Update: the Manga Alliance website has been updated and is now somewhat less offensive to other producers of UK manga and people with an appreciation of the beauty of the English language. Let us all be grateful. However, the mascot remains, and so does the link to Anime League as the forums for the venture. The benefits to members also remain unclear. I believe most of the points I make below remain valid, and my opinion on the venture has not changed with these cosmetic changes to the site.
________
I have heard people’s opinions; I have done my research and talked to Manga Alliance about what they’re doing. These are my conclusions.
- I will not join the Manga Alliance and advise anyone else against joining.
- The Manga Alliance will not achieve its stated goals of uniting the community or saving manga from the credit crunch.
- Manga Alliance is not about uniting the community or the credit crunch at all. It is about self-aggrandisement and marketing.
I’ll explain how I came to these conclusions below. I apologise this post is quite long, but I want to cover the evidence I have found and explain my reasoning rather than ask you to take my word for it.
Goals
Manga Alliance states its goals on the website:
1 Get beyond the credit crunch.
2 Unite all industries together, from fans to industry alike.
3 Help one another through combined resources and expertise.
4 Expand what we have and build a better future for everybody in and outside of the industry..If one side of the industry grows, so does the collective, it is in this kind of thinking that competition does not exist and unification should continue all the hard work you have all put in from the past..
All quotes will be from the Manga Alliance website unless otherwise stated. Idiosyncratic punctuation theirs. What “unite all industries together, from fans to industry alike” means, I will leave for you to ponder, but the basic point is clear: we should all work together to expand the manga industry in the UK. Sounds good, and actually, I’d be up for that. But how is the Alliance going to achieve this?
Are you talking to me?
I initially misunderstood who the Manga Alliance was trying to unite. Their introduction states:
Only by all fans and industry professionals working together can we defeat the credit-crunch and avoid anime & manga going backward in this country!
I thought “industry professionals” might mean people professionally involved with manga, for instance in producing, publishing, promoting or selling it. I tick several of those boxes, so I kind of felt like they were talking to me. In fact, I kind of felt like they were telling me I wasn’t doing enough to save UK manga from the terrible Credit Crunch. I was a little perplexed.
They could have escaped my scrutiny if they had been clearer about whom the website was meant to target. It turns out that Manga Alliance’s purpose (or at least its focus for now) is to sign up conventions and anime news sites.
The focus of this is to get news-sites and events on board for now. Longer-term, there is the possibility of expanding this, but we want to mainly work on the “core” of this project, so to speak.
Michael Towers via e-mail, 19 Apr
They have some magazines on board already, so this means the conventions can get coverage in mags and on news sites, and the news sites can… get info on conventions. Because they’re not talking to each other enough, I guess.
Are conventions hurting because of the credit crunch? Are events having trouble selling out or getting enough dealers? That would certainly be news to this manga professional. Getting a dealer table at anime cons isn’t easy, let me tell you. And after, maybe you can tell me about how hard it is to get a ticket for some of them.
I wouldn’t be the first to question the need for this initiative. As it turns out, I’m not actually part of the people they are trying to get on board, but if I were an anime con or a news site, would I join?
Benefits
The touted benefits are vaguely stated, much like anything else on the site. The Alliance promises to share contacts, but sharing contacts is only a benefit if you have good contacts to share. Ditto for expertise. What the credit crunch has to do with any of this remains unexplained. Manga Pulp and Neo magazine are quoted as supportive of the project, but does that mean they’ll print all the news from all of the network, or some of it, or just that they will promote the network itself? Same with any news websites that may sign up.
“We will also aim to get news of your event covered in the three major magazines and on our website. Again, this will not cost you nothing,” the site says (yes, sic). It’s a good thing it doesn’t cost us anything, because that’s a vague promise if I ever heard one. “We will aim to.” You can aim for the moon, but that doesn’t mean you’ll hit it. Moreover, there’s no contract to sign, as the site cheerfully exclaims. That means that Manga Alliance is under no obligation to fulfil even their vague promises.
The Manga Alliance site will also be a news site itself, but one that only prints the news from its members and presumably, only feeds it to sites that are its members. So, in order for them to report your news, or for you to get their press releases, you have to carry their branding on your own website. The whole system works this way: to get the benefits, you have to be a member. It sounds kind of logical, but if you really set out to help the manga industry in the UK, is that what you would do?
If you wanted to unite and serve the community, you’d gather resources and offer them freely, so that everyone can benefit. After all, that’s the Alliance’s stated philosophy: no competition, we’re all in this together. By demanding people become members first and carry your branding, you can only end up dividing the community. It will be split into the people who are in your club, and the rest who will have to fend for themselves (and will do so, proudly).
Branding
What’s so bad about carrying their branding on your site? The membership is free, why would you not join?
Actually, the branding is the biggest problem with this initiative, in my opinion. Their choice of mascot makes the whole thing highly suspicious. The mascot is a character from the flagship series from Dimensional Entertainment, one of the driving forces behind Manga Alliance. This is what Manga Alliance has to say about their mascot:
It is something the UK doesn.t have; we need a manga icon which is born and made right here in the UK! Pwanda has the mass appeal and, like all the great icons, has many stories and fans behind it! For the UK to move forward, it has to have its identity, its first icon and symbol from the UK and nothing less will do! Pwanda represents a British anime community that is fun, exciting and going places!
