Some big news hit this morning. Kodansha, possibly the most recognized Japanese manga company, has decided to stop all licenses with Tokyopop.
As many of you might know, Tokyopop has been in a long, steady decline over the past few years. Originally they were THE name in manga in North America, snapping up titles left and right for licensing. But once other companies started making SMART decisions on which titles to license, Tokyopop started struggling.
What does this mean? A lot of titles are left in limbo, while some other companies like Dark Horse will be turning some titles (mostly CLAMP works) into omnibus editions (who is excited for this? ME!)
Word on the street (ie: my boss) is that Kodansha is creating its own North American branch to release it's titles. Because they would obviously have first kick at the cat on the best titles to release in North America, I wonder if this will affect other BIG North American publishers, namely Viz.
Your thoughts?
As many of you might know, Tokyopop has been in a long, steady decline over the past few years. Originally they were THE name in manga in North America, snapping up titles left and right for licensing. But once other companies started making SMART decisions on which titles to license, Tokyopop started struggling.
What does this mean? A lot of titles are left in limbo, while some other companies like Dark Horse will be turning some titles (mostly CLAMP works) into omnibus editions (who is excited for this? ME!)
Word on the street (ie: my boss) is that Kodansha is creating its own North American branch to release it's titles. Because they would obviously have first kick at the cat on the best titles to release in North America, I wonder if this will affect other BIG North American publishers, namely Viz.
Your thoughts?
I think it's pretty much decided that Kodansha will publish some of their stuff here on their own, but I'm not sure they're looking to get all the way in just yet, so I'm not sure how much it will affect the other companies yet. And I'm pretty sure they have some sort of agreement with Del Rey already, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm not sure how many Kodansha titles Viz actually has...I'm sure htey have some, but lately it's been mostly Del Rey with Kodansha titles (other than the new Shonen Sunday imprint from Viz, which looks promising).
And I can't wait for the new CLAMP omnibus editions either!! :D The first Chobits one already has a product page on the DH site. ;]
Viz is pretty closely aligned with Shueisha and Shogakukan now (well, they own Viz). So I'm not sure it has any Kodansha titles, except maybe a few really old ones from before it was bought out. A major publishing venture by Kodansha might affect them in terms of providing competition, but I don't see much else than that. (by the way, Shonen Sunday is originally a Shogakukan magazine, isn't it?) And Del Rey and Kodansha seem much too friendly for K to pull something like this with them.
ReplyDeleteI'm bummed about this, if only because I may never get to read the rest of Love Attack. (It sure would be nice though, if Kodansha did start publishing more than a few reprints of old series and brought us more of their awesome shoujo manga. We don't see nearly enough of it through Del Rey!!)