Forum - View topicNEWS: Tokyopop to Close North American Publishing Division
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Toomuchanimetoolittletime
Posts: 6 |
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Part of the problem, as I see it, is their preference to license too many new titles before completing the ones they had ongoing. I know that there are lots of TP titles (Moonphase, Strawberry Marshmallow, Tatics are just a few) that I wish they had concentrated on finishing. By not doing so, they basicly stopped me from starting other series because I didn't have the interest in starting a story line or title just to see it NOT finish. I imagine that there are others like me, that if they had the opportunity to get the whole title in English they would have been more likely to have tried other titles because they would have known that they would have had the entire product. Who wants to read a story that is only partially told? Why bother?
To put it another way, that with certain titles, publishing the remaining isssues would be a case of dimishing returns. However, by finishing the series out, you establish that the product is worth the effort. And by doing so you establish that all of your product line is worth the effort. You make up for the lost revenue of the remaining few issues of any series by having your customers realize that any new series would generate new revenue BECAUSE you would be known as a publisher that would produce the entire product. The general impression that you generate by not finishing a series is one that whatever you start to read won't be finished. If so, who would want to start any title? |
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Jaymie
Posts: 915 |
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I have a feeling that Viz is going the way of Tokyopop. They're starting to cancel a worrisome amount of series, and now they have a bunch of original English projects in the works that nobody cares about.
They're just lucky that they have the rights to basically every popular manga. |
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Tamaria
 Posts: 1512 Location: De Achterhoek |
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I don't think 'worrisome' is the right word. All publishers cancel titles that don't do well enough. How many titles are we talking about? 5-6, right? Now, compare that to the number of titles that Viz is still publishing. |
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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They've cancelled 2 series officially, and there's 3 or so that are on hiatus for clear [Zatch bell] or unclear reasons. That's not that worrisome. Marvel/DC cancel titels taht sell poorly all the time, and launch new ones all the time to try to get the next big hit. The same thing happens in Japan. Manga in the US is now in a state where if somethign doesn't sell, it has to stop, which is reality, one fans have to adjust to. I think they'd only be in really big trouble if Shuiesha/Shogakukan themselves collapsed, and I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. They have a bunch of english projects in the works that you don't care about. That doesn't means they're doomed- it means they have the money/resources to do original works at the moment [which is a healthy sign, especially right now], all based on beloved franchises aimed at the kids book market (a profitable area of publishing), not at otaku who claim to love stuff then don't buy it. Voltron's going to be on Cartoon Network [as in, in timeslots where peopel actually watch, not the 2 am timeslot anime seems to be doomed to in your country], and VIZKids has done well for them- just look at how well Pokemon does. http://khyungbird.livejournal.com/82308.html Jason Thompson's post about TP's original works says a lot about how much they meant to the domestic manga artist community though. His King of RPG's started out as a rejected Rising Stars of Manga submission [he posted it as filler for his webcomic The Stiff on Girlamatic at one point], and I imagine we'll be seeing the works of artists who started out with TP for years to come, however much people want ot keep hating on OEL artists [stop wasting your time- go hate on pirates instead] |
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Prede
 Posts: 388 |
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I am well aware of this fact. But I liked the titles they put out, and the way they handled the few I enjoyed anyway. I never did care for Rave Masters, Initial D and their other disasters. GTO, Vampire Princess, and Brigadoon got decent releases. Hell didn't they spend extra on the GTO dub because everyone wanted Steve Blum and Wendee Lee in it? I remember someone telling me something like this. Sure , sure they screwed up on the first Vampire Princess DVD, but I like the dub and they seemed to get the hang of things by the second DVD. At any rate I liked their anime department, despite what the majority thinks. |
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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http://speedking.deviantart.com/journal/39894563/#comments TPop artist Maximo Lorenzo on the closure... some interesting insight into goings on at TP [I hear such mixed things about Stu Levy- some of the stuff mentioned here backs up some of the more troubling things though]
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uraniabce
 Posts: 21 Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canada |
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Well, now I know why I've been waiting for so long for the next volume of Trinity Blood This sucks! x_x Plus I just bought my first two volumes of Junjou Romantica. This double sucks!
