Ok folks, it's getting serious.

As some of you may already know, yaoi manga have had more than one shake up in the past year. First Central Park Media starts having issues financially which ultimately affects their entire catalog including Be Beautiful which is their yaoi offshoot branch. Go to BeBeautiful's website and try to buy something. The shopping cart is seriously messed up to the point where you can't place an order and even that's a step up! Three weeks ago there WAS NO shopping cart. But I digress...

Because CPM was having issues, certain manga are now out of print and all but impossible to find which means price gouging is rampant. Just try buying an Embracing Love 1, 2 or 3 or any of the Finder Series and IF you find it, you will be paying triple digit prices. Last check Embracing Love 2 was going for 174.00 on Amazon!

And speaking of Embracing Love, it just keeps getting worse. If you were going to Yaoi Con 08 in hopes of seeing Nitta Youka, you can forget it. She has CANCELED! Repeat CANCELED and they've got someone else to appear in her place. Why you might ask? SCANDAL! Nitta Youka, one of the foremost BL mangaka in all of creation got busted copying fashion magazine ads and placing them in her artwork. Haru wo Daieteita, or Embracing Love here in the States, is still ongoing in Japan. However, someone observed that one of her recent covers looked a WHOLE LOT like a Diesel ad. Not just an instance here or there, but down to the lighting and shadows.

Check out a side by side comparison here.

http://www.55dsl.com/blog/55dsl-overload/a...ifferences.html

Nitta Youka actually admitted to copying something like 32 ads for her works and apologized profusely. While Diesel wasn't mad ( http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-...ssue-as-tribute ) the hurt hasn't stopped for Nitta. Her work which was serialized in Be Boy Gold magazines has been abruptly DROPPED. This incident happened in the middle of July. The August issue which sells ad space for October has no mention of her in the line up. Read about it here http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-...s-tracing-photo.

To make matters worse, her back catalog has been pulled by her publisher, Libre. And if that wasn't enough, her entire website and blog have been deleted with only an apology listed in their place.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-...-catalog-pulled

So any hope you had of some other publisher picking up her stuff and filling in the gap to stop price gouging just went up in a copyright infringement flame. If it DOES happen, it won't happen any time soon.

So what can a poor yaoi fangirl do? Run don't walk to the Internet and try to find the rest of her stuff which includes:

The Prime Minister's Secret Diplomacy
Casino Lily
Kiss of Fire (an artbook)
White Brand (not released yet in the U.S. and now it remains to be seen if it will ever be)
The Sound of My Voice (good luck with this)

Even Casino Lily is getting hard to find. You can still find it for the 15.99 retail, but if you were on the fence about getting it or any of her other stuff, run don't walk to get it. I'm betting here shortly all of these titles will be added along with the Embracing Love series and going for a car payment on Amazon.

Lessons learned? Don't be tracing other people's stuff line for line and if you do, have a good ass lawyer before hand. And for the rest of us non artist types...we might have to learn to read Japanese cuz the way things are going, sooner or later a series you're following is going to end up on manga skid row.

Big thanks to Sakano, who is probably still crying about this, for learning about Nitta's cancelation from Yaoicon!

BD

Okay, now I HAVE to get 'Embracing Love'! I havta admit, I've been putting it off for WAY too long, >_<;;; but I'm gonna look for the vols at Otakon!

I've heard (up until now) nothing but great things about her, now I'd better get her things while I can!

I only hope I can find them! *prays to the Gods*

Ryuichi

Ahahahaha! xD
im sorry, but this is JUST funny ! XD

okay first of all, why did she copy every single detail from the AD? o:
she could at LEAST like, change the setting to them making out on the beach or something ! D<

Hm, feel sorry for her though *nods*
but goodluck finding her work everyone 8D
if you guys want, i could just give you the download link to the manga >.>

i'd rather you buy the manga and draw over it though :'D

:whistle:

ehh.....also, the person selling the manga for 174$, is such a money thief >__>
that is too much money!! xDD

*whines*

I want the link for her manga!

GIMME!

*pout*

Ryuichi

XD

haha! alright, alright, you shall receive it! [:
just give me sec ! :'D

*runs off*

alrighty! you just have to wait like 40 seconds to download x3
but its worth it! :'D

http://notanmanga.blogspot.com/2008/02/har...ve-english.html

tis only missing volume 12 =D
your welcome, welcome ! :] :]

YAAAAAAYYYY!!!

Any idea where I can get vol 12? And the rest of her stuff? Emanga or paper? And NOT from ripoff artists like the ones on ebay?

Ryuichi

hey ryu !:'D
they just updated! now all their missing is 13 >___>
xDD
so you wanna a place to buy/read them on? o:
cause i cant find the rest C:

expect for casino lily, but its only the drama CD [:

I agree Suguru. She shoulda just put em ass nekkid on the beach somewhere and then no one would be crying about it. I'm not an artist, but I understand being inspired by something or maybe borrowing lighting or other elements, but not the whole thing wholesale. As someone who's been plagiarized (twice), I would have understood if Diesel had tried to take her to the cleaners, but they took the high road and made light of it. Of course that was the best thing they could have done. They're reaping lots of publicity because of this, so people like me who never looked at Diesel outside of a Cosmo ad now have name recognition with them and that's something they can't buy. Pissing off a bunch of fangirls who exhibit pack behavior is the LAST thing they need.

BTW--Nitta totally quit the scene. She's out of manga for good...or at least that's what the word is. Further proof that what's out there is all that's going to be out there for a while unless someone steps in and picks her up outside of Japanese publishing houses.

Where can you find volume one hardcopy, Ryu? That's easy. Follow the scent of greed all the way to Amazon and behold the handful of copies going for upwards of 200 bucks and beyond. You can try eBay, but you run the risk of bootlegs AND other fangirl vultures circling boosting the price to astronomical sums.

If you don't have buckets of cash or a sugar daddy financing your habit, you might also want to try the library. They might even let you keep it if you can run real fast.


BD

Update: Nitta's apology translated: http://giapet.net/2008/07/15/youka-nitta-h...n-makes-amends/

More pic/traced ad comparisons and pics of Katou x Iwaki: http://salon.s55.xrea.com/file/index.html

RIP Iwaki, your fine ass will be missed.

butt nekkid sipping on wine or something >.> and yeah tats, a fangirl walking through the streets and see a diesel AD, would go crazy cause she'll think diesel stole nitta's pose or something o:

:>

what i dont get...why did she quit? :|
i know alot of people who got caught in the cookie jar by copying someone's drawing. :]
they did'nt quit drawing even though some went to jail ! :"D

their response

"I dont care. Im gonna KEEP drawing. It's passion and everyone loves it. I'll just stop stealing someone's art."

i was also hoping that she'd say something like that in her interview
<.<
she quitted on herself >___>
also letting fans like sakano down too :'[

Sigue Says:

Translation of the translation: “I’m not really sorry at all and knew exactly what I was going but here’s some bullshit anyways.

^ kindaaa agree with her xD
looking at the new comparisons, she really did NOTHING to make her art stand out from diesel O.0;
and ryu :'D at lease you have embracing love...ehh..
i hate e-bay xD
my friend told me a woman from africa did'nt pay him his money when he sent his ipod there
XDD
hahahaha !xD
stupid jorge >.>