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INTEREST: Tokyopop Artists Comment on Rights to Their Works


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Sunday Silence



Joined: 22 Jun 2010
Posts: 2047
PostPosted: Fri Apr 29, 2011 6:57 pm Reply with quote
The legacy of Stu Levy lives on.
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Running Wild





PostPosted: Fri Apr 29, 2011 7:47 pm Reply with quote
I'll give Tokyopop some credit for the big Manga Boom in the early 2000's, giving us unflipped and (mostly) uncensored manga, but they translation/localization quality went way down hill, print quality was generally bad, and they really saturated the manga market with ALOT of crap, not mention licensed so many series that never were completed.

I could care less for Tokyopop tho, they don't publish anything worthwhile anymore, lost the licenses to their few good series.

I think the only Tokyopop manga I still have are Real Bout High School (bought it almost exclusively for the artwork), Love Hina, Chobits, Angelic Layer, Hyper Police (Never finished), and Battle Vixens/Ikkitousen (Which is total crap).
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TitanXL



Joined: 08 Jun 2010
Posts: 4036
PostPosted: Fri Apr 29, 2011 7:54 pm Reply with quote
I just want someone to rescue Qwaser... preferably not Viz.. or Dark Horse.. even though that's pretty much all that's left. Confused
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LilyChan



Joined: 16 Jul 2004
Posts: 101
Location: Arizona
PostPosted: Fri Apr 29, 2011 8:13 pm Reply with quote
I was wondering what they were going to do with the original artists' works. Give them their rights back? Nah, that's too easy and too simple for TokyoPop at this point.

But that's cool that Queenie got a movie deal from her story! ^^ Hope it's successful and actually true to the story!
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TokyoGetter



Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 416
Location: CA. You can tell by the low moral standards.
PostPosted: Fri Apr 29, 2011 8:14 pm Reply with quote
Sunday Silence wrote:
The legacy of Stu Levy lives on.


Hair gel: it never dies.
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jr240483



Joined: 24 Dec 2005
Posts: 4367
Location: New York City,New York,USA
PostPosted: Fri Apr 29, 2011 8:19 pm Reply with quote
Running Wild wrote:
I'll give Tokyopop some credit for the big Manga Boom in the early 2000's, giving us unflipped and (mostly) uncensored manga, but they translation/localization quality went way down hill, print quality was generally bad, and they really saturated the manga market with ALOT of crap, not mention licensed so many series that never were completed.

I could care less for Tokyopop tho, they don't publish anything worthwhile anymore, lost the licenses to their few good series.

I think the only Tokyopop manga I still have are Real Bout High School (bought it almost exclusively for the artwork), Love Hina, Chobits, Angelic Layer, Hyper Police (Never finished), and Battle Vixens/Ikkitousen (Which is total crap).



Well I liked Ikkitousen. And I definitely liked Tokko even though it's still incomplete ( is this really the same guy that did GTO ) . Though the only manga I actually have bought from Tokyopop was the Sekai no Senkai ( Crest of the Stars ) trilogy, and i wanted to get their versions of sailot moon too but their so freaking hard to find.



Over all I think they did Ok. and of course their always going to be known when it comes to most of Akamasus's mangas ( Love Hina , A.I Love You ) as well as for GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka and Initial D.

It only went bad for them when they started licensing anime series,completely destroying Rave Master , and losing the licensing of the manga version . They should have quit with experiments when they had the chance now , they might pay for it dearly.
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SoloButterfly



Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 239
Location: Masaki Residence
PostPosted: Fri Apr 29, 2011 9:19 pm Reply with quote
Sounds like it's a very individual case-by-case basis at to whether the artists will be getting their rights back. Hope things work out well for everyone.
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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4404
PostPosted: Sat Apr 30, 2011 2:21 am Reply with quote
Looks like the biggest question to answer for these people is whether their contract was with Tokyopop Inc. or Tokyopop Media. If the second one was actually in charge of handling such things, then it's not so good for the artists since that part is still going. But the publisher typically has the right to use or not use the work as they see fit.
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mix303



Joined: 03 Apr 2008
Posts: 65
Location: Alberta Canada
PostPosted: Sat Apr 30, 2011 2:28 am Reply with quote
Sunday Silence wrote:
The legacy of Stu Levy lives on.


