Forum - View topicINTEREST: That Time Dark Horse Almost Licensed Attack on Titan & Rose of Versailles
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2695 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Some people are having a minor field day over on Twitter via Deb Aoki's tweets about these stories, especially the RoV one, but aside from Gombos' own explanation it's easy to understand why Dark Horse passed on RoV.
It's an old (Strike 1) shojo (Strike 2, sorry to say) manga created by someone who is notoriously strict when it comes to her work (Strike 3). While Udon taking five years to finally release RoV was absurd, I wouldn't be surprised if part of that was simply due to Riyoko Ikeda picking apart as much of Udon's plans as possible, so even if Dark Horse had licensed RoV, I wouldn't be surprised if it took them a long time to release it, as well; maybe nowhere near the length it took Udon, but still. From a business perspective, especially from the time it was optioned to Dark Horse (which would likely have been close to a decade ago, at this point), RoV was essentially licensing poison. While it wouldn't have killed Dark Horse by any means, I'm sure DH Manga's bosses at Dark Horse itself would have started questioning why it was even licensed, in the first place. Meanwhile, missing out on Attack on Titan was really just a case of "How the hell could ANYONE have predicted that early on that it'd become one of the biggest hits of all time?!", so no one can really fault Dark Horse on that one. |
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KitKat1721
 Posts: 976 |
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Yeah I've got to say, I was surprised to hear this tidbit just because Rose of Versailles doesn't seem like Dark Horse's usual wheelhouse? Five years is a long time but you're right, I think a similar timetable wouldn't have been out of the question for Dark Horse too. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2695 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Also, who knows how Dark Horse would have released it! If DH had tried doing it via normal volumes, instead of Udon's larger omnibuses, DH likely wouldn't have even gotten all 10 volumes (14, if you include the newer stuff from the 2010s) out & simply cancelled it, due to low sales, as DH is wont to do with its manga. |
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KitKat1721
Posts: 976 |
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If anything, I'm more surprised they actually admitted that they just forgot about it. I know publishers have to juggle a lot and things can easily slip through the cracks, but Rose of Versailles is such a seminal classic that it's a bit embarrassing tbh.
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Triltaison
 Posts: 798 |
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This was absolutely my thought. I have more series they've abandoned ship on than ones that actually got finished. I like their books, but getting any new series always felt like a gamble with particularly bad odds. Apparently I consistently kept picking up their worst sellers or something. |
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Tenbinzan
Posts: 62 |
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Well, that's just it. They didn't pass on it. They "forgot" that a difficult-to-license classic was offered to them in the first place. 
It would've been understandable to pass on Rose of Versailles for the reasons listed in your comment. Old-school manga are always a hard sell. But I think it's pretty revealing that a big shōjo title like RoV didn't even get considered or discussed with other people at the company -- just forgotten. Last edited by Tenbinzan on Mon Jul 04, 2022 10:29 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2695 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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I'd argue that they are the same thing, in the long run. Gombos "forgot" about being optioned RoV because at that time, which you have to remember would be closer to an entire decade ago at this point, it just wouldn't have made any sense to even attempt to license & release RoV in North America. Sure, Shueisha offered it to Dark Horse, but back in the early-to-mid 2010s it would have been too risky to take up, so Gombos didn't think much of it until Udon grabbed the license. If RoV was truly something worth licensing, from a financial standpoint (because we have to take any personal & historical points out of consideration here), then Gombos wouldn't have "forgotten" that it was offered in the first place. |
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Twage
Posts: 366 Location: North Bergen, NJ |
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They are, and I came here with my hackles preemptively up, but it's nice to see the commenters here are more understanding of the reality and the spirit in which this story was shared. |
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BonusStage
 Posts: 307 |
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I don't find it strange at all. Just because a series is iconic in Japan doesn't mean it has that kind of recognition in America. I don't find this at all odd any more than if we hear about an American company forgetting or passing over Ashita no Joe, KochiKame, or other iconic old manga that never got released in America despite their huge impact in Japan. Even more modern titles like Gintama have all but been forgetten about by American companies as no one seems to be rushing out to re-license it after Viz cancelled the English release over a decade ago. |
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kpossibles
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 150 Location: USA |
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Tbh would you even trust Dark Horse with a shojo? I don't think they've licensed a shojo that isn't a CLAMP series for their track record anyways.
Also they could hire more people on their team to expand their manga output. Denpa and JNC seem to be outputting more new manga than Dark Horse now. DH seems to rely on its backlist Berserk catalog for most of their sales. |
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Dumas1
Posts: 86 |
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I think RoV's genre might've weighed more than its age in making it fall through the cracks. If memory serves, Dark Horse put out Lone Wolf and Cub and Lady Snowblood in the 2000s, though those might've been the only series they carried from the 70s. If they were the only American publisher releasing manga from that period, it could've made sense to reach out to Dark Horse, but a casual glance at their catalog suggests that RoV just wasn't a good fit.
The shoujo market is much larger now than it was then, but the audience for vintage series is always going to be a small niche within that, especially for series that aren't carrying some kind of nostalgia in the way, say, Sailor Moon does. |
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Shay Guy
 Posts: 2337 |
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Though in Japan, I'm pretty sure it's smaller. That is, even the top titles like Do Not Say Mystery and Honey Lemon Soda don't sell the kinds of numbers that Kimi ni Todoke or Nodame Cantabile did, let alone Nana's top volume getting within 2% of One Piece's in 2008. |
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