Action and reaction

BeckThe capes-and-tights crowd may be busy discussing Disney’s acquisition of Marvel (and making weird parodies and imaginary memos) but on this side of the blogosphere everyone was talking about Kodansha dropping all their licenses with Tokyopop. Here’s reaction from Deb Aoki, Kate Dacey, Alex Hoffman Gia Manry, Brad Rice, and David Welsh (don’t forget to check the lengthy comment string).

At Icarus Comics (not entirely appropriate for work), Simon Jones muses a bit on the deeper meaning of Kodansha’s move and the possible fate of the books left behind. And Deb Aoki takes a closer look at Tokyopop’s Kodansha titles and notes which have already been rescued, which are complete already, and which will be left “in limbo.”

Meanwhile, Kate Dacey takes a look at this week’s new manga at The Manga Critic.

MonkeyKingJohn Thomas has some snippets of Dark Horse news (better paper for Berserk, possible new volume of The Monkey King) and hints that more is to come at this weekend’s Kumoricon panel.

Gia has three new titles on this week’s Manga Watch-List, with a bit of info about each and speculation as to who will license it in the U.S.

Reviews: Joe McCulloch (Jog to his readers) posts an interesting list of Odd Manga at Bookforum.

Erica Friedman on vol. 1 of Ame-iro Kouchakan Kandan (Okazu)
Tangognat on The Color of Earth and The Color of Water (Tangognat)
Connie on vol. 30 of Detective Conan (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vol. 2 of Detroit Metal City (Slightly Biased Manga)
Julie on vols. 4 and 5 of Kiichi and the Magic Books (Manga Maniac Cafe)
RealV5Lori Henderson on vol. 1 of Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You (Comics Village)
Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 1 of Maid Sama! (i heart manga)
Edward Zacharias on vol. 40 of Naruto (Animanga Nation)
Danielle Leigh on vol. 5 of Real (Comics Should Be Good!)
Dave Ferraro on Swallowing the Earth (Comics-and-More)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 1 of A Tale of an Unknown Country (Comics Worth Reading)
Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of Tale of the Waning Moon (Kuriousity)
Grant Goodman on vols. 1-6 of Yotsuba&! (Manga Recon)

Did you enjoy this article? Consider supporting us.

Comments

  1. ah, fyi — here’s the URL for the list of the 80+ affected tokyopop titles:
    http://manga.about.com/b/2009/09/01/the-kodansha-tokyopop-split-which-manga-are-left-in-limbo.htm

    i’m trying to confirm the status of rave master and dragon voice — a commentor said that not all volumes of these series have been published, but as far as I could see, tokyopop completed publishing all volumes of those series. if anyone knows differently, pls. let me know and i’ll update the list.
    thanks!

  2. Pretty sure neither have been completed. Rave Master is 35 volumes long and only 32 volumes are listed on the tokyopop website (http://www.tokyopop.com/product/1104), with amazon having the 33rd scheduled for october.
    Similarly Dragon Voice was 11 volumes long but the tokyopop website only lists 10 volumes being available (http://www.tokyopop.com/product/1309).

  3. Ah, sorry. I forgot to give links as evidence of their original lengths I guess. Due to my failure to be able to navigate publishers websites, I hope amazon jp links to the final volumes might suffice? :x
    (I don’t know how to shorten the links though, unfortunately)

    レイヴ 35 (Rave/Rave Master 35)
    http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%83%AC%E3%82%A4%E3%83%B4-%E8%AC%9B%E8%AB%87%E7%A4%BE%E3%82%B3%E3%83%9F%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B9%E2%80%95Shonen-magazine-comics-3569%E5%B7%BB/dp/4063635694/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251814802&sr=8-1

    ドラゴン ボイス / Dragon Voice 11
    http://www.amazon.co.jp/DRAGON-VOICE-11-%E5%B0%91%E5%B9%B4%E3%83%9E%E3%82%AC%E3%82%B8%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B3%E3%83%9F%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B9-%E5%84%AA%E9%87%8C%E5%AD%90/dp/4063632164/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251815012&sr=8-1

  4. As long as we’re all passing on links, here’s mine— Kasia Piekarz from TOKYOPOP actually found time to answer a few of my questions about the Kodansha fallout: http://www.animevice.com/news/tokyopop-talks-kodansha/2288/