Rest in Peace, OneManga

It is no secret that I enjoy reading Manga (Japanese comic books). My interest in the latest available comics is so intense that I read translated copies over the internet. I get to read a huge number of comics less than a week after they are first published, and I get to read comics that aren't even for sale in the United States (yet). Due to licensing laws and consumer demand, some manga will never be in bookstores. But I don't mind, since I can read most of it online for free. My favorite website for reading these free "scanlations" was OneManga, due in large part to its superior layout and ease-of-use.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. OneManga has announced that they are being shut down. Here is the detailed message from their wonderful staff:

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"There is an end to everything, to good things as well."

It pains me to announce that this is the last week of manga reading on One Manga (!!). Manga publishers have recently changed their stance on manga scanlations and made it clear that they no longer approve of it. We have decided to abide by their wishes, and remove all manga content (regardless of licensing status) from the site. The removal of content will happen gradually (so you can at least finish some of the outstanding reading you have), but we expect all content to be gone by early next week (RIP OM July '10).

So what next? We're not really sure at this point, but we have some ideas we would like to try out. Until then, the One Manga forums will remain active and we encourage all of you to continue using them. OMF has developed into a great community and it would be a shame to see that disappear.

You can also show us some love in this moment of sadness by 'liking' our brand new Facebook page. It would be nice to see just how many of you came to enjoy our 'better than peanut butter and jelly' invention.

Regardless of whether you stay with us or not, on behalf of the One Manga team, I would like to thank you all for your unwavering support over the years. Through the ups and downs you have stuck with us, and that is what kept us going.

As a certain Porky was fond of saying... That's all folks!

Time for me to go lay down and let this all sink in.

- Zabi"
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As it so happens, I'm not going to stick with them, since I came for the manga, not the forum talk. For now, I'm switching to another online manga provider (MangaFox), but if they get shut down too I'll just have to locate the individual scanlation groups. Evil-Genius, Hox, TDX, SBCrew and Keishou are just a small handful of the teams that work on scanning, translating and editing the manga for online viewing.

Edit: I just put together a short list of manga that I was reading on OneManga that I now need to find elsewhere. Enjoy the evidence of my obsession:

Akumetsu
Living Game
Zetman
Detective Conan
Cesare
Parasyte
Historie
Liar Game
Skip Beat
GE - Good Ending
Usagi Drop
Shut Hell
Hapi Mari
Nononono
Lock On!
Nanaco Robin
Slam Dunk
Beelzebub

My collections of Fruits Basket, His and Her Circumstances, and Fullmetal Alchemist are also incomplete. And unfortunately, Fruits Basket has already been purged quite thoroughly from the sites I visit due to a very active licensing company, and His and Her Circumstances has vanished from bookstores.

This may take a while...