“Pwandas are set to become an iconic mascot of the UK scene.” – NEO Magazine
I’ll ignore for the moment the implications that there has never been an iconic mascot in the UK before, and that UK manga lacks an identity, although both those statements are incorrect and disrespectful to a big and vibrant part of the community. I want to talk about the supposed mass appeal of this symbol.
Mass appeal? I have found two places online where people are discussing Pwanda. Dimensional Manga writes about how much the audience loved Pwanda, or at least, the Pwanda stamp. At the Neo forums, there is little enthusiasm for Pwanda. Very little. There is what you might call the opposite of enthusiasm.
I asked Manga Alliance about their choice of mascot, and this is what they said:
The mascot has been used due to the reception that it has received at shows across the UK. It is particularly iconic, and we believe it works very well.
Michael Towers in e-mail, 19 Apr
Particularly iconic? To me it looks like a toy panda with a Naruto headband. But maybe it’s pointless to argue iconicity. The more important point is that the rules of the Alliance require the “pwanda” to be displayed on all websites that want to join. The rules for events are even more far-reaching:
1. We ask that you put up the Manga Alliance logo on your site to show your support.
2. There will be a Manga Alliance banner at your shows.
3- It is optional, but it would be appreciated if on T-shirts, con-books, badges, leaflets and convention merchandise you could add a Manga Alliance logo. This may remain discrete.
4- You will need to guarantee that you will put prizes and gifts from our sponsors in your con-bags. This could also be seen as a positive.
It could also be seen as a positive, or it could be seen for what it is: Manga Alliance will only offer their dubious help (which may or may not be any help to you) if you accept them as the de facto main sponsor of your event. Without them paying you.
It’s hard to continue seeing this as part of a community building exercise. It looks more like a branding exercise, to me, because from a branding point of view, this is very smart. From a making friends point of view, of course, it’s disastrous. Even if events agree to it, other dealers and sponsors have good reason to frown on Manga Alliance/Dimensional Entertainment getting something for free that they would pay good money for. If you want to keep your dealers happy, you should first be fair to them.
Given that the “Pwanda” provoked such strong responses in NEO readers, inviting “Pwanda” into your event might even cause dissent in the ranks, either among your audience/members, or in your staff. Maybe there are people who really like these pandas, I don’t know. But all I could find evidence of is there are people really don’t like them.
Leadership
The UK manga scene isn’t very large. People know each other, and form cliques and groups. There are collaborations and there are rivalries, and, given that part of the audience is quite young, there can be squabbling and pettiness.
To unite a community like that, you need a leadership that is mature and sensitive to the diversity of the scene. You would want someone who respects all sides, someone who can carry the banner that will unite these groups by reminding them of their common goal. Ideally, you would choose someone who is independent of the organisations that make up the scene, like maybe a journalist. You’d choose someone who has been around a long time, someone with a track record of rising above petty competetiveness to make things better for everyone.
You probably wouldn’t choose someone whose stated goal is to make his particular online community (connected to a particular event) the number one community in the UK. But this is the stated goal of FreeSaiyan, who is Michael Towers, chairman of ALcon and Administrator on Anime League, the other driving force behind Manga Alliance. Note that his number 1 goal is not “have x amount of members” or “provide service x” but “be number 1″. Be bigger than the others.
I do not understand how Michael Towers rhymes this with: “it is in this kind of thinking that competition does not exist”. That is starting to sound pretty hollow, actually. Note also that the Anime League forum is where you go when you click “forum” on the Manga Alliance website (here’s that link again). So if you want to talk to Manga Alliance through their forum, you will have to become part of Anime League. It seems to me that Michael Towers is confusing “unifying the community” with “serving my own community”, much like Dil from Dimensional Entertainment is confusing “unifying the community” with “getting my mascot onto every manga site on the web”.
I don’t want to get too personal. I don’t know either of these men very well. I have zero enthusiasm for ad hominem internet drama. So far, my exchanges with the Manga Alliance people have been courteous, and I hope we can keep it that way. I certainly do not want to go into stories I’ve heard or warnings I’ve had(!) regarding the people involved in the Manga Alliance because I don’t do that kind of gossip. But one thing is very clear to me. Neither of these men is universally loved.
And that really is the nail in the coffin as far as Manga Alliance’s stated goals are concerned. How can you unite a community if you are yourself a figure of division? How can you help everyone grow together if your focus is squarely on growing your own interests?
You can’t. They won’t. This project will not be of benefit to anyone except Manga Alliance itself. That’s what their promotion is about anyway: the hub site, not the members. The benefit to the members was clearly an afterthought in putting this together. The benefit to the members is entirely unclear at this point.
