This is an average-ish use case.
In February, I flew to Indonesia, then Taipei, then Japan, for a 2-week trip. I think I’ve seen more people reading scanlation sites in public in Japan in my 10-ish days there than I have all year in 2018. Probably because I spent some time in places where people do these kind of things (very long train rides, overnight in Haneda). And I’m pretty sure some of these people are 100% Nipponjin, plus the manga they were reading weren’t even scanlated, so I guess the topic isn’t even correct.
The blueprint for manga out of the ghettos of widespread digital piracy is unclear, but it’s definitely not the first nor the last IP category that has to deal with it. There may not be a blueprint but there are definitely a lot of good ideas and best practices. Well, it’s a problem afar from me since I barely read any manga these days–I’m too busy crying over dead idol groups to read anything. OK, maybe I am still reading some old-ass rant about some science fiction writer who thinks he is a hotshot. By most measures, in 2019, Clarke is about as insightful as the average Youtube commenter. The future will humble all of us, even major Japanese publishers. If that is not the relevant takeaway here then I don’t know what is.
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