Media
New, official, subscription-only shoujosei platform
About to start a new, subscription-only platform for shoujosei with no additional purchases (except custom tipping, which is completely optional), and I intend to keep it subscription-only.
I'm starting very very small with a handful of series since the licensing fee per title was much, much more than I had initially anticipated, and this is without considering the translation and editing costs.
Should this little venture turn out to be successful, I'd love to license more and more series, especially shoujosei isekai manga, since those don't get the love they deserve.
Whoa that’s amazing! I’d love to support it! Will it be a website or app version? Will you give us a list of series you intend to license? It will help a lot for people deciding if their favourite series are on the platform.
For now it's a website. And yes I'll let you guys know which series we're licensing but tbh don't keep your hopes up since I can only afford very few (and even those few cost thousands of dollars in licensing fees) 🫠
100%, when it comes to indie publishers. For platforms like Webtoon, Mangaplus, Tapas, etc. It wouldn't cost much since they are already owned by parent companies like Naver, Shueisha, Kakao
For now, there's no plan to start a Canvas-like platform (tho id love to do so in the future). However, I do plan to personally approach independent artists, I prefer working with them more compared to licensing with publishers since publishers tend to take a huge chunk out of the licensing fee and revenue
I like the idea of a subscription-only platform. I was excited about Manta and subscribed only to discover that a significant amount of stories are still pay-per-chapter which annoyed me a great deal. Let me know once you have launched and I will take a look.
Tbf some larger companies are starting to use AI for everything so they're probably just being a little cautious but I'm glad you only use humans! Also I'm really interested in this kind of venture, if you ever need any extra hands I'd be willing to volunteer some help!
Thank you so much! For now I've assembled a team and we've already started working. There aren't many projects atm so I don't require a lot of people. I can't, in good conscience, use AI even if it would save me quite a bit of money, as it goes against my principles. It's a great privilege to be able to provide a means of livelihood to people, no matter how small it is.
It's alright, you just asked what a lot of people havd probably been wondering. I honestly wasn't aware other platforms had resorted to using AI (except INKR, because they've been quite open about it).
It is getting really bad. Almost every new story I have read in the last few months constantly mess up on character pronouns (one person will switch between he and she multiple times while talking about the same person in the same conversation). I am also seeing more typos and other issues that make it hard to correctly interpret what is actually happening in the story unless there happens to be a commenter who explains what the bad translation should have said.
This is from the Webtoon translation of My In-laws are Obsessed With Me.
I noticed a lot of errors and weird, stilted dialogue choices at the beginning of season 2. I didn’t continue to read it after reading the first 10 chapters and becoming disillusioned with Webtoon’s quality.
There is also a manhwa called Don’t Look for Me that I believe is on multiple platforms, but they all use the same translation that is just as bad or worse than the known MTL farms. It seemed interesting, so it was disappointing to find that it was incomprehensible. Also dropped after 10 chapters.
I've seen this on Webtoon, Manta, and Tapas. I dont use tappytoon but I would assume its there too.
Spelling and grammar issues are becoming more common and really pull readers out of the story.
Ye. It's been going on for almost an year now. The most common mess up is the gender, which can be really annoying as you don't get it who is it without the name.
I appreciate that you are clearly a person with like... a sense of ethics, but I honestly don't think it's that wild a thing to ask. There are far more people out for a quick buck than people like you. Take a***a scans, who machine translate work they stole AND then charge for it.
Sorry if I came across as rude, that was not my intent. Looking forward to seeing your work come to fruition.
I'm aware that a lot of redrawers use AI. So I've included a clause in the editors/CLRDs' employment contract that explicitly prohibits them from using AI
Well... It depends... If you have too many projects but not a big team / budget.. I would use Ai for cleanup but only for that... Using it for translation is out of the question as it 70% ruins it
Sure if they accept donations but some teams don't so that's understandable. Also it's not disclosing or anything but well know when 'he' become a 'she' 😂
For KTMLTBTV, I'd like to inquire if you've contacted 14 (the artist's nickname) on her weibo or bilibili? She doesn't really announce in her blogs if she did get her work licensed in another language.
Unfortunately, not. The contract is made directly with Bilibili since they hold the rights to her work. I did ask them if I could contact the author for her inputs and maybe a small QnA but they said that's only possible if the series gets enough views....
I know licensing can be very expensive, but manhua are very underrated! Although they may look like generic at first, there are many that are genuinely really good.
If you're licensing the one you have posted, it's both a good and already popular title! Another one is Accidental Love (Webcomics ruined it's translations tbh).
There are also some on bilibili that never got complete. I wish you success and that you grow and pick many more titles! Really excited for the new site!!
Yesss more love to manhua ! I've noticed drastic improvement in manhua artstyle over the recent years as well! And many of them have such unique plots!
And yes I do have a few titles in mind that were not fully translated by Bilibili
Will sure consider Accidental Love! The artstyle is so scrumptious
I’d definitely pay for a flat rate sub. I despise paying per chapter and refuse to spend any money doing it that way. What do you project the sub rate will be? This could be really awesome ✨
This sounds incredible! I can’t really offer anything monetarily since well, if I could I’d be free of the pirate life. But I’ll definitely spread the word around best I can
I’m very interested and would love to know more. Pricing? Which series? Also will you have an app? I only read on my phone these days, so a mobile friendly website or phone app would be ideal.
Will announce the series soon - once the contract is finalized.
For now we won't have an app on Google store, so we are going with a website plus web app
As for the pricing, I'm quoting what I replied to another commenter:
Since we are starting really small, $5 per month for 1 month and $3.5 per month for 3 months.
Will probably have to increase the subscription rate once we have around 25+ series
depends on how much :/ i can't pay in USD and probably some part of your market can't too (non-american but english speaking), so take us into consideration too please when deciding the price 🙏
but yes I would 100% support if I can! For reference I pay less than $7 for both YT premium AND netflix in my country, so ig $5 is around the limit of what I'd be willing to pay as a student/young adult
Would love to support this. I don’t have any subscriptions outside of Spotify (no Netflix, Disney+, etc) so I have spending money for it. Excited to see
i thought youre gonna promote another monetized unofficial translations lol but so glad to hear that it's official AND you're using actual human translation instead of ai slop. hope everything goes well!
This is incredible! If you need help with marketing, please let me know, I specialize in digital marketing (from social to email marketing to programmatic) and would love to help you with anything you need, as a volunteer 🫶 This is a fantastic initiative and I'd love to support, my DMs are open
I would love to branch out to physicals but that is if the digital platform is successful. There are a few series in my mind that I would DIE to have the honor to publish physically
I know you’ve yet to launch, but how can I get an update when you do launch? Or will it just be another post and I hope to see it lol? Good luck! I’m tired of all these pay per chapter (only unlocked for a limited time!) bs
From reading the comments it seems like doing things ethically and fairly is front of mind for you guys and that's awesome!💗 I might have just missed it but do you have a name for your platform yet?
Thank you for this. Goodluck! Wouldn't mind the side ads if it helps carrying the website. But like shoujo in general that includes manhwa and manhua or strictly shoujo the manga?
Ads get on my nerves so I won't be having those on my platform, at least nowhere in the near future and even if we do have ads you won't see them unless u want to
To your second question, shoujo in general - manga, manhwa and manhua
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u/samiksha66 Interesting Mar 16 '26
Omg great! Wish you best of luck