News

Random House aims for manga in spring 2004

According to Publishers Weekly, Random House will launch a Manga line next Spring. The Manga will be published through Random House's well known Del Rey brand, famous for Science Fiction and Fantasy, however the PW article refers to the "still-unnamed line of books" so its unknown if the Del Rey brand will actually appear on the Manga.

Earlier this year Random House and Kodansha partnered and formed a company called "Random House Kodansha" geared towards releasing Japanese translation of Random House books. At the time, although details were not made public, it was stated that Kodansha would later take advantage of Random Houses international distribution channels.

This new manga line, which is to be launched next month at San Diego Comic-Con, is said to be a by-product of the Random House - Kodansha deal, but it has not been clearly stated whether or not Random House will exclusively distribute Kodansha Manga or if they will be distributing Manga from other Japanese publishers as well. To date Tokyopop is responsable for the distribution of most Kodansha titles that have been released in North America.

While several companies, including Sony, Disney, Viacom and Warner Brothers have entered the Anime market, Random House is the first Major North American publishing house to enter the Manga Market in North America.