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poonk
 Posts: 1490 Location: In the Library with Philip |
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Moomintroll
 Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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They have a handful of non-Japanese properties that are all aimed at young children (who tend not to develop weeaboo tendencies until adolescence sets in and therefore couldn't care less who wrote their comics) and one of those properties is the Mr Men franchise, which is an absolutely huge deal - it's sold over a hundred million books across over dozens of countries and has been making a colossal fortune from publishing, merchandise and media tie-ins since the early 1970s. And I don't think the number of titles they've cancelled is worrying either. I mean, Dark Horse generally cancel under-performing titles after three volumes (and did so even when the market was at its strongest) so it's hardly surprising that Viz has finally come to the conclusion that it's not a great idea to pour vast amounts of money down bottomless holes hoping that loooong, increasingly unprofitable series will suddenly start generating profits. I'd be more worried about them if they were continuing to release stuff like it was still 2007. |
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Firousi
 Posts: 17 Location: Oklahoma City |
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I also want to put in a plea for Shinobi Life to get finished somewhere. I also wouldn't mind also seeing Queen's Knight getting picked up by someone else since TP dropped it ages ago. I guess I will take all of the incomplete series I had gotten from TP that they dropped awhile back and either sell them or donate to my local library. |
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ruriruri007
Posts: 15 |
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http://twitter.com/stulevy/status/42375526316376064
"Wow #GDC2011 is blowing my mind. Why have I been stuck in such an old-school, out-of-touch industry for so long?! (yes I mean books!)" |
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TsukasaElkKite
 Posts: 3993 |
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DAMN IT I JUT REALIZED THAT SINCE THEY'RE CLOSING THEY WON'T FINISH YUBISAKI MILK TEA!
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ArielTsuki
Posts: 178 |
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An end of an era. It's was pretty inevitable because they never learn how to stop just licensing any old title. I remember how a lot of people use to complain that most of the stuff was mostly blase. I also knew that media venture was up no good either. And their translations weren't the best, not compared to Dark Horse and Viz and those two had issues!
But I knew it that some people will scapegoat the scanlators, despite, you know, been around longer than when the manga bubble burst. The economy doesn't help either. Plus the industry hit the saturation point, this burst shouldn't come as a surprise. I was collecting Loveless and King of Thorn from them. I better hope I can get a good deal of the latter, and some company pick up the former since it is a hit book. But I still feel sad though. I remember when I was 14-15 or so when MIXX came out and I loved the magazine and really got into CLAMP. For that, I'll thank Tokyopop for that.
Really? IMO, DMP is just good and sometimes better than BLU translation-wise. Plus BLU was charging pretty crazy prices for something that looked like the same effort of a $10 manga in a crappy excuse to 'dissuade' minors. I never collected a BLU title since. |
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Sunday Silence
 Posts: 2047 |
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Eating crow now considering your posting a few pages back?? Simply put, Stu Levy pretty much is to blame for the destruction of TOKYOPOP, or at least a good portion of it. You can't exactly be doing goofy $#!+ and not suffer the repercussions of it. |
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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I've heard good and bad things about him over the years, and there's a lot of gossip out there. Maximo's post contained one thing I hadn't heard about [the movie funding thing], but I still take everything I hear with a grain of salt. Jason's LJ post pointed out the whole OEL thing was a major thing for artists at the time, and the whole unflipped/cheap thing was one of the better things to come out of TP. It's a real mixed bag. I imagine more gossip'll be popping up, but I dunno, I was just honestly not in the mood for bashing when I posted that (looking back I didn't exactly sing his praises either- he's done good and bad, and I've heard far worse stories about the comic industry). I don't appreciate your tone. It's an emotional time for a lot of folks, and it's not exactly time for stupid little forum fights Sunday. I don't appreciate that. Whatever Stu's actions, there's also the Borders situation (when you have a NYTimes bestseller, but the primary outlet selling it doesn't pay you back for it, it can't be a good thing), piracy, the end of their deals with Harper Collins and Blizzard Studios, several years of publishing issues, and the array of investors back in Japan (in the midst of an even worse economic crisis than us) who probably had a say in it all. |
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I doubt it'll get picked up though...I mean, at least Alice in the Country of Hearts got mentioned quite a bit. Ugh, and I just bought the drama CDs from yahoo auctions too! Time to go looking for the last few volumes  |
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