Now, I don’t have a problem with self promotion, actually. Some days I feel like it’s all I ever do. I can even put up with different styles of self promotion; some of us are more brazen or louder or just better at it and that’s fine. But running a big project to promote yourself and dressing it up as a community building exercise is cynical and sleazy, and the perpetrators deserve to be called on it.
So there you have it. Manga Alliance is about self promotion rather than community building. It will fail its objectives because people don’t trust the people behind it and it doesn’t offer much benefit to members. Because it will fail to accomplish anything except raise the brand-recognition for Dimensional Entertainment’s “Pwanda”, it’s a waste of time to sign up. Don’t.
You won’t be missing out.
Response from Michael Towers:
Actually, I have helped out many other communities and events in the past at no personal gain for myself or for Animeleague. I have been working in the anime and manga community for eight years, across various sites, and have never earned a single penny from the hard-work that I have committed – in fact I have committed and put forth much of my own money on many occasion. I find the insinulations and accusations that you draw against myself insulting and deeply unfair.
I have no wish to enter this drama and do not intend to make any further comment than this. f anyone would like to speak to me about this blog entry, then I can be contacted via msn or email on mtowers1982@yahoo.co.uk
Thank you.
Response to response, from Willie: Michael, I wrote I don’t know you well. I have no reason not to believe you when you say you do much for the community as a whole. I am sorry I have insulted you. I wrote about the Manga Alliance because I felt it was a bad and potentially damaging idea, and my opinion on that has not changed. I only called it as I saw it, and I saw it that way because it looks that way.
I have no appetite for drama either. I have highlighted your response and offer to talk to people so they don’t miss it. That’s all I feel able to do at this point, because the contradiction between “I want to unite the entire community” and “I want my community to be number 1″ is what it is. You can’t live in both those houses at the same time.
{ 47 comments }
I certainly agree with the use of the Pwanda branding. I’m not going to go into what’s good and bad about Pwanda itself, but it’s use as a mascot for a community project when it’s already part of the promotional material for one of the founding member organisations is certainly a no-no. Really, it’d be best to have something that isn’t a character at all.
I admire the basic concept of ‘uniting people’, putting the self-promotion to one side. However, it’s clear that any attempt to unite anything will always cause more problems than it would be worth no matter how good your intentions and how neutral you try to be.
From the description, it sounds like this would work much better if it were just a straight-forward partnership between Dimensional Entertainment and Anime League. It would cause less of a stir in the existing community and would probably benefit them better than the approach which is currently being used.
There are things which Anime League and Dimensional Entertainment can bring to the community which can be of benefit. However, Manga Alliance is extremely unlikely to be one of them. There’s my two cents, which I hope have been as neutral as possible.
I’m not one for choosing sides & all but why this, AL doesn’t deserve to be slagged off like that! Al is a great place where you can meet new people who also like anime and also go to conventions {having not been one yet myself} If you have any problems with AL why don’t you start slagging my forums off aswell, Mike put alot of hard work into AL, and kept the community growing, I don’t care if you all just call me a ‘kid’ but I’ll have you know I myself create forums so stop slagging AL off, it doesn’t deserve it, & the Pwanda is very cute >.>, seriously haven’t you guys got anything BETTER to do with your lives than annoy people, and upset them? Cause guys your doing a very good job at slagging off one of my favourite sites, which is really pissing me off, so goodbye and good riddance!!!
Fate-Chan
Im sorry but the general gist I am getting from this article itself IS self promotion as you have stated you sometimes do. This is one of those times. It is apparent to me, at least, this self promotion is being done by spouting rubbish about a larger group with a similar audience in order direct their potential community towards yours instead. This is a pretty bad way of conducting yourself and I must say I am disappointed.
Animeleague is doing it’s best to promote manga/anime in the UK by partnering with other companies who are trying to do the same thing; to have manga/anime known about in the UK. In no way is Michael Towers just out there to promote the forum. “You got my back and I’ve got yours.” is the saying, by Animeleague and Dimensional Entertainment working together it’s just the beginning stages in getting manga and anime known in the UK. I’m sure there are other forums that are based in the UK, but from what I can see is that Animeleague is the only one out there that is doing this. With this blog, it’s very hurtful to the community and for those that agree with this partnership from the boards.
I can only ask that you please remove this blog.
Fate-Chan: I am not slagging off AL, I’m slagging off (if you insist on the term) Manga Alliance. I have no problem whatsoever with AL, I’m on there myself and have made some friends. It’s cool that you think the Pwanda is cute. But do you think it’s fair to raise it up as the one mascot to rule them all, when there are so many other mascots and characters that people have created and put their passion into?
Gene Hunt: I’m sorry to disappoint you. I’m not in the habit of spouting rubbish in order to promote myself, as I’m sure you’ll see when you have a look at the site.
It would have been far smarter, from a PR point of view, to keep my mouth shut on this alliance, as you and Fate-Chan are proving. I know I’m not making friends here. But I feel strongly about Manga Alliance and the damage it can cause to the manga community as a whole. I’m willing to take the flack for speaking out; I felt it was necessary.
Masian, “you’ve got my back I’ve got yours” is a great principle. And I’m sure it works between Dimensional Manga and Anime League. But I don’t think it’s going to work between them and everyone else in the community, for the reasons listed above.
