On Nov. 13, publisher Takarajima took out newspaper advertisements for its magazine-like book "Denshi Shoseki no Shotai" ("The Real Shape of e-Books"), describing it as a polemic "against electronic books." It includes input from Naoki Award winning novelist Miyuki Miyabe, who explains why she isn't "aggressive" about electronic publishing, as well as six reasons why e-books "will never make money."

According to Web Hon no Zasshi, an Internet magazine about books, Takarajima is one of the few Japanese publishers that hasn't seen a dip in its fortunes recently. Notorious for launching and suspending titles with dizzying frequency, the imprint sells a lot of women's magazines with the aid of premiums. Takarajima's ink-and-paper empire hasn't been as adversely affected by the rise of the Internet as much as other publishers have. Web Hon no Zasshi points out that the company's self-proclaimed "urgency in rushing the book to print" happened to coincide with the e-book Comics Summit in Akihabara. Manga is one of the few literary genres in Japan that have enjoyed success in electronic form.

It seems perverse for Takarajima to denigrate what is clearly an unavoidable development. Logically, publishers should be trying to exploit the technology since most analysts agree it will eventually come to dominate the industry. But Takarajima's wary attitude toward e-books appears to be more or less the norm across the Japanese publishing spectrum.