[Locked] FAKKU State of the Union 2016

Yesterday we removed all scanlations from FAKKU. This is something we announced over six months ago, but obviously it still came as a surprise to a lot of our users. Once we removed all unlicensed content the only material remaining was that which had been officially licensed, an overwhelming amount of which is for subscribers. The response has been divisive, with people coming out in support and people fueled with hatred of the decision.

As the person who created FAKKU nearly 10 years ago, I am here now to answer your questions and explain why I think this is the right thing to do.

Why did you remove scanlations and unlicensed content?

A lot of people think hentai is free just because it's always been free. Given our history at FAKKU we've contributed to that misconception, and now it's time to fix it. Everything you've been reading on the Internet has been a scan of an actual book from Japan, something Japanese authorities are increasingly clamping down on. Piracy is not a sustainable business model, but more importantly, piracy has never been my goal with FAKKU.

Over the past year we have officially published over 200 individual artists. After going to Japan and meeting with artists whom we've published and have had their scanlations appear on FAKKU, I have made the decision to support them as much as I possibly can. It's heartbreaking to talk with an artist and have them explain that when they Google their name they don't see their website, or their Twitter, or any way to actually support them. All they see are pirated scans of their work that were uploaded somewhere without their permission.

This isn't a problem unique to hentai, it's an issue with the anime and manga industry at large and the reason why so many Japanese companies, publishers, and artists, blindly turn their back on their overseas fans thinking we're all pirates. Because for so many years that's all we've been to them, pirates. My goal with FAKKU is to change their perception of us and removing scanlations (and giving our users a way to support their favorite artists) is the next step.

As a result of this change you'll see more content coming to FAKKU from new artists and new publishers. We will be publishing all different kinds of genres, including things you don't normally see on FAKKU. I want to bring back all of the content that has been removed, but now legally and in collaboration with the artists that created it instead of via pirated scans. Right now we simulpublish two of the largest hentai magazines in Japan, Comic Kairakuten and Comic X-Eros, which together account for almost 1,000 pages of new content each month. The fact that we have been successfully doing this for six months is incredible, it's the equivalent of publishing two entire issues of Shonen Jump every single month.

We plan to add free content for users that cannot afford a subscription, but it's going to take some time. We are still legally figuring out how exactly to do this and how to do it in a way that's smart alongside our subscriptions. If you have ideas post them in this thread, I'll be reading every single reply.

Final Thoughts

At this point whether we succeed or fail is entirely up to you, and we need your support now more than ever. If you can't afford a subscription, help spread our message and explain to people why we made this decision and why the artists deserve support. Get out there and tell people. Think of all the faps these artists have given us over the years, now we finally have the opportunity to give back to them in a meaningful way.

I hope you choose to stick around with FAKKU. If not, it's been an incredible 10 years and I want to thank all of you for being a part of it.

Unfortunately we won't be able to add PayPal for subscriptions anytime soon. I have personally discussed this with PayPal and although they are okay with us using them for the majority of content on our store, digital subscriptions specifically are where they draw the line. We will be looking at alternative payment options like Bitcoin, but it's going to take some time.



Later this year we will most likely add options to buy in monthly packages (3 months, 6 months, 12 months, etc) and we will be looking into adding a free trial.

The site can't be legal and illegal content. It can have free content later, which they will eventually put in. But it won't be much.
As for the donation method, that's not an overly viable method. It's a shady loophole that paypal might find out about, and crack down on

I don't know, PayPal might be for it. If the problem is PayPal does not like automatic payments, then that could be the fix, because the user initiates everytime. It depends on "why" PayPal does not like subscriptions.

As we continue to grow, the variety of content we publish will grow with us. You may have noticed the poll on the front page asking which genres people would like to see us publish, we take that feedback seriously.

As one of the people who at the start was angry about what was happening becouse i didn't visit the forum often and probably ignored the warning in the frontpage I'm sorry, but after that I'm aware and I read everything possible that was about it in the forum and now that I know what is happening is for the good of Fakku and for the artists.
From now on I'm only going to visit the forum and see how things proceed and then in the future maybe I could also pay a subscription hoping that my VISA card can be used as Paypal unfortunately does not allow to be used in this field.
(Sorry if my english isn't perfect but it isn't my native language >.<)

Good luck for the future Jacob!