I will not remove my blog post, can you please tell me which parts of it are incorrect or unreasonable and I will see if I need to revise them. Is it hurtful to the community? Maybe, that was not my intention. It’s not Anime League, or Michael Towers I have a problem with. It’s this Alliance, which is supposed to be about uniting everyone, but has the effect of promoting mostly Dimensional Manga and Anime League and will end up being divisive.
And the wording on the Alliance website is hurtful to other parts of the community, as I pointed out. There’s hurt to go around, let’s work on that together.
Actually, I have helped out many other communities and events in the past at no personal gain for myself or for Animeleague. I have been working in the anime and manga community for eight years, across various sites, and have never earned a single penny from the hard-work that I have committed – in fact I have committed and put forth much of my own money on many occasion. I find the insinulations and accusations that you draw against myself insulting and deeply unfair.
I have no wish to enter this drama and do not intend to make any further comment than this. If anyone would like to speak to me about this blog entry, then I can be contacted via msn or email on mtowers1982@yahoo.co.uk
Thank you.
Mike just helps others forget about their childhood, create a new life, and trust other people, I beg of you please remove this blog, please.
I don’t want anything else to do with anyone being mean to AL or Mike,
To be honest need to contact me I can be contacted on MSN
sakura_heart_you@hotmail.co.uk
Like I said, I have nothing to do with this apart from AL is a moment where i forget my childhood, and thank god about that!
Fate-Chan
After reading this blog it appears that the writer is looking at manga alliance from a very cynical point of view – all it appears to really do is slate what could and should be a very strong group of people whose only aim is to build a stronger and more friendly anime community in the UK.
Also i have been there when the ‘pwanda’ mascot was around and it was by no means pointless since it got lots of attention and drew a large crowd to it. At least its doing one thing right in getting itself noticed which in the case of such a small industry like the Uk’s anime one it can only be a good thing.As well as this at Kitacon the ‘pwanda’ mascot drew more attention to itself than any other singular cosplayer and cosplay group which in turn will draw lots of attention to Manga Alliance and promote it so it CAN achieve what its set out to do.
To sum this up the only thing that could really get in the way of Manga Alliace working as successfully as it should is people who go around complaining about it and stiiring up negative drama aboout it, which wont help either party in the long run. So yes i agree that its a large goal for them to achieve, but why should we stand in the way of something that may well greatly boost the Uk’s anime market and help everything in turn to grow.
Fate-Chan, once again, this blog post is not against Anime League. I know it is a great, vibrant and active community, and I do not mean to be mean to them. You.
This blog post will do nothing to damage Anime League, either. It’s not even about Anime League. It’s about this project Anime League is a founding partner in, which I think will do more harm than good. I think the person who wrote the Manga Alliance website should have thought harder about what it would read like to someone who was not part of the Alliance yet.
Getting people to work together, gathering resources, exchanging information, that’s good. But reading the website, I don’t get the feeling that’s what it’s about. It reads more like: “this will be the biggest thing ever and you better join and promote us or you’ll be left in the cold”. That’s what I was reacting to.
This post makes a lot of sense. Nice to see an argument sans all the peripheral drama-llamas.
I think that on it’s own the Manga Alliance thing is a bit insulting.
Damn apostrophe error! XD
Kanada, you are free to call me cynical. I think that fits in this situation.
It’s cool the Pwanda can draw attention to itself. But it seems that when people read the actual book, they are not so impressed. What is more important, flash-bang attention or a good product?
HOW would it greatly boost the UK’s anime market? All it does is put people in touch who are talking to each other anyway, because they have to! How does it help everything grow?
I could be missing something, but I honestly don’t see it.
Anon: there’s some of that going around.
(Apostrophe error’s, I mean.)
It’s cool the Pwanda can draw attention to itself. But it seems that when people read the actual book, they are not so impressed. What is more important, flash-bang attention or a good product???
Willie have you read that Pwanda book? as far as i’m aware its not even out yet, there is only one preview copy and thats Dil’s own one. So please elaborate on how you were not impressed with this un-released preview book?
Well maybe you’re right, that it may have been better PR to let it slide. But you know PR is sometimes about guts, and for that you have my eternal respect.
It’s just a pity other folk choose to avoid these issues rather than deal with them, but that’s their choice.
For people who actually know the score then anything Willie writes here will not exactly come as a surprise, because through experience they already know what to expect. The one thing I don’t get is if Towers and that other fellow are so concerned about being “slagged off” then why go out of their way to give people reason to. If they are foolish enough to step into a fire then surely they must be prepared to take the heat.
Simple rules, everyone gets their just reward and if they play fair then they can’t expect any misgivings about their projects. Treat people badly and how do you expect people to trust this initiative?
In any case this isn’t a slagging off, it’s a fair review in my opinion of something that most informed people will understand to not be in their best interests.
One thing I can tell you is Willie will have thought carefully about what she’s written, and will have had a lot of second opinions on it. I can trust 100% that this is a truthful account of the bigger picture. She’s bloody right to post about it.
