Tokyopop stops publishing manga

April 15, 2011 by

Can this be? Tokyopop announced today that it was shutting down its publishing division. I did a post with the details for Robot 6, and I’ll post more here as the details become clearer.

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Comments

  1. Lianne says
    April 15, 2011 at 5:55 pm

    Today is a very sad day.

  2. DeBT says
    April 15, 2011 at 7:02 pm

    I’ll probably do a blog post about this later, while I’m still trying to wrap my head around not having Tokyopop around anymore. They’ve always been around, even when they were snapping up Mangas hardly anybody was interested in. I could usually identify which titles were licensed by Tokyopop just by the cover alone, without any prompting from their robo-eye icon on the side. With Kodansha getting back their previous titles, their publishing strategy is largely moot, since their early titles were the ones that made them the powerhouse they used to be.

    Similar to when CMX folded, we should make a list of noteworthy Mangas that should be snatched up before its too late. So far, the only title I have on my mind is the one volume collection of Mihara’s I.C. in a Sunflower. I have to be extremely careful of the time, because whenever I open the book to read a page of one of her stories, I always wind up reading the entire thing the whole way through. They’re THAT GOOD.
    http://slightlybiasedmanga.com/category/series/ic-in-a-sunflower/

  3. Ephidel says
    April 16, 2011 at 12:13 am

    What the… :|
    For all I’ve seen happen, I can’t say I expected that.
    I’ve been burned by them so many times but I I’ve always ended up going back hoping that next time, just maybe, that title I want to read will keep going. I was sort of expecting another wave of books to enter the hiatus abyss sometime soon, I’ll admit that much, but shutting down their entire publishing arm at once? Really? :|
    I started reading manga with their titles (well, Mixx titles, but close enough). The idea that they’ll now be gone is sort of… unnerving, actually.

    And May? That’s so… soon. That wouldn’t even give the last volume of Alice to come out. Maybe as that was doing well for them the last volume will be rescheduled earlier? Future Diary was doing okay as well right, I think that also only had One Volume Remaining. Lives 2… oh who am I kidding, that one has no chance :|
    Gah, so many other titles running through my head now and that’s the answer I’m thinking of for most of them. That’s sort of depressing.
    They just redesigned their books too, and announced the change to their website, doesn’t this announcement just make all of that a waste? Maybe with the prominence they were giving the print on demand icon on that new layout, they’ll be keeping some titles that way? Not sure that that will help me though, no idea how UK ordering would be if ordering from their site directly :p

    It’s just even more bewildering that the media arm… isn’t? I mean, that fits with Levy’s desire to focus on anything other than manga, but I wasn’t aware that their media arm had actually done very much of note. Okay, Priest Movie, but… other than that?
    Gah, I thought the whole point of that Otaku tour thing was to advertise their manga :(

  4. LG says
    April 16, 2011 at 1:55 am

    I thought the recent layoffs, move to print on demand for some titles, and website change were all part of a drastic effort to make sure Tokyopop _didn’t_ go out of business – and yet this seems very much like a “going out of business” announcement. I wasn’t even aware that Tokyopop had anything making money for them other than manga.

  5. Jason Thompson says
    April 16, 2011 at 3:38 am

    @LG – good question. Maybe they didn’t do the math properly the first time… but two months isn’t a lot of time to stick with a policy…

  6. Brigid says
    April 16, 2011 at 6:54 am

    It is true that they made a lot of changes recently, redesigning their website and the trade dress for their books. Tokyopop kept coming back from a near-death state to something fairly decent, so although the February layoffs looked pretty drastic, I figured they would pull it off again. Only this time they didn’t.

  7. Diana Dang says
    April 16, 2011 at 2:35 pm

    I was so disappointed to find out about this earlier. After CMX and Go! Comi folded, I didn’t expect Tokyopop out of all the manga publishers would go out. Now I am having second thoughts of selling a few of my unwanted mangas…

    I just hope Viz will keep going strong and not stop anytime soon.

  8. Nan says
    April 16, 2011 at 3:49 pm

    I’m shocked and yet this shouldn’t come off as a surprise – what with the recent layouts and their past troubles. Still, with Hetalia being such a hit for them and after the news about the plans to retool their website, I thought Tokyopop was bouncing back into the game and finally focusing on publishing again. I mean, they’ve always bounced time and time again back no matter what. I do wonder if Stu Levy’s decision to work on a documentary was the final nail in the coffin to stop wasting time on publishing and instead completely focus on film-making/media for once and for all?

    *sigh* Tokyopop was once my favorite publisher, and despite their faults they’ve done a lot of good things. RIP Tokyopop. You will be missed.

  9. DeBT says
    April 16, 2011 at 4:36 pm

    Just finished my comprehensive essay. I made several observations that I’ve noticed haven’t been made elsewhere. Compare how quickly their catalogue grew when they became successful. Amazingly enough, the samples I posted are actually conservative in comparision.
    http://sundaycomicsdebt.blogspot.com/2011/04/tokyopops-bubble-bursts.html

  10. Anna Frohling says
    April 17, 2011 at 7:17 pm

    I’m somewhat upset by this decision. I’m not sure why Stu Levy could not just name a succesor to keep printing manga. It’s not like he ever did a great job himself.

  11. Mitch H. says
    April 18, 2011 at 12:50 pm

    How could y’all not have seen this coming? They were badly exposed to the Borders implosion, the founder-and-sadly-still-CEO was a flighty Peter Pan who was bored to death by their core business, they never managed to form strategic relationships with their suppliers (and may have never even tried, AFAIK) and they just canned everyone who actually ran the company in the CEO’s perpetual absence.

    This event is the very definition of “overdetermined”.