Scanlation is the fan initiated process of translating a foreign-language comic to your local lingua franca. This mostly done with Japanese language comics, manga. And the Philippines is one of the largest consumers of it.

I will not deny that scanlation has been a part of my life. It is a necessary evil for me and given a choice, I will buy the manga that I want. But the Philippines doesn’t have that much choices. Bookstores may be stocking some manga that we can read but not the manga that we want.