Forum - View topicNEWS: Tokyopop to Restructure
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Moogle-X
Posts: 23 |
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I have noticed for quite some time that Tokyopop is releasing too many books at one time, and most not even worth reading. I think a dumping of a lot of the original english books (keeping the good ones) and some of the more lackluster titles has long since been in order.
As for the falling sky... For a long time, there was quite a boom in interest and sales of anime and manga-related products and I do believe the bubble burst on that within about the past 1 1/2 to 2 years ago and what we are seeing is alot of the aftermath of companies taking too long to see the shift in trends and continuing to release an excess of titles without realizing the change in trends coming. Popularization of digital fansubs, general lack of interest in new properties, delays in western releases, bad voice acting/scripting, oversaturation of a limited market and bootlegging are all frequently blamed as the source of the problem, and really, I think all caused a significant amount of trouble in the market. I know myself that over the past year I have definitely bought a great deal less anime and alot fewer manga and mostly it has been a combination of lack of interest in new properties and lack of funds to apply to a broad market. Also, many of the companies have been doing this thing where they release a series at $30 a volume, then less than 6 months later, release a sub $50-100 of the entire series, which is particularly discouraging. Then there's the closures of various anime and manga US publishers. I for one had a couple of different series I've had to stop collecting because the company publishing them went out of business. My best to Tokyopop and good luck with the restructuring. Please do not cancel Mamotte Shugogetten. It has already been canceled once. Isn't that enough? |
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HitokiriShadow
 Posts: 6251 |
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I was at the bookstore a few weeks ago and I saw a girl take a stack of about 20 manga over to a chair and she just plopped down and started reading. Really pissed me off... Perhaps I'm not one to talk as there are a few series that I didn't care enough for to continue buying but I continued to read at the store, but I'm talking about 3-4 books, not a 3-4 foot stack. My big concern is what this will mean for their light novels. They already canned Scrapped Princess and were unable to continue Kino no Tabi (though there is a high probability that they discontinued that one due to licensor issues rather than poor sales). I'm worried about Full Metal Panic, Missing, and Gosick. Manga-wise, I'm not to worried about the stuff I'm collecting. The seem to have recently put Samurai Deeper Kyo back on a bi-monthly schedule and I recall seeing sales number a while back showing that it was a pretty good seller, so I think that one will okay. I less certain on Gakuen Alice, but I'm not really worried about it either. Moon Phase is the only one that I'm slightly worried about, but I'm far more concerned about Eden's future than Moon Phase's. Welcome to the NHK is nearly finished and Kannazuki no Miko is, I think, only two volumes so they should both be just fine. |
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melonbread
Posts: 317 Location: UK (London) |
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While true in the vast majority of circumstances, you can always hope they'll save a title one of the employees holds in high esteem and is willing to keep going even if it is just breaking even.... ala some of Dark Horses releases like Eden.... though to be honest I can't think of many more other than that, though bi-yearly releases probably correllates to "we're keeping this one going because we love it". It's just such a shame it doesn't work like that for all circumstances. |
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firedragon54738
 Posts: 3113 Location: wisconsin |
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I hope that they put out the final volume Grenadier aug. 12
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MageofFire
 Posts: 56 Location: Edmonton, Canada |
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This is interesting. I have a feeling the only 2 series I follow that are published by Tokyopop will be effected being BECK and Rebirth.
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castmodean
Posts: 4 |
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Myself, since really right after the start of the boom oh these many, long years, have been waiting to the market contraction to take place. I have kept watching and watching waiting for the market to finally admit to itself that it was over saturated with titles and unable to sustain its growth rate. This really shows that this is the case and perhaps now, instead of titles being put out for the sake of having titles in the market to make as much money as quickly as possible, we will see a retrenchment. How this will play out for finding the next big series will remain to be seen, since publishers will also become more wary about trying out titles in the marketplace. From here on out the trip gets more interesting.
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Kimyo
 Posts: 101 Location: In my own world. |
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Oh, man, I hope they don't cancel the Kyo Kara Maoh novels! It's bad enough Geneon stopped distributing the anime...
The OEL books are mostly horrible, the only one I read is Off*Beat. Atomic King Daidogan and Bombos vs Everything look good too, but I only have so much cash. Buying two graphic novels per week is as extravagant as I can get, and lately I've been forced to skip it altogether. Hopefully my current fave titles-- Pet Shop of Horrors Tokyo, Genju no Seiza, Tactics, Welcome to the NHK, and Gravitation EX-- won't be affected by this. |
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teh*darkness
 Posts: 901 |
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I hope you're wrong. I've been following Rebirth since around when Volume 06 came out, and if they cancel it now, over 20 volumes in, especially with just releasing the triple-length volume, I'll be really pissed.