Yea no kiding......
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nargun



Joined: 29 Mar 2006
Posts: 924
PostPosted: Sat Apr 30, 2011 4:10 am Reply with quote
Running Wild wrote:
I'll give Tokyopop some credit for the big Manga Boom in the early 2000's, giving us unflipped and (mostly) uncensored manga, but they translation/localization quality went way down hill, print quality was generally bad, and they really saturated the manga market with ALOT of crap, not mention licensed so many series that never were completed.


The whole reason that Tokyopop went to unflipped is because it brought down adaption costs. Take a manga that would have sold marginally or at a loss under the old system. If you cut out the retouch costs that flipping brings, that's... a decent chunk of the adaption expenses there. You'll lose sales -- remember, this is ten years ago or more now, the market was different then -- but as long as you cut costs more, you'd wind up ahead.

But if the title's popular, then you'd lose more in lost sales than you'd save in the lowered costs.

So "unflipped" only made sense at the time if you were trying to shift lower-popularity works and retain profitability... but they're less popular, and being unflipped has made them even less popular, and that means the totals you'd be drawing in would be less, and you'd need to have a larger, probably a much larger, catalogue, of lower popularity titles.

Or, in other words, the firehose of crap approach. [which isn't to say that, say, Pixy Junket or RIOT were ever actually any good [haven't read seraphic feather], but, well, the essential element of the firehose-of-crap is the firehose bit].

The other thing about this is that grabbing what you can get and shoving it out there isn't necessarily cheaper than careful acquisitions management, but, well, it's a shitload easier if you're some sort of lazy flaky-type person.
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sonickid101



Joined: 24 Apr 2009
Posts: 132
PostPosted: Sat Apr 30, 2011 7:49 am Reply with quote
such is the fate for original english language japanese comics
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Wiesteria



Joined: 25 May 2007
Posts: 141
PostPosted: Sat Apr 30, 2011 12:22 pm Reply with quote
TitanXL wrote:
I just want someone to rescue Qwaser... preferably not Viz.. or Dark Horse.. even though that's pretty much all that's left. Confused


And Yen Press, so don't lose hope! Smile

Oh, and Kodansha too, but Qwaser's with Akita Shoten, so that's not gonna happen.
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Hellfish



Joined: 19 Dec 2007
Posts: 391
Location: Mexico
PostPosted: Sat Apr 30, 2011 8:08 pm Reply with quote
The first thing I wondered was if Bizenghast was going to see an ending, I will not feel relieved until it comes out and I buy it though.

And about the abandoned... damn! just return the rights to Ross already, let the guy do something with his work -.-

And other thing I am wondering... will MBQ rights return to Felipe Smith? o.o

TitanXL wrote:
I just want someone to rescue Qwaser... preferably not Viz.. or Dark Horse.. even though that's pretty much all that's left. Confused


There is also Vertical but no idea if they would be interested in it or not.
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Running Wild





PostPosted: Tue May 03, 2011 1:35 am Reply with quote
jr0904 wrote:
Well I liked Ikkitousen


Ikkitousen is just a rip-off of Tenjou Tenge.

Ikkitousen traced panels from Tenjou.
http://mangatranslation.com/cgi-bin/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=2000
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vashna



Joined: 19 Feb 2010
Posts: 1313
PostPosted: Tue May 03, 2011 12:27 pm Reply with quote
I'm a bit concerned at the suggestion that there is only Viz and Dark Horse left; am I so out of touch with the industry that I didn't notice Yen Press go away?
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