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Tokyopop Plans Manga Publishing Relaunch, More Projects

did anyone else think that TP releases were lax on checking spelling. i remember GTO had a couple of typos in it and one of the volumes of Deadman wonderland (thankfully put ot by viz now) had an auto correct issue that changed a word to something like pizza which was very out of place in the sentence (i remember having a chuckle about it but i passed on those books when viz announced their release so i can't go check where it was)

haha wow, those videos on their YouTube page are garbage.

did anyone else think that TP releases were lax on checking spelling. i remember GTO had a couple of typos in it and one of the volumes of Deadman wonderland (thankfully put ot by viz now) had an auto correct issue that changed a word to something like pizza which was very out of place in the sentence (i remember having a chuckle about it but i passed on those books when viz announced their release so i can't go check where it was)

If they want to earn my respect again, they should go back and finish what they started before licensing more stuff for them to stops just after a couple of volumes

...

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2013/03/chuck-austens-advice-to-tokyopop-creators-move-on wrote:

When Tokyopop did eventually fail I tried to get my rights back so I could release it POD and digital, but Stu wouldn’t give them up for any amount of money. The best he would offer was to sell a film option to a production company that I would have to bring to him, and even then he wanted an exorbitant fee, and consideration as director of the project.

...

I'm surprised that there are people who are excited about this, because after hearing that Stu "delusions of grandeur" Levy completely screwed over several of the artists who worked on their OEL stuff and is bent on continuing it with this relaunch, I won't pay a cent. They've got nothing to license unless they go for really obscure stuff, and I bet they'll try to put their "hip" spins on the translation again, leave SFX untranslated and make the quality bad overall. I still won't forgive them for their "whiteout and Sharpies" statement on Initial D and now that I've heard their contracts contain statements that are almost as immature and that they've caused trouble for folks, I'm not the only one disappointed in them. ...

... Then there's the OEL contract fiasco. I met an artist earlier this year that published with them, and unlike the Japanese companies, her rights will never revert back to her, so she essentially had to move on and work on new IPs. If I were an independent or hidden gem and had TP come my way, I'd run.

Paragonias wrote:

Wow, seems like the American Tokyopop really sucked. I didn't think it was this bad... holy *****.

TokyoPop USA began as "Mixxzine" which was an anthology manga that caught fire because they lucked into the Sailor Moon manga license (other titles were good, but the Sailor Moon was the bread & butter). They went on to split the magazine taking the "girl" titles into another magazine and shoving a bunch of "interest" articles about fashion and makeup and boys etc. into it hoping to take over the magazine world. Needless to say, the concept bombed and ticked a lot of people off. (while Sailor Moon was running, the magazine DID continue to sell)

Mixx then decided to rebrand itself as TokyoPop. They led the charge on the unflipped, collected volume movement (most publishers at the time were trying to sell US style 30 pg "comics") and really built a solid base of customers and were becoming the "go-to" manga publisher in the US. They decided the best way to leverage that was to:
-Start publishing butchered anime (Initial D with renamed characters and rescored music), everyone hated their efforts and derided their thinking
-Start the "Rising Stars of Manga" initiative. (a plan that said "hey, every kid that dreams of being a mangaka, give us your ideas including all rights in perpetuity, we'll publish some of them no matter how terrible if we think we can market it but we own it") Needless to say, there were people that went for it, very few of whom were customers, but it led to a WHOLE lot of online arguments
-(my personal favorite) Stu decided "reality TV" was the biggest thing since sliced bread and decided to break into Hollywood by making "America's Greatest Otaku", this went EXACTLY as you would think based on the above

There's other things too, but these were some of the big failures that were both financial burdens AND public humiliations for the company. When Borders closed, a bunch of product went back and the assumption is (was) that if TokyoPop wasn't funding Stu's ridiculous superstar dreams, then it may as well close shop, so "poof".

After reading this, I had the sudden urge to throw up. Like, why is "Stu" still alive? I don't even. In Germany's Tokyopop he would've lost his job just for considering doing anything else but publishing manga and manhwa.

We have a project similar to the "Rising Stars of Manga" thing, however, before publishing anything, every manga is evaluated by the staff and "experts".
Therefore only very few German mangaka exist and they obviously sell way less copies their Japanese colleagues.

As Tokyopop reached the "go-to" status in Germany I sincerely hope we won't get a "Stu" over here, otherwise the manga market will die.

Hidden gems not yet noticed... *slides Silver Spoon and Creamy Mami mangas* while that's a great idea why don't they re-release some older manga? I'd like to be able to buy Cardcaptor Sakura, Kodocha, and some of the others I missed out on.