I have seen Kei Urana (裏那圭) released a tweet regarding the conditions of her fanbase and the group of people, who have gone out of their way to appreciate her work of sequential art. Though this write-up is not particularly about her, or about her manga, or any of those specific to her as an individual. I do not know miss Urana personally, and I am not interested in the facets of her personal life. I am more interested in writing up about her specific relations to her fanbase as a whole.
In short, it would be this long tweet addressing her fanbase.
I’ve spent the past few days researching the circumstances in different countries, including financial situations.
I understand that for many people, pirate sites are the only way they can read manga.
I also understand that prices can be higher overseas.
I’ve even seen people saying, “Don’t bring this issue up.”But if we do not speak up now, the value of Japanese manga and creative works, built through the sacrifices and relentless efforts of those who came before us, will be wasted.
I’ve also seen people say, “Reading for free doesn’t hurt sales.”
That is not true.
“Free” lowers the value of things.
Once people grow used to getting something for free, they stop looking toward legitimate versions.
(I also understand that people who truly love a work will support it properly.)We pour ourselves into creating so readers can enjoy our work.
Compensation matters, of course, but more than anything, I do not want to see its value diminished.To help people who cannot afford to buy it, or who do not have access to it, enjoy these works, Ando and I have been discussing this for a long time and exploring many ideas. I cannot share details yet, but we are working on it.
Publishers are making efforts as well.
I’m sorry it is taking time.
But please stop hurling accusations like, “You are racists,” or saying misguided things like, “Piracy is free promotion for you.”We will continue doing everything we can so everyone can enjoy manga.
And I ask one thing in return: please try to understand our perspective and our culture as well.※I’m using a translation app.
So first of all I will address the first issue I have with what kei is addressing in this case, “Free lowers the value of things.” in which it can only be seen as a case where the means of analyzing the immanent nature of value has further been displayed, thus “the value of things” I highly doubt miss Urana is referring to here, is the physical taxing sensuous nature of her labour, from the exertion of energy of having to hold a pen, and draw with rigorous labour time. If I can inscribe Marx, unfortunately the genesis of value comes from of course the illusory conception of things. Of course it is difficult to comprehend such a thing as society has sublimated itself into viewing those things as having, in-itself: value.
Of course, the character of her labour has been obfuscated by the idea of sales. Through the genesis of fetishism and reification, she would through her conditions, be forced to inflict upon her work with a mythologizing view. It is a product of privileged thought. And it is not about Urana in specific, it is about her publishers. She may give off the false consciousness of talking for herself, but in actuality she is talking for her publishers. With the repeated notions of her publishers supposedly “making effort”, yet a lot of people in the sequential art working force do not recognize this sort of immanent antimonies in their conception of their own labour. The publishers can try to give off the illusion of putting in the effort to cleanse off their immanent stain they have inflicted onto the “state of the art.” They would clean up half of the wounds they have inflicted onto civil society, and ask their victims to congratulate them for their half-hearted effort in a domineering fashion. They themselves are being alienated from their work, and it is statistically not from the ones who cannot afford buy her volumes physically, it is actually the ones who are wealthy enough to pay her wages through working with the hyper-exploitative publishers that continue to lay havoc upon humans as we continue to speak.
“The value of things” is naturally, a product of that alienation, as that thing has been displayed as an in-itself, a noumena—alienated from the subject. Marx has established that, “The mysterious character of the commodity-form consists therefore simply in the fact that the commodity reflects the social characteristics of men’s own labour as objective characteristics of the products of labour themselves, as the socio-natural properties of these things.” (Capital Vol. 1) and that mysterious character drives this sort of estrangement from her towards her work, and from her towards her fans.
Of course, I personally view if a fan of an artist truly desires the artist for their creative nature, thus there should be this wall of abstraction yet also objectification obfuscating this relationship. Yet we are all sublimated into believing that is actually not the case, which I find to be deeply alienating. I cannot fathom browbeating my fans and dismissing a genuine connection between them as subject and art, which should be one of the uttermost cathartic experiences they can get from experiencing a representation of you as a subject, a fruits of your own interaction with nature.
Humans are artistic beings in general, which has been established numerous of times. We, not just as individuals, but as a collective class are subjects. And subjects, through the means of praxis, cannot only interact with nature, but therefore change it, and through that means: create. The notion of being a detached spectator, which has soiled the minds of many political ideologies today is a direct result of this sort of detachment. We are subjects that practice, through the act of play, through our interaction with the sensuous natural world…
“For it must be said once and for all that man only plays when he is a man in the full meaning of the word, and he is fully human only when he plays.”
– Schiller
So as one who creates, through one’s interaction with nature… art is also a part of that process. Art is indeed an objective representation of you, as a subject, because it is given birth by the existence of you as a subject. So when someone takes up a liking of the artistic fruits of your labour, why do you desire to further alienate them? Well the answer is already established, sooner or later—but your fans like your work as a representation of you as a subject, and not you as a subject that has been reified into an objective formal representation of yourself, as a subject. In short, Urana is coming off as viewing her fans, as supposed to her publisher, to be mere consumers, to be a mere source of her income, and not establishing any sort of social relation between art and subject, which can be already established why through the mythological nature of formal fetishized concepts like value.
If you’re an artist who is bestowed wealth through the means of publishers, using ur natural qualities as human being to create and share, view your fans as a mere instruments of your income then I can’t help but look down on you. Maybe an unempathetic thing to say but I can’t help it.
But the catch is: I don’t think this is un-empathetic at all. In fact it is more un-empathetic to inscribe to your fans that don’t have an income some sort of moral failure in one way shaped or form. Not all fans will ever be able to afford all of your volumes, and your fans would particularly prefer to support your artistic representations than the corporations that you are defending over your fans who genuinely desire to read your art. In fact I may even consider what she is saying here comes from a particularly privileged position!
If you keep your supposed work of art, with the false premise of self-expression of your subject to others behind some sort of reified exchange I think it is indeed coming from a place of bourgeois thought.