This has been a slow week for news, but this bombshell of a story comes with little to no surprise for many. Another industry giant is hacking away its limbs in an effort stay alive. TokyoPop is not going away it is simply downsizing once more, in statements made on their websites tokyo pop will continue to deliver select series and shows and will remain online. TokyoPop will not close it’s European printing division and wants to continue with digital distribution as well. TokyoPop has received it share of flack over the years for various reasons, but even with the problems TokyoPop is still an industry icon.
Need I say TokyoPop brought us lots of top shelf manga titles, the backwards book style, and some great indy content. Many fans I’ve spoken to tell me that the only thing they did not like about some of TokyoPops published titles was poor translation, localization, and censorship. Understandable in an industry trying to reach many different types of fans not just hardcore otaku. I have to agree with the fans on a few series for sure. We will know more about the companies condition in the coming weeks, as TokyoPop releases more information about the status of up and coming series and related.
Read more here about this HERE
I keep looking at this and trying to figure out what it means to me, personally, as a consumer in a “manga over anime” phase. Are the titles I’m reading going to be discontinued, or will they be printed in Europe and shipped here for sale? Does it even make a difference, since all the in-print titles I’m looking at are stamped both SJ & Viz?
Honestly I think they are completely different divisions with different products and titles. Some titles are bi-licensed, by that I mean can be printed and sold in both European and North American markets. Printing and then shipping from Europe would be expensive and impractical overall. As bad as it might sound, digital distribution may be the practical tool to somewhat solve the issue, I have also heard that they might consider working with a print to order publisher, this in short means you buy the book online, they print it and then send it to you. This of course would be slow, expensive, and very demanding on their part.
As for Viz and SJ these publisher are not affected by the TokyoPop shutdowns. If you are currently following any manga series from TokyoPop and you live in North America land, then you have something to think about. Hopefully licenses that are dropped by tokyoPop are picked up by another publisher and are continued.