Whew, scared me there for a second.

Like I said in the other thread, I have been paying for Subscription for a couple of months and am still upset by these decisions.

I have been a silent Fakku user for years. While other sites existed, Fakku was my first choice when it had what I wanted. Why? Why would I choose Fakku instead of other sites? Why did I pay for a subscription in the first place?

I chose Fakku because it had the most comprehensive collection of even the rarest doujins. When someone mentioned a doujin I should read, I could come here and find it, H or non-H, and look no further. I bought my subscription to have access to even more comprehensive content. Now that you have taken away the original content, my reasons for choosing this site have vanished.

If you guys offer the same completeness of content behind a pay wall, I will gladly pay for it. If you offer the same completeness of content with some of it behind a paywall, I will gladly pay for it.

If you do not have the completeness of content for any reason, including something as simple as a server crash, you will not get my hits on even your free doujins. I will have no reason to prefer this site to any other doujin site. I will take my business somewhere where the reasons I chose Fakku are present.

If the law has forced you to become a sub-par service, I understand your position. But you are faced with a problem. My demands do not change to fit the law. I still want the things I want, and someone will give them to me. Fakku, for the reasons that made it Fakku, will be dead. I will go where the supply meets my demands. I am not alone.

I want buy the subscription very badly but all I can afford is $9.95 a month and its $12.95 so it hurts alot. but on the other hand I have started buying the books.

although is it possible to make the comics that are being released similar to the books in terms of pricing?

Just stating as a previous uploader to the site you know most of the content came from other places right? I know I got most of my stuff I uploaded from other sites/torrents and scanlators would upload their stuff here as well as other H-sites or they would offer the works on their homepages.

I´m a little sad that the scanlations were removed, but I also understand why the free content had to go (and donwloaded everyhing I wanted to keep before it was removed). And it's not like there are no other sites one can use to get his daily dose of scanlations. So I stay here for the quality translations and get the rest on another site...



That is really good to hear, because like a lot of other people I really miss some nice monster girl stories. At the moment there is only one story with this tag on fakku, so your statement raises my hopes!

Simple answer, I never looked for anything rarer than Fakku had. Now I have to.

I've been a subscriber since you introduced it so I don't mind this change.

Though I want to just touch on the rampant piracy of manga/anime/hentai over here in the west. As Gabe Newell himself said it, "piracy is a distribution problem". What does it mean to be an anime/manga/hentai fan in the west? It means having to put with way below sub par services and licensing issues. Crunchyroll to watch anime? Sure but we have to pay a subscription and even then we don't get all the anime shown in Japan and half of it is blocked in certain countries due to licensing issues. It's no wonder anime is pirated so badly when the legitimate service is so shockingly bad.

Hentai and manga fall under similar circumstance. Japan needs to find a better way to distribute their products to the west or piracy will continue. If they can offer a way for us to access their service as easy as it is for us to torrent them or view them on a website posting scans then their products will flourish over here.

Just going to give this as an example. I torrent anime all the time because of this. However, after watching Berserk, I became a fan and ended up spending nearly $600 on all the manga volumes. That's several hundred dollars spent on manga after having watching something for free.

It can work, they just need to realize this, and I hope they will.

Even simpler answer fakku has the rarest content since none of this content was ever released out of japan till now and it happens each and every day (^^)

Same, after 2009 when I started using other sites, and once I became a scanlator in 2010, Fakku was just another platform to hopefully score some hits for my blog.

Hello Jacob!

I have a question about the subscription pricing payment currency (I guess you would call it?)
Although I am posting this from Japan (using VPN), I live in Australia and was wondering if it would be possible to introduce an Australian (or not even Australian but a multitude of currencies) currency payment. The reason I was wondering IF this was possible is because currently I'm paying more than what the actual subscription costs. By that, some Australian banks have surcharges added onto them when paying in a different currency, paying in USD.

I just felt this is relevant as subscribing is what a large amount of people would have to do to be able to access the products that FAKKU! offer now due to legality issues etc... and it may potentially benefit more than just a few people. Again, I don't know how it works, just trying to suggest something that may be a benefit!

Happy New Year/Happy Holidays from Sydney Australia,
Matt!