Scanlation Site ‘One Manga’ to Shut Down at the End of the Month

One Manga, arguably the leading online locations for fan-scanned and translated manga is shutting its uh...digital doors? forever at the end of this month. The site, which hosts an abundance of titles licensed by American publishers ("Naruto," One Piece," "Bleach"), is viewed as a kind poster child for comic book piracy by many, although champions of scanlating have long considered it an easy-to-use front for content currently not sold in America.

From the One Manga site:

It pains me to announce that this is the last week of manga reading on One Manga (!!). Manga publishers have recently changed their stance on manga scanlations and made it clear that they no longer approve of it. We have decided to abide by their wishes, and remove all manga content (regardless of licensing status) from the site. The removal of content will happen gradually (so you can at least finish some of the outstanding reading you have), but we expect all content to be gone by early next week (RIP OM July 2010).

One Manga says it's keeping its forums up on behalf of the community that's supported the site. There are currently no plans for legal manga distribution through the site or another less-than-authorized locale for further scanlation activities.[Via Robot6]