Hentai Site Fakku Goes Legit in Support of Japanese Artists

All unlicensed content previously featured on the English-language hentai website Fakku has been removed, in favor of a legal subscription plan that supports the Japanese artists behind the pornographic manga.

Originally announced last June, Fakku has initiated its plan to remove pirated Japanese erotic comics and will now only offer legally-supported content. In a forum post (website is Not Safe for Work) about the new business model, website founder Jacob explained why he has decided to remove scanlations and unlicensed content.

A lot of people think hentai is free just because it’s always been free. Given our history at FAKKU we’ve contributed to that misconception, and now it’s time to fix it. Everything you’ve been reading on the Internet has been a scan of an actual book from Japan,something Japanese authorities are increasingly clamping down on. Piracy is not a sustainable business model, but more importantly, piracy has never been my goal with FAKKU.

Over the past year we have officially published over 200 individual artists. After going to Japan and meeting with artists whom we’ve published and have had their scanlations appear on FAKKU, I have made the decision to support them as much as I possibly can. It’s heartbreaking to talk with an artist and have them explain that when they Google their name they don’t see their website, or their Twitter, or any way to actually support them. All they see are pirated scans of their work that were uploaded somewhere without their permission.

This isn’t a problem unique to hentai, it’s an issue with the anime and manga industry at large and the reason why so many Japanese companies, publishers, and artists, blindly turn their back on their overseas fans thinking we’re all pirates. Because for so many years that’s all we’ve been to them, pirates. My goal with FAKKU is to change their perception of us and removing scanlations (and giving our users a way to support their favorite artists) is the next step.

The last paragraph about the alarming problem of piracy involving anime and manga rings true – especially when mainstream websites like Buzzfeed encourage its users to illegally read manga online, instead of buying series officially licensed in North America.

Fakku does plan to offer free content for users who choose not to subscribe to the website, but needs more time to decide how it can to do so while supporting manga creators. Users are encouraged to offer their ideas on how to offer free content legally in the forum.

Lastly, Jacob had this to say about the website’s new direction.

At this point whether we succeed or fail is entirely up to you, and we need your support now more than ever. If you can’t afford a subscription, help spread our message and explain to people why we made this decision and why the artists deserve support. Get out there and tell people. Think of all the faps these artists have given us over the years, now we finally have the opportunity to give back to them in a meaningful way.

Fakku’s new legal direction could be compared to Crunchyroll, a former illegal anime streaming service that removed copyrighted content in favor of officially licensing shows from Japan. Crunchyroll has now become the premier legal site for anime streaming with over 750,000 subscribed users. It will be interesting to see if Fakku could pull off the same successful transformation with its nine million visitors.