Still, I want to support the original authors and importing is kind of expensive (not sure my parents would be willing to pay for that, especially for a Pokemon manga), and I don't know Japanese, so Viz is the next . . . "best" . . . thing.
You don't even need to import the manga anymore as they are places where you can buy Japanese manga (online and offline) in the US. But, I agree the not knowing Japanese is the biggest block.
Anyway, anyone upset about scanslations being taken down probably didn't really support the manga to begin with. Let's face it, if you read scanslations as a sample and then bought the actual volumes, it'll just take patience.
Not necessarily, everyone has a fix. If I was reading something that I really like via scans and it was taken down before I could finish, I would be upset. And I could be supporting the manga at the same time. I think scanslations tend to affect people that deal with multiple series the most as by the time the volumes get out, there's a lack of incentive to buy it with all the other series that do have that incentive. I think scans have some helpful use for us forgetful people.
Illegal scans can give a manga series more fame, but it can increase the temptation not to buy the series in book form.
I agree that scans definitely help a manga series out. In fact, for many many people scans is what helped get into a manga series and even want it to come out here. I'm seeing that scans are becoming more like the Japanese manga magazines in terms of reading some of or the whole series before deciding to buy it or not.
I kinda agree, but there are a lot of factors that can go into that, though. Most of the time those people weren't planning on really buying the manga anyways, especially when places like Barnes & Nobles allow a person to pick up a book and read it without ever buying it. More so when it's short as a manga. Plus, some fans follow many manga series (like I do), so they could use scans to decide when to buy a manga series. And it wouldn't really be the scans' fault since one/some of the books would have lost money anyways. But, it's definitely possible that the more people read scans the more the wanting to spend money for the manga can happen. Why on Earth people wouldn't spend money on the series they like and can read anytime, I have no idea.