers to actually hire them. Interesting to see the struggle happening — as well as the view by some Japanese publishers that when something gets scanlated, that it may no longer be worth publishing a proper edition in that language.

Categories
Books Web

Mystery Writers of Japan

decagon-01

I’m currently in the process of reading Yukito Ayatsuji’s The Decagon House Murders, a mystery novel that was recommended to me by my wife, as Ayatsuji is her favorite mystery novelist. Earlier this year I had done a bit of research about the world of mystery novels in Japan, and Decagon even kicks off with a forward that takes a look at this history. I was very happy to see last month that the Mystery Writers of Japan association — yup, a real association that has quite the pedigree — launched an English website, that shares info on all of the novels that get English translations. A great resource if you’re interested in Japanese mystery novels.