Kanada: There’s a preview on the website. I am unimpressed with it. Like that, see?
There was a preview in Neo, too. Other people were unimpressed with it.
Basing such a large decision off just a short preview such as the one on the website is quite a bold step, having read the entirity of the pwanda book i can say its actually very entertaining, yes it takes abit of reading to get into it but it did keep me entertained as i walked through the streets and made my way around a fun fair i did actually struggle to stop reading the book. So before you go slating a book you should wait untill you have seen the entire volume not just a short preview that isnt supposed to really give anything away.
Isn’t the point of a preview to get people to decide if something is good/worth buying?
Indeed it is, but you also have to take these thigns with a pinch of salt ‘anon’ since the authors dont want to be giving anything away other than what it may be about and what sort of audience it is aimed at, so making a decision of wether it looks good or not is one thing but making a rash decision about the entire product as a whole from this is abit much.
OK, I’m not going to debate with you the merits of a book I have not read, and have no desire to read. It’s a peripheral point, anyway.
Raising the panda up as if it is the first time anyone in the UK has created a manga mascot is insulting and hurtful. Using it as the mascot for a “uniting the industry” venture when it represents the interests of one very specific company in the industry is a foolish mistake. It makes the entire venture suspect. The quality of the Pwanda products has no bearing on that.
Nothing wrong with a little healthy competition, is there? From what I see, the Manga Alliance can only be a good thing. What’s better, one group promoting manga, or several working together? Right now AnimeLeague (which is what I know most about, and I’ve gotten a little bit of interest in the Manga Alliance through that) is the biggest online anime based community in the UK, and surely that’s a healthy base for a group committed to promoting anime.
As for your points based on Mike and Dil, I can say they’re generally unfounded, or based on the opinions of people who don’t like them in the first place. I don’t really know Dil (again, my focus is in AL), but Mike Towers knows what he’s doing. To say he can’t lead is just silly. He built up a huge international web forum, which has been going for 7 years, he organised a convention entirely from scratch, with only volunteer effort, regularly he works on meets; and not because he makes money, or gets recognition. Because he genuinely has a desire to build the community, and see it grow. And I personally can only respect that. Of course sometimes it’s not appreciated, and people will cry “power hog” or “egomaniac”, but that’s jealousy, surely.
In all honesty, your main argument seems to be that there is a contradiction between “uniting the community” and “that community being number one”, but I don’t see that. Surely if the community is a whole, then that’s the best possible outcome. But of course, that’s just my opinion.
Willie, you appear to have jumped to the conclusion of Manga Alliance as being corrupt and false to their word when their intentions are exactly as they say neither are they trying to justify themselfs. It is not a publicity stunt of any kind, a way of making money or anything else like that.
You word it as if only Mike and Dil are involved in this, but I can assure you this is absolutely not the case. Many more are helping out, and it is insulting to imply otherwise.
Sakura-chan, the fact that “people don’t like them in the first place” IS the problem. The people not liking them are the people they are trying to get to join their Alliance. People won’t, because they don’t like them. This is why it will fail. THAT is my point.
My main argument is still that the Pwanda has to go. But yes, there is a contradiction between saying: “I want to help all events and communities grow and work together”, and saying: “our community must be number one! go go go!” The first thing you have to do if you want to work together and be united is to let go of that competitiveness. You can’t be my friend if you’re too busy being better than me.
Are you saying it would be OK because all communities would unite and become ALcon and that’s the best place to be? Because I hope you can see how some people would not agree with that.
Raynn, I have assumed that this Manga Alliance grew out of the DEAL between Dimensional Entertainment and Anime League. I am aware there are other organisations on board, but my assumption is they are the ones driving this.
If I am incorrect, please let me know. But other people being involved does not mean they are not in charge. And either which way it doesn’t change what the Alliance looks like from the outside. It looks like a marketing tactic.
I didn’t say ALcon, I said one community, there’s a difference. In the end, it’s not the name that matters, it’s what that community represents. The only reason that wouldn’t happen is exactly because people won’t let go of that “being better than me” attitude you mentioned.
I can see both points of view here. I think in the long term, Manga Alliance are going the right way to bring the community together and to maximize the anime and manga scene within the UK. The big issue that I can see is the way that Manga Alliance have worded things which has led to confusion and scrutiny.
Manga Alliance has some strong contacts with both Dimensional Entertainment and Anime League, and I can see no reason why the three groups shouldn’t be able to work together to make themselves stronger. Manga Alliance will benefit from the support of both of these, as they raise awareness to Manga Alliance who in return raise the awareness to them. It may well just be self promotion at the moment, but that’s because they need to strengthen themselves before they can major work on the community as a whole. What’s the point of them building and strengthening the community if the support crumbles underneath?
To me you also appear to be mistaken as to what Anime League means when referred to as wanting to be Number 1. Being number 1 does not mean being bigger, it means striving to be the best in the field. This means not focusing on one thing, so its not the biggest, or the most popular or the one proving the best service – Being Number 1 means combing all these things to make a strong solid community that people can rely on.
