Marcy June 2009
Marcy is the founder and administrator of DailyManga, the first of the "Big Three" release watching sites (the other two being Manga Jouhou and MangaUpdates). Marcy also runs a DailyManga online store, which sells manga and other Japanese merchandises. Marcy is also the founder of the shoujo scanlation group Division XIII, and is currently involved with the French manga publishing industry.
Marcy: My name is Marcy, I'm a French girl from Paris (France), and I'm turning old enough to not talk about my age :D
I've been a manga fan since I was a child. At first I created a fanzine, then cosplay. I have worked for many stores, publishers ... Manga (and not anime) slowly became everything in my life :) Don't worry though; I'm passionate about other things as well, like shopping \o/, French culture, and movies. I'm also an admin for the MMORPG Nostale. I'm a little bit of a geek but a fashionable one lol.
Marcy: A looooong time ago, I was looking for Vampire Miyu's translation (one of my top three manga), and I discovered a website with a list of many websites doing translations (and a bit of scanlation). However, the site wasn't really that great, not in my "perfect website vision," so I decided to create my own website based on the same concept, listing other websites and releases. I don't remember the website's name, it' was something like Ayuchan's manga, in fact, it was really just a list on HTML.
Marcy: DailyManga opened its doors on September 2002, which would make us make us ... 7 years old this year (2009) /o/ (same for my scanlation group Division XIII that I created in July of the same year).
Marcy: Division XIII just blew its 7 years candles. It's a shoujo group, one of the oldest French shoujo groups I believe. The group was formed 2 months before DailyManga and 4 after Iscariote. Today I think we're one of the main sources of shoujo magazine scans for the U.S. scanlation community (the French community doesn't work with magazine scans).
We release almost every day (except in August of course xD).
Marcy: wonder ... only girls in the team? Maybe that's the secret :D
Marcy: Errr ... ok ... the name ... well I still have the log, I was on IRC and I said "hey I'm gonna make a website with all the releases from all of the teams" *laughing in the channel* "come on help me come up with a name."
I avoided World Wide Manga, MangaPatate xD A friend suggested to me "DailyManga," it was the best suggestion and I kept it :) I told him if the site ever became famous, I would pay him something lol but throughout the years he disappeared and I wasn't able to do it ^^;
About the website, technically it's my brother who made it 7 years ago (yeah the site is OLD and it is falling apart lol), he did a great job. Currently we're creating a whole new DailyManga, but we have much less time than we did for the first one lol.
Marcy: In 2004, I, together with my best friend, decided to open a Japanese library on the Internet, we wanted the DailyManga shop to focus on Japanese books (manga, but also novels, music sheets, etc.). Of course, we were also selling French items as well as a bit of English products.
Why did we choose the same name? Well ... it's a great name isn't it? x) Plus people knew the name and supported us.
In 2006, we found a business partner much bigger than ourselves, since then, he's the one taking care of almost everything. Business is going smooth ^^ and we both started other things as well.
Marcy: About the Mascot, when we launched the shop, we needed a mascot, so I asked a brilliant designer (who worked for me in her early fanzine days) to help me. At first it was a panda, then a kitty and slowly, after days and days of work, we finally chose the Poulpy \o/ with a candy design (flashy and chubby).
Marcy: The biggest team was Iscariote, they were doing like 2 releases a day and it lasted 3 or 4 years O.o It was really amazing, there were some other shonen/seinen groups, but not many, and no one lasted long. I created Division XIII, my own shoujo group, before DailyManga because ... nobody wanted to scanlate shoujo manga ^^;;
Marcy: Well, there were only 4 or 5 French teams; I knew the website would be use by more English-speaking people than French, so I made an English version to make it easier for them ^^ but in the end, I think I made the flags a little bit too small lol, many people didn't see it at first and didn't realize they could change the language preference.
Marcy: woaww souveniiiir memories lol well, the biggest team in the U.S. was Toriyama's World, they were doing Naruto and Hunter X Hunter, then you had MangaScreener, ShoujoMagic, Omanga oh and MangaProject of course.
