Generations of thieves

I was at a bookstore the other day, and a mother and daughter were in the manga section.  An employee gave them several recommendations, and the girl (I'm going to say she may have been 15 max) kept saying, "Oh, I love that one!  I read it online!"  She was saying this about long-since licensed manga titles that are not provided by the publisher online. 

It came down to final choice time, and they could only pick two.  "You read this one online, right?" the mother asked.  "So you don't need to buy it, right?"

I was weeping inside.  Seriously.  Does this adult not know it's illegal to read pirated works online?  Does she not know economics (if you don't financially support the creators in some way, eventually there will be no more product since the artists can't afford to make the art)?! 

I mean, it's great that this mother was interested and involved in her daughter's life, but shouldn't she be the voice of, I dunno, legal uprightness in their relationship?  I just really don't know what to even think about this situation except to be sad.

Any thoughts?

Dreaming about Kodocha

I was excited when Kodocha was licensed, super-excited because I heard the whole thing was licensed.  I was therefore kind of devastated when that turned out not to be true.  (And I won't even get started about Galaxy Railways.)

I couldn't wait to see all the things that weren't in the amazing Kodocha manga (as well as a stellar things that were).  I loved the hyper-activity in motion.  I was stunned by the amazing performance Laura Bailey put in as Sana; I even watched the whole thing dubbed in honor of her incredible effort.  I told my friends about it; some of them bought it.  Then we all had to deal with the misery of not seeing half of the show.  If you're listening, Funimation, I would totally pay to see the rest of it, even without the dub, but I can't because I am such a law-abiding citizen.  Sometimes, I wish I weren't.

I feel like companies shouldn't be able to license things if they're not going to follow through.  When a show or manga I like gets canceled (Beck, Beyond the Beyond, Never Give Up, Dazzle, Galaxy Railways), it irritates me because I feel like the studio has broken a promise it made to me when it purchased the license and got my hopes up. 

Of course Tokyopop and Funimation made me no guarantees, but they're the big companies who do the research and licensing; they should know what they can make money on.  They should not jerk me around.  They should know they are my conduit to legal manga and anime, the only kind I have access to since I am so straight-laced as to only access legal content legally (and pay for it because I understand how much I need to support it with my consumer vote of approval--the dollar--to make sure it keeps coming).  Why do they keep hurting me by leaving me hanging? 

This economy sure isn't helping. 

Maybe I should look at this positively: every canceled bit helps my wallet, right?

What anime/manga has left you hanging?  What do you really wish we could legally access more of?  Would you be willing to buy inferior versions (streamed stuff, subbed-only, manga online/e-book format) just to get your hands on the rest?