Tokyopop to Close North American Publishing Division

[Poke2201]

Well heres the news story from ANN:

ANN has confirmed with Tokyopop Senior Vice President Mike Kiley that the company will shutter its Los Angeles-based North American publishing operations on May 31. The company's film and European operations will be unaffected by this closure, and its office in Hamburg, Germany will continue to handle global rights sales for the company.

A public relations representative working for Tokyopop CEO Stu Levy informed ANN that "Tokyopop will announce the future of specific titles and other releases in the coming weeks."

In a post on the website for Tokyopop's America's Greatest Otaku reality web series, Levy revealed that he will spend the next year in the Japanese prefecture of Miyagi, making a documentary about the effects of the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake disaster (Higashi Nihon Daishinsai) of March 11. The proceeds of the documentary will go to support the victims. He also posted a farewell message on the official Tokyopop website.

May 31 is less than three weeks after the first major feature film based on a Tokyopop property, Priest, will open in American theaters.

Levy founded the company, originally called Mixx, in 1997 and published manga in serial form in its Mixxzine magazine. The company's titles included Naoko Takeuchi's popular Sailor Moon magical girl manga, Hitoshi Iwaaki's Parasyte science-fiction/horror manga, and CLAMP's Magic Knight Rayearth fantasy manga.

Tokyopop later pioneered the publication of "unflopped" manga (shown in its original right-to-left reading format) for all of its titles in 2002 and launched divisions in the United Kingdom and Germany, as well as an imprint devoted to Boys Love manga called Blu, between 2003 and 2005. Other Tokyopop endeavors have included a light novel line, the Rising Stars of Manga program, and more recently, digital and print-on-demand manga.

In 2006, the company announced that it had negotiated the rights to a live-action adaptation of Min-Woo Hyung's Korean manhwa Priest. In 2008, the company underwent a major restructuring that split the company into the publishing division and a new media and films division. The company also toured the United States throughout the summer of 2010, shooting the America's Greatest Otaku web series.

In 2009, Tokyopop confirmed that all of its Kodansha licenses would lapse. Last month, Levy commented that the February bankruptcy of the Borders bookstore chain had played a significant role in its decision to lay off a number of the company's employees.

So what are your thoughts?

[larethian]

gosh, this is such a shame. I love their PR efforts in engaging the community. unlike Viz.

[Poke2201]

Yeah it really sucks. But is anything really changed for us?

[Astounding Bison]

Does this mean Baka Tsuki can host volume 1 of Kino no Tabi? Anyway, this is kind of sad. They brought some good light novels to English speakers, especially Welcome to the NHK.

[b0mb3r]

dang what I enjoy about tokyopop is in its promotion of OEL (Original English Language) mangas. It gave american manga artist to shine through their publications.

[Poke2201]

I actually didn't really follow tokyopop much. But if you live in Europe, you will be fine lol.

Right b0mb3r lol?

[Zell_ff8]

I see excuses of scanlators and piracy comming in 4, 3, 2..

[b0mb3r]

dang what I enjoy about tokyopop is in its promotion of OEL (Original English Language) mangas. It gave american manga artist to shine through their publications.

well poke that's depend if europe has OEL mangas or not.

[Subete]

So, this is the end for the Full Metal Panic! novels?
I guess I should hurry up and buy the fourth volume...

[rpapo]

I'm sure that if the book's out there already, the bookshops aren't going to send them back to a closed-down TokyoPop publishing division. They'll simply sell them like usual, reducing them for clearance if they have to.

I wonder if they'll get the last volume of Chibi Vampire's light novel series out? The last two volumes were a single story, and the next-to-last volume came out about two months ago...

[YoakeNoHikari]

I don't like Tokyopop.

They spent massive amounts on licenses, some of which they didn't do anything about.

And then they went and blew colossal amounts of money on their film and TV projects, which they're still continuing.

I'm not a fan.

[Mystes]

As for me...indeed Tokyopop is really closer to the community than Viz, but it doesn't really ring a bell in my head when I hear this name...it makes no difference in my everyday life.

[Poke2201]

Well some people might be more affected about this than others. I believe that FMP is licensed with them, and I believe that all licenses with those books could expire.

[b0mb3r]

i feel like a vulture saying this but can we swoop down and take some licenses away?!

[rpapo]

I'm sure the publishers would be glad to give you the licenses . . . in exchange for some ungodly amount of money.