Manga scan websites exist everywhere. Quicker even than fansubbers, these groups pump out manga chapters sometimes the day they come out in Japan, cleaned up better than a hard volume than you can find in the states. There’s one thing I like about the manga anthologies when I go to Japan, or even Kinokuniya in the States: they’re huge. And I’m hardly referring to the number of pages. These books are also larger in page size. The print is legible- mostly.

Here in the States, with the exception of what one can find in Shojo Beat, Shonen jump, and their ilk, and a few rare exceptions like Fruits Basket and Rurouni Kenshin, one can only find manga in small paperback volumes. Which I buy en masse. My manga collection tops somewhere around 500 and counting.

But, with few exceptions, I don’t read them. Instead, once I’ve bought a manga, I open it, look at the font size and style, and determine if the headache of trying to read it "as is" is manageable, or if I should go to one of those scanner sites where the font is bigger. I visit these sites, but read manga that I’ve already purchased. Is this legal?

There are people who would immediately jump down my throat and say I can find other ways of reading it. For manga like YuYu Hakusho and Absolute Boyfriend, it’s easy to pick up the American comic magazine and just read it that way, which I do. I never read scans of those things. There are also some manga like Inuyasha that I can more or less read as is (although as to why I would want to is another question entirely).

But then there are monstrosities like Clamp, where background characters and characters in the distance have a habit of having very small text. And blocks of it. I’ve tried scanning my manga into my computer myself. Since I have no intention of removing the book’s spine, I can’t get the middle of the page to come out. It’s the same problem with handheld magnifiers. Those that are strong enough that allow me to see the pages have t lie flat, so I can’t read anything close to the spine.

With the exception of Bleach and a limited number of others, and usually only a chapter or so of those, manga don’t have audiobooks- and those that do are usually fan made. It’s understandable why- it would be horribly time consuming and expensive.

Then is the issue of the CCTV. For those who are visiting this board for my essays without much understanding of the nonsighted world, a CCTV is a small reader, either handheld or hooked to an actual TV or computer that scans and enlarges things as-they-are. Many of my friends have them, but, unfortunately, I’m not covered to get one. The NJCBVI, the organization that handles the blind and visually impaired by me, has never understood what I do and do not need, offering canes and mobility lessons to me for free while telling me I have to pay for the things I have a use for. If I had one of these devices, the scanalations would be a moot point. But, right now, I can’t just plunk down a few thousand for something like that. Maybe in a few years, when I’m out of college, but not now.

So, TheO readers, what’s your stance? When a manga is owned already, is it legal to read a larger print scanalation that is offered online, even if it is not an official translation? Are scanalations under any condition legal at all?