What do you think will be in volume 6? ( Besides the BIRZ )

[rosavamgirl]

Hi everyone! I thought it would be nice to have a little more community discussion so I thought- Why not talk about what might be in volume 6? I wonder if Himaruya will come back close to it's release

Comments

[xxmapsyrxx]

Before I start on what I would like to see in vol6, I just want to say that I am really hoping that Hima-sensei gets to do what he really wants for the series. Honestly, seeing as he doesn't updates his website in the recent months, I have strong feelings that he is very busy working on both the Comic Birz and vol6. My comments are in no way shape of form to try to push him into doing something, I just hope we get to see him a bit more.

So, what I am really trying to say is that I would like to see him update his website/blog more than anything else. Even if it means vol6 gets pushed back or something.

But to answer the question posed here, despite high hopes from all corners of the fandom to see new characters, I want to stay conservative and say a chapter dedicated to Romania and associated characters will be more than satisfactory for me, regardless of the plot or the length of the story.

Then again, I am concerned that Hetalia is turning into the generic conveyor belt comic series, where the publishers push Hima-sensei to publish a Birz chapter every month and a new volume every year, disrespecting his opportunity to connect with the fans and totally treating it like just-another-commerical-product. Am I over-thinking or does anyone else have this feeling as well?

[akakosenpai]

Ever since he dropped off the face of the planet, I actually thought the same thing. It seems they may want to make more profit off of Hetalia thus make him stop posing pictures on his blog.

[lildeadkitty]

So I'm not the only one who thinks that's why Hima's not updating his site/blog.

He wrote on Kitayume that updates should return to normal in August last year but then he disappeared again..

Surely it can't just be an over demanding schedule since all he seems to be doing is drawing a few pages a month for Birz (a lot of the pages aren't very detailed any more either...) and working on volume 6. That's not a lot of work really not compared to before when he'd be updating frequently with drawings and comics. Then again he also has Chibi-san Date (I don't follow that series, does that have a monthly comic too or is it only published in volumes?).

Though, maybe he's having real life issues too since he obviously has a life besides Hetalia and Chibi-san Date. He also travels doesn't he so maybe he just hasn't had time?

And I can't speak for anyone else but I know when I'm given a deadline I lose all motivation to draw so maybe he's also losing motivation for Hetalia? I don't know, I hope that's not the case.

As for volume 6 I'd like to see more Veneziano and Romano interaction and something on Prussia's dissolution(though that probably not gonna happen). Most of all though I just want Hima to draw whatever he feels happy drawing.

It seems we all share similar opinions on Hima and vol 6, eh?

[lildeadkitty]

That's very true.

May Hima can find a way to leave Gentosha and find a better publisher? I'm sure there's plenty of publishers that would want Hetalia!

Like pink_cass said, if Gentosha are the reason Himaruya's not updating. Maybe if people boycott Gentosha enough Gentosha will give up on Hetalia and Hima can return to his normal routine and find a new, better publisher?
With the volumes and birz comics, all we really need is one person to buy and scan it. Maybe share the same scans with the other language hetalia communities so they can translate them in to their languages without buying more copies? This is probably just wishful thinking though...

I hope Himaruya somehow sees this discussion.

[xxmapsyrxx]

I am going to put my two cents into this. Or five dollars.

Boycotting Gentosha to facilitate a transfer of publisher on the author side is extremely hard. The Hetalia community is very big and some of us may have underestimated the magnitude of its widespread reach. To stage a wide scale boycott that can generate the intended effect will require cohesive action from a very large, very diverse and unorganized population. The reason I said at the end of my post "does anyone else" is because I have met with people who strongly disagree with what I said.

There are quite a few people who absolutely see Hetalia as just-another-commercial-product. Granted, a lot of manga artist do keep blogs to connect with fans, but exactly how many of them have their story started as a webcomic? And how many of them have put time and effort into doing special events like the ones Himaruya-sensei has done for us? This is why Hetalia is different, because the authorship is different and this is why the Hetalia community is different. This is why I am concerned. It seems that many people are drifting away, or has never been close. It seems, most disconcertingly, that Himaruya-sensei has drifted away. Not only we have accepted and tolerated this conveyor belt, but he has too.

This particular group of people has been enjoying the monthly and yearly publications. They are more than happy that Hetalia has finally moved out of the unconventional little way and has become the proper manga like every other manga they know. They love the conveyor belt. They see this conveyor belt to be the right passage for the author. This is what everyone else does, and that is why he is doing this. I have high suspicion that this was the reason that the publishers used to coerce him into doing it, if this in fact was what happened. These people tend to see the lack of update to be normal and very rightly so and have no intention on infringing upon that kind of status.

These people are NOT going to support the boycott. You and I are, perhaps, a relatively small percentage of the community who cares about the welfare of the community and the author. Most of people are casual fans. The Hetalia community is big, but size is a friend of diversity. Difference can be celebrated or it can be the source of all troubles and the Hetalia community, whether English or not, has had many troubles. It is, as you have pointed out yourself, very wishful to think that boycotting is going to give the intended result.

Worse, I actually have met a number of people who partake in the fandom and give very little respect to canon and the author. Some of them find canon historically inaccurate, which one can say with respect to the author but some of them do it to the point where the author is not at all respected or simply deliberately not respected. Others find Himaruya-sensei to be just-another-guy or trying his best to justify Axis atrocities during WWII. These people participate in the fandom for the fandom and don't even give a damn about the original material or the author. There are even many who don't really read the original material and don't follow the publication of the original material. NONE of these people are going to support the boycott.

