While reading today’s MangaBlog post I saw a post by Rob on his blog, dealing with what’s gone wrong with the manga industry. One of the things he says is that for the most part, the hate against OEL manga is unjustified, I disagree, to an extent.
The hate that many readers feel towards OEL has been self made by the publishers. Rob had this to say on it:
Where I part ways with a lot of hardcore manga fans is the perception of Original English Language (OEL) manga, work created specifically for the English-language book market by Western creators. As the above excerpt illustrates, hardcore American manga fans have always largely resented OEL manga, for no justifiable reasons. Too many manga readers would treat some amazing books, such as Steady Beat, East Coast Rising, Off*Beat and Dramacon with outright contempt, while at the same time opting for an increasingly pedantic selection of Japanese manga.
The problem is the way in which the publishers have gone about marketing and promoting OEL titles.
Many of them mix it in, and even label it as manga, they do the same with manwha and manhwa, something many fans despise (myself included). Tokyopop are prime examples of this.
Some publishers have cottoned onto this now, and some knew it from the beginning, splitting them into their own categories and marketing them individually. Sadly some companies such Tokyopop refuse to get with the times.
When fans buy manga they want it to be manga, not manhwa or OEL. It’s a matter of trust, we trust the publishers to correctly label the titles we’re buying. when we pick something up that’s labelled as manga we expect it to be manga. When we find it’s really an OEL or manhwa we feel betrayed, it’s breaking a trust.
I’ve made no bones about my dislike for OEL’s, only a few of them have ever impressed me. However I think that everyone should have a right to choose, if they want OEL’s then they can buy them, if they want manhwa they can buy them, so on and so on.
It’s not that hard really, I mean Tokyopop have been pushing their manga as 100% authentic with logos and stuff, such as this one on the Seikai no Monshou manga:
Why not do the same for Manhwa, Manwha and OEL’s, rather than trying to pass them off as manga, make a big fuss about them being Manhwa and OEL’s. Start to build a fanbase around them. Yes there will be cross overs, hell I’m a fan of both manga and manhwa and would buy both.
The thing is the choice, give the people the chance to choose what they buy, and stop trying to pass off manhwa and OEL’s as manga. Which, in the UK is illegal under consumer laws. I’m actually surprised they haven’t had problems over it already.
What I don’t agree with is the way some fans express their anger over this. I’ve seen OEL’s that have been defaced for example. This is wrong, and non-constructive. I’ve also seen OEL’s are being re-shelved with normal graphic novels. Again this isn’t constructive, what’s the point of re-shelving titles? All that does is piss off the store, and can get you barred from the store.
