Japan is losing an archive of out-of-print manga because of international credit card companies 

The Japanese manga hosting platform Manga Library Z has announced that it will be shutting down as of November 26. 

Manga Library Z (previously J-Comi) was launched in 2011 by Love Hina manga artist and politician Ken Akamatsu with the goal of preserving old and out-of-print manga titles in digital form. The comics are hosted with permission from the artists and publishers for free, with a premium subscription available.  

But after 14 years of service, the platform will be shutting down. According to the announcement, Manga Library Z has run into trouble with credit card companies, which has resulted in the platform being unable to return revenue to its contributors, the manga artists. 

On October 28, the site received a notice from payment processing companies that left them with no choice but to terminate all of their payment contracts by the end of October. Apparently, Manga Library Z’s operators attempted to negotiate, but were unable to reverse the decision.  

The problem payment processing companies had with Manga Library Z was that transactions on the site involved adult content. Back in June, Ken Akamatsu revealed that “an international credit card brand requested that we suspend the distribution of works containing specific words” (source: NLab). It seems that the platform complied with these demands, removing manga that contained these words, but that this was ultimately not enough.  

The decision to shut down came after Manga Library Z’s owners attempted to reorganize their payment model, but could not find a solution that would allow them to keep securing revenue for manga authors. “We felt that continuing to operate the site in a way that would prevent us from giving back to our artists would ultimately betray their trust and the trust of our readers.” 

Fortunately, the people running the platform are proactively looking into ways to restart the site in some other form in the future, but Manga Library Z is just another in a series of Japanese platforms that have been compromised by payment processing companies. In the past year, sites that host adult content like DLsite, Fantia, Skeb, Niconico, and Pixiv have faced various restrictions and suspensions, limiting their operations.