Therefore, I propose an alternative to the boycott, despite not being able to work out the details myself.

[xxmapsyrxx]

A petition
But before we start with anything, we still need to know EXACTLY what happened. Here are few questions to ponder before we can do anything:

1. Is Himaruya-sensei still drawing Hetalia at his own will? (My guess is yes.)
2. What kind of rights has Deen and Gentosha obtained from Himaruya-sensei? (Applicable length and width?)
3. Are there personal developments that cannot be disclosed hindering his lack of presence outside of published materials? (My guess is no.)
4. Why did Gentosha treated Hetarchive the way it did? And at that particular time? (This is probably the only thing we can figure out on our own.)
5. Exactly where does Gentosha and Deen want to take Hetalia to and where do we want to take Hetalia to? (This question can probably serve as a guidance question to exactly what should we do for the petition.)
6. What will be the most effective course of action to take to change the status quo other than sitting here and wait for the blog to update? (I would like people to propose alternatives to the petition.)

[pink_cass]

Well, one thing that could be possible is for one of our Japanese speaking members to translate an open letter to Gentosha (that should be very well and carefully phrased and rechecked by several of us, not just one), both asking for an answer to our open questions and expressing our feelings about the current situation. We would then need an email address or something to send it to them and give them a chance to respond in whatever way they deem appropriate. However, I highly doubt that they would care about this.

[xxmapsyrxx]

However, I highly doubt that they would care about this.

I know. I am quite discouraged with the petition idea myself anyway because I feel whatever we do will just be pointless.

Do you have any theories behind Q4?

[pink_cass]

About Hetarchive?
Not really... well, it was very close to the start of season 5 of the anime, namely the freshly changed anime, so I can plant a wild guess that it has something to do with copyrights running out at the end of the year, but that's really just a random guess and I wouldn't even know how to research this since my Japanese isn't good enough.

Actually, now that I think about it: Is it possible that they were actively researching the Western fandom for some reason? At least that would explain why they found the scanlations to begin with.

[boo_sagara]

I just wrote what I think about their attitude towards the Hetarchive in the comment below, but basicaly, I think that companies in general have not yet adjusted to the internet.

They fail into see the difference between someone selling pirated dvds and someone that is promoting their product for free and without gaining anything from it. I think it's a question of clash of generations and the use of the media or something like that.

[lildeadkitty]

About Hetarchive, if you look at the view counter on the main page, you'll see that there are almost 12,000 views from Japan. I'm guessing some of those are people from the English speaking fandom that live in Japan and Japanese fans that are using the site to help them learn English and some could be from Gentosha, Deen, even Himaruya himself?
A few years ago there was a program in Japan about Hetalia which featured our LJ community so Gentosha may have found out about Hetarchive from there and have been keeping an eye on Hetarchive for a while. The time they chose to contact Hetarchive could just be at random, if that makes sense?

[pink_cass]

Hmm, but then it is weird that they waited so long. I think there was a reason for the timing, I just don't know what it is. Could be copyrights, could be a change of people in charge (someone retired or something), could be something else entirely. But I do think there was reason at play rather than randomness.

[lildeadkitty]

That's true. Well what was happening around that time that was related to Gentosha?
I know season 5 was soon to start but that's to do with Deen and that wouldn't affect Gentosha or Hetarchives.

It may be that there was a change of staff at Gentosha, or they may have researched in to the western fandom and discovered that many people aren't buying the manga since they can read it on Hetarchives (forgetting the fact that most of us can't read Japanese), well it's almost certain that that's the reason they asked for the scans to be removed.

But they're allowing the BIRZ strips that aren't yet published in a volume to stay up which is kinda odd.

What we need is for a Japanese speaker to research Gentosha in Japanese

[boo_sagara]

I like the idea of trying to do something to at least find out what is happening, but let me try to organize what I'm thinking now that I read all the comments here:

- I think before we ask that Hima go back to update the blog, the most important thing is to find out why he stopped updating it. (Was it a personal decision? Lack of time? Copyright? I think different reasons will require different attitudes.) Before a petition, we could think in something like "hey, so, can you guys answer some questions?" and list the points you raised.

- what are the feelings of the Eastern fandom about this? Isn't there a possibility of joining forces if our goal was the same? I also believe that if they were unhappy with the situation, they can do much more pressure than us since most products/magazines/etc are aimed for them.

- I think we can try to contact more than one entity, but who beyond Gentosha, I don't know ^^'.

- I think it would be interesting if more people participate in this type of discussion, but at the same time, it would be a headache if we tried to do this on tumblr, for example.

- about the Hetarchive: recently, publishers were fighting for laws that would allow the closure of sites like pixiv or the doujinshi market. Many mangakas objected to this and I'm not sure how the situation is right now, but the explanation is something like "hey, I have the copyright of this series! Why are you drawing a character that belongs to me without my consent?". I think this is the same that we are living in relation to music and entertainment industry in general about the internet: representatives fail to understand that the internet is a very strong means of information sharing and out instead of using it to promote their product and increase the number of fans, all they see is that a person can not draw their favorite character because for that he/she should pay for the copyright :/. And if there is a discussion because of fanarts and doujinshi, I just can imagine that they must have been shocked when they saw all translated volumes *gasp* for free!

- and about what you said in the previous comment: it's sad, but I think that is inevitable in a fandom so big like Hetalia. I think the biggest problem is not the fact that someone just watched the anime, but that people should try to search a little more about the character or what happened in the manga before criticizing the character or say something about the author.