Exactly, Sakura-chan. What’s keeping the anime-loving community divided into different groups is this “being better than the others” attitude. So you can’t espouse a “we will be number one” attitude and a “let’s unite the anime community” attitude at the same time.
And for the record, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with people being divided in different groups. These communities and online hangouts are different, and serve different people. And that’s fine. There’s no reason, as far as I’m concerned, to try to make one big monster-community out of it. Working towards the different communities being friendly towards each other and working together is fine, but in the end, there’s only so much you’d be able to offer each other, because you’re all different and doing your own thing.
willie i see where you coming from and it seems that you have reason to believe that united force cannot strive to be the best of the group.
this is actually may be untrue, in many cases healthy competition in a team usually leads in propelling forward in work and market alike.
they may be different and doing they’re own thing or they may not be, however we dont see the full idealogies that they believe in but they can support and offer each other as much as possible in the amount that they have.
Anime and manga are two big industries and it would be wrong to think that they cannot work together for a better future in anime and manga.
regards
Wolfy
You speak on the divisive potential of Manga Alliance. There is an operative word in that statement: potential. While you may disagree with their practices and feel that they have the capacity to harm the community, Manga Alliance is very new and has yet to display all of its capabilities.
Furthermore, while you may see it as potentially harmful, this blog entry strikingly resembles the divisive and dramatic aspects of the manga community you decry. When speaking about business, there is a number 1. A top-seller, the most popular, the highest rated. They are the best and their competition is not. I don’t feel that “number 1″ applies in a negative connotation to community. When Michael Towers says he wants to see AnimeLeague be “number 1″ it isn’t to smash the competition, take their members, and have their heads on an e-platter. His goal is to unite as many people as possible in one spot, to give event organizers, consumers, and professionals the most visibility.
Would you similarly slander a health-care group or charity organization for wanting to be number 1 in their field? While the analogy is not the best, it serves to illustrate my general feelings toward the matter.
Nobody is universally loved. Nobody has the true level of popularity to be the icon for a community that everybody wants. It is immature and counter-productive to cite an organization’s failure based on its principle members when they have stepped forward into the spotlight with a goal. Would you be willing to do the same? If not, your criticism is useless to somebody who wants to be a part of the manga community.
Lastly, should Manga Alliance fail, let it fail on its own. Let the consumers, event organizers, and community decide. Who are you to speak for the Manga community in the UK? Making dogmatic predictions about its success or failure is far more damaging to the community they are trying to support than their desire to find a uniting icon, be a strong central hub of information, or connect community members with people they may otherwise never meet.
I thought I’d take the time to make a comment on this opinion, personally, of no offence to you personally, I think that you are sadly mistaken on your decision on this. I myself as a fan have had many discussions with Dil and Mike Towers on the various things the Manga Alliance have in store, and I will continue to support their decision, as you may not think at this moment they are not doing anything to “strengthen” yet (yet being the operative word), as you said it is hard for the industry to get through the door and get in the public eye at conventions, and I think that is what needs to start, no point in throwing out totally new things and then overshadowing people who have been “out there” for a long time doing the work like you have and not already showcasing what is out there. But the scene has a huge fandom, anyone who goes to a convention or expo these days knows that we are starting to get over-capicitated. And more and more conventions are popping up by the year with even the first ever Kitacon last weekend.
We are almost reaching this point of a large anime event a month, and with that sort of demand it is best to strengthen that up and make sure there is a following to get to do certain things, and with another one of the projects that is part of Manga Alliance, Team Dimension, in the wings, we can see a new height of manga in the UK. We have enough fans to be almost as on scale as the US with anime and manga, but, sadly, nobody is putting in the extra bit of effort to do it. That is what I think this project implies. We all know what we want to see come from this. So if we work together, then Manga Alliance can listen, and help bring this.
I can see your point from a artists point of view, seeing someone else above your work is quite a horrible thing to feel. But you must remember that Japan has done it. Japan earlier last year made Doraemon the symbol and ambassador of the anime and manga industry. Perhaps in the future, the Pwanda may not be the mascot though, it is just initial, nobody ever like initial thoughts, but it can grow on us, i.e. Remember the whole Wii deal? how annoyed were people with the marketing department after that name was announced, but what happened? It became a worldwide hit. Pwanda may not be your cup of tea, but the pwanda characters are not necessarily restricted to the Pwanda book. They are actually used in the other series, I myself own the previous volume versions of Demon Prince: Children of Gaia, and it contains the pwanda characters, the only reason why the character of a manga by one of the flagships is the logo, is cause of the fact that the flagship, is the only one there. If other artists and publishers came into this great project and shared themselves with it maybe the Pwanda thing would change. In my personal opinion I like the concept of the Pwanda’s but I am not to keen on the preview for the book either. Cause it’s not my cup of tea, you may think I am biased as I do help out DE and AL, but that is cause I like the atmosphere, the staff and the potential.
