Otakon 2004

Tokyopop

Manga titles which will be released throughout the rest of 2004 and into 2005 include: DearS, Hyper Police, Lagoon Engine, Alichino, Blade of Heaven, Gundam Seed Astray R, Last Fantasy, RG Veda, The End, Western Shotgun and YURiKA, as well as the manhwa Master School Olympus and Soul to Seoul. This is the first time most of these titles have been mentioned. Sorcerer Hunters will be reissued in the industry standard format. Tokyopop is also translating the CLAMP North Side and CLAMP South Side artbooks, both of which feature characters from a range of CLAMP manga. Because the artbooks use inks that are not available in the U.S., they will be produced in Japan and imported. The MSRP on both books will be in the $20 to $25 range.

Tokyopop has the license to the anime version of Psychic Academy, ten-minute episodes of which were released online in 2002. No release information is available at this time, but episode DVDs will be included in box sets of the Psycic Academy manga that is also licensed by the company.

In addition to licensing manga and manhwa properties and publishing original stories through The Rising Stars of Manga contest, Tokyopop is also interested in working with established Western comics artists and writers. According to the company representative, one such writer, who actually approached Tokyopop with a title idea, is Warren Ellis (Transmetropolitan, Planetary, Global Frequency).