Tokyopop Closing N. American Operations!

[Senyoru-Chan]

It's really shitty then cause they never even got to get out volume one and now the licence is locked until...well who knows. Damn! I want sekaiichihatsukoi! I wish Tokyopop could maybe help DMP take over it, if they come to some agreement with the Japanese publishers. Maybe, just maybe it's possible.

[2old4yaoi]

@lore
I would have to agree with a lot of your four points. Still, it doesn't make it easier to swallow for those of us who had been fans of Blu's mangas If TP is willing to do the right thing for the fangirls here, they would definitely release Sekaiichi right away (even if it is for a fee) to another willing publishers such as DMP in N. America.

I have a question for anyone who knows - when I visit amazon.de (the German site), Junjo Romantica & Sekaiichi are licensed by Carlsen Verlag GmbH - is that the TokyoPop's German operation?

And does TP has a stake in that movie "Priest" that is coming out soon? If so, I hope it will end up being a good investment for them. As much as TP's upper management frustrates me right now, I still definitely want to root for the company's recovering & coming back into N. America operations somehow.

BTW - anyone knows if TP plan to do any liquidation sales on the books they still have on stock?

I fervently wish other N. American publishers such as DMP (of course! ), Del Rey, Viz & Vertical etc are holding up despite the Border bankcruptcy. It would not hurt if they start looking into some BL license too.

[Senyoru-Chan]

No, Carlsen GmbH is not the same as Tokyopop GmbH. Germany has more than one manga publishers just like the US. The German tokyopop owns titles in German that the US tokyo pop doesn't and the other way around. In Germany Katekyo hitman reborn is published by tokyopop while in US the series are published by Viz media. And so on...

[lore]

2o4y - Yes, the Tokyopop media arm is behind the "Priest" movie. However, even if the film is a huge success, don't expect TP's publishing arm to come back. Stu Levy, TP's founder and CEO, has made it clear that he's over the publishing business. His Twitter account is littered with veiled and not-so-veiled complaints about how bored he was of book publishing. The man is a magpie, and now that he's tried all the tricks that he can in publishing, he's ready to move on to the more glamorous worlds of movies and TV.

There's been discussion that TP didn't have to shut down the publishing arm. Stu himself implied in his farewell letter that he was throwing in the towel, i.e., quitting. There's noting in his letter that explicitly states that TP publishing is out of money - in part, because it would probably look bad to the media arm's investors, but also, perhaps, TP publishing isn't really closing because it's broke. Stu might want to funnel remaining book sales' dollars toward the media arm of TP. There are still thousands of TP books on the shelves and in storage. My guess is that they will continue to be available and be a revenue source for TP media until they are sold out.

For example, TP could have stopped publishing for a while and saved the back-catalog book sales until it had a pot of money to use to come back leaner and meaner. Yes, maybe only putting out as many books as, say, DMP does a month, but it could have soldiered on, but I suspect that Stu wasn't interested in becoming a smaller publisher.

Maybe. As usual, with no public reporting of TP's finances, we're only left with speculation.

Anyway, here's an article that not only sums up one store manager's thoughts on Stu and the TP situation, it mirrors my feelings almost exactly. Be warned, there's some saucy language and there's no pretense at impartiality. There are links, though, to relevant posts like Stu's Twitter comments and less partial analysis. ^_^

http://www.rocketbomber.com/2011/04/18/i-hate-stu-levy

love, lore

[Senyoru-Chan]

If he really quit cause he was bored then I hope all of his future crap will fail. No really I do wish that. I don't hate him as a person cause obviously I don't know him but as a businessman he fails. Hard.

[2old4yaoi]

@lore

Thanks for the article & insight. I would have to agree w/ some of the article's points. Why shut down the whole operation when there are still so many valuable franchises that are in high demand? He could at least have offered a buy out option to those talented employees who had been let go. Even though I have to agree with him that digital media publishing & distribution is the way of the future - I feel like the steps he had take is too extreme. It is like poisoning the well just because he was moving away from the village. Not cool.

[phoenix4045]

@Senyoru-chan

this is the part where under normal circumstances I would gently scold you for being immature. HOWEVER in this situation I agree with you 100 percent!

I just hope that together June, Doki Doki and 801 Media can rescue as many licenses as possible!

[Senyoru-Chan]

Well I'm 20, I don't know anything about running a business. But it seems like to me too that they didn't really have to close down just like that and drop every title. Especially when they had licenses like Hetalia. It must have gotten them some money. But well apparently this wasn't even that much about money. ugh

[poonk]

I can only hope that either DMP license-rescues, or alternately a European branch of TP (yes, a wishful-thinking long-shot) publishes in English. any & all future volumes of the likes of Love Pistols (a.k.a. Sex Pistols), Vassalord, and Voice or Noise-- oh, and Junjou Romantica, though that one's already got plenty of cheerleaders (and honestly, at 12 volumes I personally feel it's running out of steam-- please don't kill me fans!). As a long time BL fan/collector I'd be more than willing to pay a premium, whether it be print-on-demand, limited-run volumes, or having books shipped to me from Europe. No joke, this is my passion. Lord knows, I don't even mind waiting for and rebuying (hey, they gotta match on my shelf) rescued titles (see Finder, Kizuna). Just give me something, A.) I can read, and B.) I can buy, and let's go to town!

In brief: God... Why, Mr. Levy? Why not sell it to someone who does care about books? *sigh*

[phoenix4045]

if Re buying the series of Junjo is what it takes to eventually complete it then I am all for it! (Call me shallow but I like it when all of my volumes in a series are the same size and font!) Besides it might be fun to compare a new edition to Blu's.