Ok this has gotten out of hand
Willie delete it,
I see what Sakura-Chan & Raynn are tryna get at
& like i said AL is a community where you meet new people
Mike has been running it for 7 years now, so I think he knows what he’s doing, he even asks people in America to go to meets & conventions [cause i know my stuff o-o]
Willie, your trying to make yourself to be the big shot when other people are prooving you wrong
like I said, I ahev nothing to do with this
Willie delete this blog before you get hell [can only warn you that]
Farewell
Fate-Chan~<3
I am sad that there’s not more people supporting Willie. Guys, the fact of it is that the Manga Alliance has already divided the scene into people who are with them, and people who aren’t touching them with a bargepole. One post on someone’s blog isn’t going to make that much of a difference to their popularity (and if it does, that’s a shaky start), and chances are those of us who do agree with Willie decided way before she even posted.
So, don’t remove this post! This is the first place where anyone has actually talked about MA and not just ignored them.
Dammit! Firefox just ate my reply! >.<;
OK, abridged version:
Many thanks to Willie for a well-thought-out article, expressing her opinions on the Manga Alliance but also including responses from them, plus comments from those who are closer to the Anime League. This helps me get a good idea of where everyone is coming from.
Personally, even after reading all the comments, I still can’t quite understand what the Alliance’s goals really are – to grow the fanbase for anime and manga in the UK? I don’t see how they could do any better then the industry professionals, who are always doing their best with mainstream advertising as well as ties to magazines.
Or is their goal to be a one-stop-internet-shop for all your manga and anime needs in the UK? Again, I can’t really imagine this happening – events and publishers all have their own websites and forums already where people can meet and find out more information about them. If you hear of a new event or comic and want to find out more all you have to do 95% of the time is type it into Google and you’ll find a direct link to their website without having to go through a 3rd party.
The only type of website I could see working at all as a hub for the entire UK manga and anime community would be one along the lines of ‘Otaku News’, which seems to take a more independent stance; reporting about upcoming events and publications and giving out useful links to others’ websites. However, I imagine you would need quite a bit of money and time to make it very popular, let alone the most visited site in the UK for anime and manga news o.O;
All in all I’m interested in seeing what happens next ^_^
Good post, good to see some responses too from a different viewpoint. I’m not quite seeing why Willie should take it down, this is hardly drama of any proportion (threats are very childish as well – blimey)!! Criticism is good for us all, whether we like it or not.
That said, agreed with Wikivic, really not seeing what the purpose of Manga Alliance is or what anyone would get out of it. I’m a tad concerned that this is about self-promotion (because any uniting mascot should be fresh and new and not associated with any members books really), and also more than a tad concerned that it is about securing influence only for groups within the Manga Alliance, so that little independents like myself will find getting tables at cons harder and harder to do.
Good luck to all involved with their works and stuffs
Willie making up her own mind through analysis can hardly be seen as an actual threat to anybody’s business. Don’t tell me she holds that much power over events organisers
I can see why Sweatdrop wished to refrain from this topic though.
Adam Clark introduces a good point: That we may be looking at anime conventions every month. If this is the case, I say you this:
1. yes, I agree these guys would benefit from promotion through news sites, magazines and events. If, apparantly(??) standard press releases don’t achieve this, an alliance might be a little extra promotion. Promotion free of terms would be better for the purpose still, if this is truly such a valiant effort. For example, take http://ukmangaxl.com
2. the very growth of the conventions invalidates the “credit crunch” argument, which is now being put forward as the main incentive.
For the sake of clarity I disregard AnimeLeague’s involvement, and temporarily assume that all mean well (appearances would have it otherwise). I’ve heard crazier, and who knows I could be mistaking a wishful thinking ego for cleverness. What remains then are facts:
*no untapped and significant benefits are made clear;
*the organiser is not sufficiently established in the scene to host its alliance;
*the panda mascot, cute as it is, has no links with the UK to represent it, nor is it special (it. is. a. panda.);
*the associated Pwanda manga is currently badly received (in which I feel a bit sorry for the artist. Apart from the artificial plot-inserting dialogue, I didn’t think it was THAT horrible…)
Whether selfish promotion or misguided good intentions; these facts are not going to help UK manga.
As for the Manga Alliance dividing any camps, I don’t think it’ll do much either way, so *shrug*
Comments are back on. Hope we have all calmed down a little, please keep your arguments reasonable and avoid personal attacks.
My full support to Willie and I can guarantee the support of hundreds of others who may not have read this post.
I am choosing to stay anon on this comment because I am part of a con committee and would not want to receive some of the personal attacks I have seen above. I don’t want to be warned that I’m going to hell for thinking some guy you have a dangerously under-age crush on is an unprofessional idiot
Basically, I have not met a single committee member from any convention other than ALcon who has anything other than disregard or disrespect for this man. Perhaps if he managed to organise a simple task such as locking the dealers room of his own convention (!) we would see him as something other than a bumbling fool.
Mike – try starting with that (you put the key in the little hole and then turn it till it clicks, thus guaranteeing the safety of your long suffering dealers stock) and then there will be no limit to your organisational prowess!
I’m a bit late in finding this, been a bit bogged down in my own work while this shitstorm brewed. I have to say I’m in total agreement with Willie. Well said.
