Magazine Status Update 2018

Lo. If you've been active on the forums in the last couple years, you've probably seen me post on various topics. While my title only says "translator," one of my main duties at FAKKU is managing the magazines process. I've been the project lead for magazines for about two years now, so I believe I'm the person with the most insight into what goes on with magazines behind the scenes—from when we receive the data to when a chapter goes up on the site.

With the year coming to an end, I felt now would be a good time to give everyone an update on magazines. This includes where magazines are at right now as a whole, as well as laying out a tentative roadmap going forward into the near future of the next year.

Before I start, I need to go over some backstory. Magazines actually faced somewhat of a crisis 1½ years ago, and during a short period of time, we didn't have enough content to work on. This means we would finish typesetting all of our current chapters before we received the data for the next magazines being released in Japan. These additional resources led to us picking up several new magazines, namely Bavel, Europa, Girls forM, and Koh. In retrospect, we were a bit too ambitious, and before long the scales had swung in the opposite direction, with more magazines coming in than we could finish.

It's been a long journey to get this all sorted out, but our current approach to each magazine depends on which category it falls into:

Main lineup: Kairakuten, X-Eros, Shitsurakuten, Kairakuten BEAST, Bavel, and Europa. Bonus magazines: Koh and Girls forM.

The difference is that for the main lineup, we receive the data as early as possible (typically a few days before release in Japan) with the goal of finishing them before the next volume comes out. Bonus magazines are exactly that: extra content that we'll do when we can set aside resources for them. Generally speaking, monthly magazines will be part of the main lineup, since the backlog can quickly spiral out of control if we neglect them for a month or two. If we do, we might find ourselves with thousands of pages that need to get done before we're caught up.

I should also explain what I mean when I say "backlog." Simply put, any chapter that's not actively being typeset is part of the backlog. I'm sure this definition differs from that of a typical user, but it makes the most sense from a management point of view. Once a chapter advances from this state (i.e., typesetting has begun), it's just a matter of time until it's up and publicly available on the site. Backlog content lacks this guarantee for an approaching release.

With that out of the way, let's move on to how the magazine process is doing right now.

Current Status and Goals

Just to start things off, the magazine team is doing better than ever before. During the second half of 2018, we've made a number of changes and introduced new systems to the work process (including what some people refer to as "The Mantis Gatcha"—make of that what you will). Naturally, not every change turned out to be a complete game changer, but these efforts had an overall positive result. Good work practices were brought up and shared with every member of the team, the distribution of work is now more evenly spaced out, and productivity is up across the board.

Believe it or not, the backlog has never actually been out of control. That said, it was going in a direction we weren't pleased with earlier on in the year. Thankfully we've now reversed that trend, and we are back to finishing more content than we receive each month. Since we started with a rather intimidating backlog a few month ago, it's not completely gone yet, but it's shrinking by the day. Furthermore, three of our six main magazines are already where we want them: Shitsurakuten, Kairakuten BEAST, and Europa. The backlog is gone for these three, and new issues are pretty much done by the time we get the next one. Our next goal is to do the same for Kairakuten and X-Eros, and then finally Bavel.

Once again, I should remind you that just because a chapter isn't up on the site doesn't mean it's not done internally. Magazines have been around as part of the subscription service for over three years now, and we've had many periods where we're constantly scrambling to get enough content released. During the worst times, we barely had enough content to cover the releases for the day, so as you can imagine, getting through the weekends was a struggle each week.

As a direct result, the end of the year has always been a rough period for us. During the last month and a half, we lose 30% of our work days due to the end-of-year holidays, which means we need to get a lot of content prepared ahead of time to keep up our regular release pace. Last December was a particularly stressful time for the team, but we managed to get though it in the end. In fact, one of the things I'm most proud of is that the team has never let me down. Two years ago, I set a goal of having three releases per day (excluding shorts/illustrations), and with the exception of maybe a couple days, we've hit that goal each month since January of 2017. Providing such a consistent service despite our ups and down is a great achievement in my eyes.

