Forum - View topicTokyopop Release schedule
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animalia555
Posts: 467 |
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Is it just me or has Tokyopop seriously slowed down thier release schedule? Does anyone know why they have done this?
Last edited by animalia555 on Mon Nov 14, 2005 5:41 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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HitokiriShadow
 Posts: 6251 |
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Yes, they have slowed down a lot. Most titles are looking at 3 or 4 months between releases now.
In some cases, like Fruits Basket, they may just be slowing down to avoid catching up with the Japanese manga. For the rest, I don't know. I'd say they are trying to avoid having too much manga on the market or something, but if that was the case they wouldn't have new series starting. |
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ShadrachAnki
 Posts: 180 Location: New England |
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Yeah, Tokyopop has slowed down their release schedule. As HitokiriShadow said, for some of the series it can be explained as a preventative measure to avoid catching up to the current Japanese releases.
However, I would say that the general reason is probably a reaction to the current oversaturation of the market. Unlike Viz, Tokyopop has no Japanese backer, and they don't have any of the magazine publications either. As a result, their series are not as well-advertised as the series of some other companies may be. Therefore, Tokyopop needs some way to make their releases noticable. You may think that slowing down the release schedules of the series they are currently publishing would be a bad move, but I think it's probably the wisest thing they could have done. By slowing down the release schedules across the board, Tokyopop is making easier for the new series they release nearly every month to be noticed. Slowing down the schedule also allows for more time to be taken on each volume released (not a whole lot more, but some). Hopefully this will result in an overall increase in translation quality and accuracy. Since I am not privy to the inner workings of Tokyopop (or any other publication company) I can only speculate on their reasoning based on my limited knowledge of supply/demand and marketing. ~Shadrach Anki |
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darkhunter
 Posts: 2992 Location: Los Angelas |
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Limited Shelfspace, oversaturation and availablity. If bookstore get like 20 manga release every month, shelf space at bookstore are limited and a lot of title don't have enough time to sell. The manga section grow every month, thus the book that don't sell much are return to the manga companies. Longer wait give the title more months to sale before most of them are sent back. Bookstore really want to keep all the top-selling title in their store though, so title that arn't selling well are probably gonna get longer release date. They prefer 3 month release period.
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Kagemusha
 Posts: 2783 Location: Boston |
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That's my take on it too. Aside from a couple massive hits most manga titles don't sell fast enough to warrent a 6 per year release schedule. Pretty soon Viz is probobly going to do the same thing. And to think everyone thought Darkhorse was stupid for releasing Berserk on a quarterly schedule. |
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ShadrachAnki
Posts: 180 Location: New England |
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I don't know that Viz will necessarily switch to a slower release schedule. As it currently stands, they have several different schedules they use that accomodate things like series length and expected popularity. They are also owned by three of the big-name Japanese publishing/production companies (Shueisha, Shogakukan, and Shogakukan Productions). That alone would indicate that that Viz probably won't be switching publication schedules. ~Shadrach Anki |
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Kagemusha
Posts: 2783 Location: Boston |
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Being owned by Shogakukan doesn't mean they'll stick to their marketing strategy if its cutting into profits. It's true that they have diffrent release schedules for diffrent titles, but right now they're releasing ALOT that are in the same genre of titles at a fast rate. If Tokyopop's recent moves (slowing down, diversifying) are any indication, you just can't keep flooding and expect the market to keep growing. And I always got the impression that Viz was run more from an american standpoint than from a Japanese boardroom, as they've been the equivalent of an indy comicbook publisher until a few years back when they started copying Tokyopop's strategies. |
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