As another con committee member, I’ve had a hard time wrapping my head around all this. I find the notion that our committee are incapable of dealing with this ‘credit crunch’ and that our close friendships and ties to other conventions mean nothing, insulting. Not to sound arrogant, but we really don’t need your help and you can keep that mascot and those silly conditions to yourself.
Mike, if you want to be taken seriously then perhaps you should get your own affairs in order first before you start preaching to us, call off your immature, fangirling, rabid attack dogs (that poster further up this genuinely terrifies me) and learn to deal with criticism and legitimate questions without the use of a banhammer.
Apologies if this comes off as a personal attack, I don’t intend it as such. However it is very hard to take an organisation fronted by Mike Towers very seriously at the moment.
I applaud your stance, Willie. Like yourself, I do not know Towers all that well, but I do know enough about him from those poor sods who’ve been in the game far longer than I, and had dealings with him in the past, to recognise a self-serving shyster when I see one. Looks like a duck, acts like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck… it ain’t no bloody tiger, is it. In the years that I’ve been doing anime cons, way before I even started gophering, let alone became a committee member, I honestly can’t recall a single report of his shenanigans that hasn’t ended with the word “LOL”. Or worse. (Much, MUCH worse.)
His recent behaviour in the Cosplay Island forum, registering an account just so he could spam it, then whining when things don’t go his way (http://tinyurl.com/MikeTowersLOL) is typical of how he operates. All that’s missing in this instance is the ability to delete the thread or swing the banhammer at anyone who dares speak against him (this wasn’t in his forum, see).
Everyone with even half a clue in the scene has seen through this instantly. Make no bones about it, MA is not operating for the good of the community – if they were, they wouldn’t be so incredibly vague in their blurb. They’re in it for themselves – nothing or no-one else. Constituents have demonstrated their interesting ways of doing things before – someone really should tell Dimensional that Rod Serling had the fifth dimension all mapped out decades back – and why does everything all link back to the same forum? Given AnimeLeague’s less-than-spectacular rep, you would think this would be a prime opportunity to shed that drama-soaked skin and rebrand anew. Then again, the phrases “Michael Towers” and “would think” don’t usually belong on the same page, never mind paragraph. Never mind sentence. Never mind breath.
And anyhow, drama will always find a way to rear its ugly mush. Isn’t that right, Fate-chan…
Manual pingback: Covered in Beez has an article on the goals of the Manga Alliance and whether they are achievable: http://www.coveredinbeez.com/2009/05/manga_alliance_goals/
Its funny I’ve been approached on some many levels by Dill the mastermind behind this and the lastest edition in Jason from show masters. This entire project is a scam, Dimensional and Showmasters are going to war with mcm and are trying gain allies so they take MCMs slice of the pie.
When speaking to the guys respectively Dill doesnt have any clue what he’s doing a big hot air blower with no vision only £ signs in his eyes. He seem think throwing a big panda around will get him respect and credibility, when in true it will get him nothing maybe a few photo ops with some cosplayers.
Manga Alliance = sinking ship
Mike Tower – all he wishes to do is further his own position and make AL into an EXPO event and grabb the lionshare of the anime fans into his convention.
For the latest news on The Manga Alliance / Al Con / Mike Towers go to http://twitter.com/stopthepwandas
If it’s any consolation, the MA has gone south now that Mike Towers has cut all ties to it, and the site has vanished into the ether.
I love how the blind defence of AL, Mike and Manga Alliance only spouts forth from people who are on Animeleague.
I do not like the man for personal reasons and nor do I like Animeleague, and I agree that Managa alliance is as stated in this blog. The general consensus in the UK community has always been negative towards everything Mike seems to touch for one reason or another and such a strong backlash must be mitigated by something. There is no smoke without fire as they say.
Before anyone goes crazy I am not calling a mass boycott, saying AL or Alcon or anything else should be destroyed nor am I calling an assassination order on Mike….I’m simply saying that people who dislike something have a right to state that opinion and that any organisation has to work to get past negative opinion rather than attacking the attackers or denying all mistakes. AL has made lives worse as well as better and there are much better respected places for fans of anime and manga, usually ones that focus more on anime and manga than AL does.
I think the demise of manga alliance was innevitable, there was too much backlash against it and it was too self serving. Still maybe something new and better can be born from its embers if the right heads get together and work on something that would better serve the community as a whole maybe?
Also I feel that the author of this is being bullied by a blanket attempt to censor them throughj coercion.
Its a good point well made. It may be cynical but from a business perspective its accurate. Lack of contracts and promises that have no actual backing all in exchange for what is essentially massive publicity.
It seems like typical AL “attack the nasty comment against us” behaviour that causes the bad rep of the community in the first place.
Thanks Andy. This comment thread has a pretty high irony value when you consider that the Manga Alliance fell apart for, pretty much, the reasons I outlined in this post. Bonus irony points: AnimeLeague are here to PROTECT us from bullies. It’s true, look: http://www.uk-anime.net/articles/Anime_League_Interview.html
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