you are looking in the wrong places. The vast majority of manga raws are scans from print media and are found in forums and dl sites. As far as I know, Alphapolis is the only one that posts raws online.
Isn't it because korean and chinese stuff are webtoons, while japanese stuff need to be scanned as they are paperback?
People can read manga online in Japan through several different *paid* services so it’s very rare to see them online just for share. There’s Kindle, LINE manga, Renta!, Bookwalker...apps from the publishing company, even Pixiv. Even if they are relatively unknown, they can be put there for free for awhile and then they can set up paywalls after it’s “officially” published too. Usually by the time the author has enough to put together a tankobon, they will probably already be offered a contract since the industry is always looking for newcomers. I mean...you are aware that’s scanning mangas pages and sharing it in Japan is illegal, right? I just buy all my stuff in paperback >.>);
Because you're not trying hard enough, try to find it on people chats in Reddit, comment section on manga web hosting, and thread on NUF. Use different search engine (google might filter it) like Duckduckgo, type the names in their original language in seach tab. This method can also be used to find raw novels. 'Novel/manhwa name' chapter 16 or 다크 메이지 complete volume 1-15, try combination of manhwa name and author name. I know several sites for raw manga, manhwa, and manhua, another reminder always scan virus if the manhwa/novels is needed to be downloaded. @mintchu My salary might be used up quickly if I spent it on every novels I read but I did buy plenty of published novels after they been translated in my mother language.
You do know it takes hours and hours to translate. We sit in front of the computer and just mindlessly translate without pay. Should we just give up living our life to translate for you for some $3? Honest the base motivation isn’t even money most of the time. We just want to share the stories we love with the international audience. It’s not even a pay wall. just wait and u don’t even need to pay a pretty penny. I don’t know what you’re so frustrated about. translators buy the books themselves. Host the website. Put in the hours to translate. You can just sit there and watch your shows and slowly you will get it for free. honest people like you really make me wanna quit translating.
If you want a monthly "fee" instead and if most of the manga you're reading are serialized in one magazine, buy the monthly magazine on the ebook sites. I get mine from bookwalker cause that's where most of my stuff is anyways. Bookwalker also notifies you if there's a new issue out if you enable it. There are also some that allow you to buy points and spend those on each chapter (Like I did for that onee-chan one where she's basically taking care of a teenager... Forgot the title). Some sites will accept foreign cards, some don't. Look around and try them out. Alphapolis accepts foreign cards, and a few others I forgot tbh. I honestly don't know which sites I have accounts in anymore for these... But those that offer points might be better in your case but the only downside is it costs like 100 points (which would usually be one US dollar) for one freaking (sometimes short) chapter. There are also some sites that post some of the chapters for free permanently (usually the first few chapters as sort of like a sampler) or for a limited amount of time (Alphapolis does this I believe). As for the pirating thing, maybe because pirating isn't a huge thing in Japan. I mean, if it's manga, they can just go to the nearest bookstore and buy a volume (a tankobon mind you, not the serialized ones) for like less than $10. I think some of the physical manga I've bought was around $6 (they include tax in the price in Japan btw). They're cheaper than what they're sold for in the international/US market. Though that's not to say pirating doesn't exist because I've found a lot of scanned Japanese raws from Japanese sites.