To paraphrase, "We'll be releasing less manga, and we're going to focus on yaoi, since Viz has the shounen market." Great, there goes the majority of titles that I actually buy from TP. Hopefully they'll at least finish King of Thorn. -_- |
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xia83
 Posts: 137 |
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i'm sorry to hear about the 39 people who lost their job. Its unfortunate.
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st_owly
 Posts: 5234 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland |
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A couple of years ago Tokyopop was my favourite publisher. Not anymore. For me it seems the problem Tokyopop now has is too much rubbish all at once. Yes, there are some decent OEL "manga" out there, but there's far more rubbish than there is good stuff. I've noticed in all the Tokyopop stuff I've bought/borrowed from a friend recently, most, probably all of the ads at the back are for OEL. It seems they're not licencing as much from Japan as they used to, and what they do licence is mediocre. I suspect because they don't have to pay translators etc for OEL, but they can sell it for the same price, ergo more profit. In theory anyways.
Viz has the shounen market in the palm of its hands: Naruto, One Piece and Bleach. I need say no more, and they also seem to be doing pretty well on the shoujo front as well (Vampire Knight, Tail of the Moon etc.) Tokyopop were probably delighted when they managed to licence Gakuen Alice from Hakusensha, considering 90%+ of Hakusensha stuff is licenced by Viz, and it tends to be fairly popular too. I certaintly remember a big marketing push for it when the first volume came out. Anyway, rant over, hopefully we'll see less rubbish and more decent manga/manhwa on our shelves. Last edited by st_owly on Tue Jun 03, 2008 3:49 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Dargonxtc
 Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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Wow, I had no idea they released that many volumes a year. I can see why they need to do this. Hopefully the stuff I am reading will be safe. And sorry to hear about the people losing their jobs, but when you cut the work load by 50%, your going to lose a good chunk of your staff.
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Peter Ahlstrom
Posts: 72 Location: Los Angeles |
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The final volume of Grenadier already went to press, so no worries there. I really don't know for sure what titles will be sticking around, but a large percentage of the axed titles will be Korean titles because those have been selling poorly. I would not be surprised to see Rebirth discontinued. Beck has also underperformed, but only time will tell.
If I were still working there, I would probably know sooner.  I hope the titles I loved working on will be spared, because I at least want to keep collecting them.
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Sheleigha
 Posts: 1673 |
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Mmm I don't know about that. There really aren't TOO many yaoi titles around, nor are they at main retailers either (unless online sales have them high).
I think that's the same for me. The first titles I collected were ones like Chobits and Angelic Layer. Shonen Jump was JUST coming out, and Viz only had stuff like Ranma and Inuyasha (which was just becoming popular) at the time. Once again, I refer to my post on the top of page 2. I didn't mention OEL however, although they do not interest me in the least bit. Anyone remember who was the winner of Tokyopop's manga publishing contest? 'Peach Fuzz'? Wow, a story about a girl and a talking ferret that goes on adventures (from what I remember on ads). If that's not another Hamtaro that's directed to 6 year olds, I don't know what is. I'm also not a fan of the 'cartoony' art in most OEL manga, where they try SO hard to make it look anime but it just... doesn't work. I understand even in manga there are different and diverse art styles, but the over cartoony look makes me gag^^ Right now, Tokyopop seems to be holding on with Fruits Basket. Oh, and speaking of fan columns I mentioned about Tokyopop's website, how about adding in like 6 pages to the GN by adding fanwork in it! Yeah, that's something everyone wants to see! Oh wait, that's what the website is for. Well, there's an idea of where to cut costs as well -_-; Waste of paper... Oh right, and what about when the last couple FB are released? End of Tokyopop? 0_o Personally, I just do NOT understand what their obsession with fanwork is... |
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adam_omega
 Posts: 256 Location: Seven Seas |
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It actually costs more to produce OEL than it does to put out a licensed manga from Japan. Why do OEL then? Because you're creating your own series that you can license out to other countries and do all those things a company can do when they have a stake in a property that they produced themselves. |
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Hon'ya-chan
 Posts: 973 |
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If Tokyopop is smart, they should also take critic/critical reviews into account as well. It's bad enough Levy is still on board, so this means we're probably gonna be subjected to more Princess Ai in the future. |
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