How do we curate what manga goes up on Renta!?
Well… beyond the first step of actually negotiating directly with publishers to get permission to translate and sell their manga legally on our site, there ARE times when we technically have permission to do certain manga and choose not to.
I know that sounds wild and outrageous, but we do have standards, you know!
1. No child pornography
Cutie Pies Must Be Protected At All Costs
Though child pornography is illegal in Japan, as it should be, it is NOT illegal if it is drawn. That means there is some manga out there with fictional kids getting abused. Interestingly, in illustrated form it is also legal in America and Britain but not in Australia.
Legal or not, we still hold the right to decide not to translate or sell works that include underage children. We also extend this to flashback scenes of tragic backstories, so unfortunately this does sometimes pop up as a reason we decline certain manga.
However, lots of manga features juniors and seniors in high school in Japan, so the youngest you’ll see is 16 years old. (If we excluded high school love stories from our list, you’d never see any manga get translated at all!) Occasionally something might slip through when the artist decides in chapter 20 of an ongoing series that they need to traumatize us, but we try to prevent this from happening as best we can.
2. Bestiality
10% pup? Fantastic! — 100% pup? Bad boy.
This is another line we choose not to cross. I’ve seen a lot of manga in the omegaverse genre that have been featuring full-out humanoid animals covered in fur. Unfortunately you won’t see these on our site.
The only animals allowed to do naughty things in our manga are of the tentacle’d variety.
Never fear though – Animal ears and tails are hugely popular, and we do not discriminate against cuteness.
3. Gang Rape
This is too upsetting to purposefully share with readers in English, so if there’s penetration, there’s no translation.
4. Cross-generational incest
Step-siblings? Go for it!
Cousins? Alright.
Siblings or Twins? Not great, but okay!
Parent/Uncle and Child? NOPE.
These guys aren’t siblings, I just really like this cover.
I hope that explains why occasionally there will be a manga out there that we love but that we are unfortunately unable to translate and share on our site. I don’t mean to write off all the problematic manga we DO publish as perfectly fine and not upsetting on occasion, but please keep in mind that there are a lot of factors at play, cultural differences just being one of them, and ultimately our goal is to share as much fun and sexy manga with our readers as possible.
As we continue to grow and have more say in what gets translated, I know that the genre will grow with us, and artists will continue creating more and more content that surprises us in pleasant ways, as opposed to just knocking our socks off : )
5 Responses to How Do We Choose What Manga Goes On The Site?
I’m happy these guidelines are in play
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The curation of work that is offered is fantastic! I hope to build a marvelous collection with Renta over the years. Lol
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In the evaluation process are there considerations given to all aspects of a work? I at least hope a title is evaluated as a whole. When not legally prohibited having a strict no tolerance policy contributes in ways to the silence and shaming around very serious real world issues which can be reflected in fiction. I hope there is an understanding people are not always looking for fun and sexy out of the fiction they consume as well. Content warnings are also an appreciated way to help people avoid material they do not want to see for a variety of reasons. Parts of this blog post are very troubling to me. Though ultimately, Renta has to choose what standards are comfortable for it. Just as I choose what companies to support based on their (hopefully clear) policies.
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Thank you for your comment.
To answer your first question, yes we do consider deeper aspects of the work as a whole. Not every manga that touches on the topic of rape or other sensitive issues is labeled automatically as inappropriate, just as we don’t automatically translate and promote genuinely terrible content just because it DOESN’T feature those issues in the story.
Though our company has the stability of the Japanese brand being in the business for years and years, we are still growing rapidly on the English side of things. I point this out because in order to keep growing and reach people who may become new users and fans of Japanese manga, it’s not a priority for us to translate every work that exists just because it exists.
It’s also not our responsibility. Any other company who wants to translate more serious manga can pick up those titles if they go through the proper routes. But that should not mislead readers into thinking all manga treats rape or similar topics in a respectful way, or that they are deserving of being thought of as “serious”. Many times it is simply exploitative and genuinely concerning that an artist would go out of their way to create work of that nature because they think female readers would be turned on by it.
That being said, I do appreciate your thoughtful and polite comment. It also makes me smile, not in a sarcastic way, that you hold Japanese erotic manga to the same standards as general fiction. Many of my coworkers, including myself, do not judge any erotic manga as being inappropriate just because it’s “adult” content. As we try to reach more fans with new manga coming out of Japan, the number of Westerners who voice their concerns eloquently about wanting us NOT to censor traumatic topics in manga is more commonly overshadowed by people who don’t even read manga condemning us for spreading rape on the internet when they haven’t even sampled the story, much less read it in full. A thoughtful comment supporting fair treatment of topics in manga/fiction is a rare gem.
To sum up, we have the luxury to be sensitively selective at this time, which is a blessing in itself. If we monopolized the industry and refused to share such manga, then I would consider it a problem. At this time we are still translating plenty of manga that people would consider problematic, yet we don’t judge people for what turns them on, and we prioritize manga that we hope people will enjoy.
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I like that your team explained how they curate manga for the site. I’ve been on some Japanese manga websites and some of the content I see makes me say “What?”. So, when I read points one and two in this post, I can confirm I wasn’t imagining what I saw.
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