While 2018 was looking pretty grim for the longest time, the improvements made in recent months have made a huge difference. We now have one to two weeks of content ready in the release queue ahead of time, meaning we never have to scramble for content unless we want a particular chapter done ASAP. I can only speak for myself, but I'm sure a lot of people on the team would agree when I say this feel like there is a huge weight off my chest going into December. I expect us to have one of our least stressful Decembers since we launched, and that's what I'm thankful for this weekend.

That's where we stand right now, so let's move on to more long-term goals.

Plans for 2019

As mentioned above, right now we're completing more chapters than we receive each month. Obviously, this means that we'll eventually run out of content to work on, but unlike before, we're prepared. We believe the best approach right now is to focus on our main lineup, and completely get rid of the remaining backlog. This is why you haven't seen any new volumes from the extra magazines in recent months. However, we hope to change that in 2019.

Our output is close to where it needs to be to add another magazine to the monthly lineup. We've floated the idea of having a rotating slot in the past, and this is our goal for 2019. A rotating slot means we'll add another magazine to the lineup (such as Koh or Girls forM), but it would be different each time. We'll have to see where we're at when we finally decide to implement this, but I'd rather start small with a bonus magazine every two/three months and work our way up from there. Of course, the overall release rate will stay consistent from one month to another no matter how we go about it, so you'll never have to worry about subscribing on a "bad" month. If anything, you should only notice a steady increase of content going forward.

This may be disappointing to some of you who are fans of the bonus magazines and want more from them right now. However, I believe it's a better strategy to completely finish the backlog and then add more content, instead of just adding to it. Doing so will allow us to release the full content of all our magazine in a timely manner each month, and I think that's ideal for everyone.

With that said, I can confirm that we've locked in Comic Koh Vol.2 as our next bonus magazine. We might start on it before the rotating slot idea is fully implemented, so please keen that in mind for when we eventually release the first chapters. For now, here's the upcoming artist lineup:

Kamo (cover), Sasahara Yuuki, Shindou, Ponsuke, Ootsuka Reika, Gujira, Toruneko, Bubuzuke, Satetsu, Higashino Mikan, Makio, Minasuki Popuri, Shibasaki Shouji, makki, Sakagami Umi, Yakumi Benishoga, Ikezaki Misa, Unasaka, Sakura Mafumi

If any of you are cross referencing this with the original release, you may notice that two names are missing. This leads me to my final topic.

The Problem with Older Content

Since the very beginning, when we pick up a new magazine, we typically start with the most recent issue and go forward. Eventually, the question of "what about older volumes?" is brought up, and our typical answer can often be boiled down to "sorry, no can do." The short explanation behind this is that's just how our licensing deals work. We'll sign a deal with the publisher to start with a certain volume, and then pick up all the new releases. The full reasoning is a bit more complicated.

The backbone of the Japanese ero manga industry is mostly made up of freelance artists. What I mean is that artists are rarely exclusively tied to any one publisher. Naturally, many artists can still only be found in a certain magazine, because that makes the most sense. If you only produce one chapter every other month and the themes are somewhat consistent, it makes perfect sense to stick to a single publisher. Concentrating your efforts with one company allows you to build up a good relationship with them, and in particular with your editor—an artist's personal line of communication between themselves and the publisher. This will likely benefit you in future negotiations, and is the quickest way to what is many artists' main goal: publishing enough content to get a book release. However, if you put out more content than one publisher can handle, or if you delve into unusual fetishes that they're not willing to publish, the artist is free to take their business wherever they want. You can see example of this here on the site such as Fu-ta who regularly have chapters published in both X-Eros and Bavel, or Dibi whose tamer femdom works appear in X-Eros, while the more extreme content goes in Girls forM.

