Scanlation is not popular with the anime and manga license holders. They see it as an enhanced form of piracy.
They may or may not be right. The debates remind me, very much, of the debates going on in the music industry.
Fan site Bleach7.com has been caught up in the drama. It was once the number #1 site for fans around the world to go get hold of the latest Bleach comics or animation. It’ll take, for example, UK shipping years to catch up.
The site is down and likely gone forever.
Why?
A clue can be found on Mangatoshokan where Bleach7 sourced some of the manga.
A message titled “Change of Direction” reads:
We hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but due to mounting legal pressure, we have been advised to remove all series serialized by the publishers in the coalition. This was a very difficult decision to make, and one we did not take lightly. Unfortunately this means we have had to remove the majority of our library, however we have been able to retain some manga, as well as most of our manhua and manhwa. We will be shifting the focus of the site more to manhwa and manhua (Korean and Chinese manga). For some of you, this may be your last visit to MangaToshokan, but before you leave we would appreciate it if you could fill out a short six question survey that we are going to share the results to the publishers. If nothing else, we hope it will make them aware of the consequences of their actions. Also if you could pass this survey on to other people we would appreciate it. Again, we apologize for this, but we don’t have any other options at this point.
Where do you find Bleach with Bleach7.com down and gone?
The alternative for fans who want to preview a Bleach arc before buying the DVD means risking dodgy torrent lands or file shares.
The good news is there are pay-to-view services like Crunchyroll that now have Bleach. In fact, Crunchyroll is a good bet going forwards.
There would likely be a market for license owners providing offical pay-to-download services across the States and Europe but, so far, none of them seem willing to step up to the mark.