As you can see, everything started with guys xD and seinen lol. People were bursting with passion and all they wanted to do was to scanlate the best manga that Japan could offer in the best quality :) of course.
Since I launched both sites at the same time, it was the same scene, but I hate telling myself "I have a nice website, go for it," and later many people blamed me for it because I never created any publicity for DailyManga. The site spread through words of mouth eventually. In the French community DM spread really fast.
Marcy: Errr in fact they arrived 1 year later, but I didn't pay any attention to them ^^; I think I'll always see them like a bit of a copycat xD but then they became something on their own.
Marcy: My partners! Each time I tried to build a team it was a disaster. Because DailyManga became so popular, much bigger than I anticipated, many of the people I had on my team started to feel like they were god -_- so I kicked everyone :D
I tried many times and failed every time xD so ... there was a long period where I worked by myself and now that scanlation is slowing down, I'm starting to accept new staff again.
Marcy: Before it was soooo much easier, I had like 30 channels open on mIRC-X (the main IRC server ^^), and every morning I would go to each team's website to check their news. I also made a script that notified me whenever a channel's topic was refreshed.
Now ... I just need to subscribe to RSS feeds, or watch some IRC news bot, but it means more time to write summaries for the website!
That's the main reason I want to change the website, it's not fun anymore (not to mention it's all about One Piece and Naruto now >_>). I can't count the number of teams doing the same projects or just scanlating ugly magazine raws.
Marcy: Errr since I'm French, one day I told myself "go for it" and I got myself involved in the French community and left the English one to ... English-speaking people :D Plus with mIRC-X dying, a lot of the people I knew stopped scanlating.
I don't like war lol, I love MangaUpdates, I think they do a great job with their website even if it's an "add it yourself" site. I always believed in "don't make a website only to have others do the work for you." xD I have decided to stop listing releases in the next DailyManga, I think they do a much better job than me and I fully support their work, I prefer to concentrate on other things and let them continue with the release listing.
Marcy: Never, I'm a bit like a dragon concerning French licensed stuff, but the English ones ... I was never concerned ^^; on the contrary, I became a "reference" in the French publishing world and helped getting many French teams offers from French companies. A lot of us started to work for them xD (me included).
Marcy: I have been? xD No, sorry! I have always been there, oh maybe 1 or 2 months during my exam period.
Marcy: I hosted a DailyManga Dinner in Paris; we had like 70–80 people show up. I was so surprised xD it was the best party ever. On the other hand, we had some big problems with a hacker, I had to go to the Informatic Police to get him :b
Marcy: First, I'll stop adding English releases. Like I said, others do it better than me in a way I like, so there's no point for me to continue. We're working on a new site for DailyManga, more like a News Website and a reference website for manga/doujinshi/magazine...
Of course, I'll keep the information on scanlation teams and manga status; I'll just stop the everyday release thing. It's been a year now since we began working on it and we still can't see the end lol.
Marcy: A trap question :D in fact we started having problems with the French community: wars between teams and disrespect. They were using DailyManga as a battleground. To put an end to everything, we made some rules like no stealing, no licensed stuff, go ask the English team for authorization or else we won't add you :D.
Today, the community is great ^^ we work on co-production a lot, sometimes it's still tough, but I don't regret it a single bit (especially when I see that in the English community, it's still "miiiine miiiiiiiiiiiiiine, don't approach or I'll bite."
Marcy: ShoujoMagic definitely! Siana was the best leader I've ever seen. MangaProject because ... they're MangaProject :D Then Nakama, in their early days they were a really funny team and IRC channel.
More recently I don't have any favorites, I stopped being on IRC as I try to keep a low profile, I'm glad today nobody knows who I am xD
I started working for an English team, Midnight Scans ^^ they're young and cute lol. I'm sad there are still arrogant teams who think everything is theirs, I started scanning for a shoujo group, but they never even say "hey, thanks for the scans." xD Worst they complained about the quality or speed. Sometimes I feel kinda disappointed with the English community.
Marcy: Facebook? :D Errr Baka-Updates xD and a lot of forums.
Marcy: Thanks to you I had a nice time recalling the old days xD.