The rights to their works also stay with the artists. The publisher is free to publish the chapters in their magazines, but they need the artist's permission for outside licensing and other deals. This is where the main problem should become apparent. If an artist is actively working with the publisher, it's very easy to bring up additional licensing agreements for upcoming releases. It's much harder if the artist isn't with the publisher anymore, and it gets more complicated the further back in time you go. While I'm sure most leave on good terms, it's not unthinkable to imagine an artist burning all their bridges when leaving a publisher, making it very tricky and awkward for them to get in touch. Some artists leave the entire ero manga industry behind, and the likelihood of getting a deal with them depends on how much they want to distance themselves from their past. This is an issue we've run into a couple of times, with artists who have moved on to mainstream content and don't want any of their old adult material licensed in English. If you go back far enough, some artists just disappear and are completely unreachable. Finally, you have a small set of artists who simply don't want their works released in English for one reason or another. Typically we find that the more controversial the content, the more reservation the artist have to publish it outside of Japan, which is understandable.


Once you add all this together, it should paint a pretty clear picture: the main hurdle when it comes to publishing older content is finding the original artist and getting their permission. We've had some of our partners in Japan literally trekking through mountains to get an approval from certain artists before we could get our hands on their works. Even then, if we get a no and can't convince them otherwise, there's nothing we can do about it. As regrettable as it may be, chances are that the further back we go when adding older magazines, the less complete the lineup will become due to all these factors.

Wrap-Up

This is the first comprehensive post I've made on this topic, so admittedly it's a bit dense. If you managed to get through it, I hope it helped to shed some light on what goes on with magazines and some of our decisions. The magazine process frankly isn't exciting enough for me to do regular updates like this one, but if I have anything else noteworthy to share in the future, I plan to do so. For now, feel free to ask any questions that you might still have after reading this. As long as they're related to magazines in some way, I should be able to answer them, and I'm more than happy to do so.

you mentioned in an older post that you have the full backissues for G4M so will we see them back to vol.1? don't get me wrong i don't want that you realease them in a short time period. i only want to know if you have the licences and will release them (may it be 3-4 years) or not?

Just want to say thank you to the entire FAKKU team. Your work is amazing and I'm so glad I was born at the right time for it.

I've been meaning to ask, and I think this is related enough to magazines, but if we want to see certain artists published in English are we better off asking for books with chapters from magazines FAKKU has already translated? Also, if the FAKKU subscriber count goes up is there a possibility you guys can get more magazines?

We could try it out for special occasions, but it might be a bit much to tweet previews and the actual release for each chapter. We've thought about other ways to implement some sort up preview feature for upcoming releases though, so that might be coming at some point.


We have that option, but unless we see a sudden surge of interest for the magazine, I don't think it's very likely to happen any time soon.


Only in the sense that we already have an established business relationship with that artist/publisher, meaning we most likely could get it if we wanted to. It's not a major factor when it comes to us deciding which titles to publish. In fact, the next three books are all new content that's not in the subscription.


Not my decision to make, but I imagine so. Although if it means expanding the team, the increase would need to be substantial enough to support that.

Here's hoping Nana to Kaoru will get a Netflix adaptation.

Damn, so no Tosh, huh?

Regarding G4M, are the remaining chapters for Vol. 16 and Vol. 13 still going to be released on the site. By my count, there are still 1 and 5 chapters left for those two volumes respectively.

Yes. While I can't say when we'll pick up newer and/or older magazines, the ones we've already started will absolutely be finished.

That’s good to hear. Thanks!

Was thinking the same thing myself, lmao.

Whether or not a chapter has already been translated, be it through legit means or not, is irrelevant to us. Every magazine chapter you see on FAKKU is translated and typeset by our staff, and our goal is to do all the chapters in our magazines regardless.

Just want to thank the translators and editors working hard to bring us such great titles.

It's very unfortunate that the selection can be limited at times, but I do appreciate the transparency explaining why.

I hope Fakku will continue to support G4M and release its chapters. I understand there may be some dissatisfaction with the metrics, but its fans like me are very passionate. It's part the reason why I subbed for so long in the first place.

The first chapter is in the review stage right now, so I'd say expect it either this week or the next, whenever there's a free slot for it in the release schedule. Second one should be done before the end of the month internally, and released on the site shortly after (likely early February if I had to make a guess).