TokyoPop closing its doors

[@random]

To me, this is sad news - if not for TP, manga might have never exploded in the US the way it did. They made it a lot more affordable and authentic, and AFAIK made the only serious effort to bring light novels to the US. More here:

http://astronerdboy.blogspot.com/2011/04/goodbye-tokyopop.html

[jaybug]

It's because they canceled Karin. I know it. That or Fruits Basket ended. One or the other.

[RemSaverem]

Wow. End of an era.

[CheshireStray]

I'm just going to say I'm glad they're closing.

Deadman Wonderland is going to remain forever unfinished on my shelf (unless Yen Press picks it up or something like that), along with a good amount of decent Light Novel's, which is sad, but they were really only a shadow of the company they used to be. Picking up series of varying quality left and right only to drop almost all of them a few volumes in, publishing loads of godawful OEL "manga", they're really only collapsing under the weight of their own decadent stupidity. They used really low quality paper and ink too, almost everything i ever bough from them smeared to heck. Spending millions on making that awful "America's Greatest Weeaboo" crap just to put entry level idiots running around screaming KAWAIIIIIIIII was the last straw for me.

This isn't the Tokyopop i knew as a magazine, so good riddance. Hopefully, this will give a little more room for good series to get licensed by decent publishers, like Udon.

[@random]

It's because they canceled Karin. I know it. That or Fruits Basket ended. One or the other.

YMMV on how much the money they wasted on the Tokyopop Tour and Princess Stu-Levy-is-a-Courtney-Love-fan had to do with it, but the last straw was the Borders bankruptcy. Borders was one of their biggest customers, and to boot they apparently hadn't been paying their bills.

Scary thought for Furuba fans: Until/unless someone license-rescues it, once the backstock that bookstores have are gone, that's it. If you've been putting off completing your set, now's the time. (I had a heck of a time tracking down all of the Kodocha manga after TP lost the license on that one.)

[superjaz]

It's because they canceled Karin. I know it. That or Fruits Basket ended. One or the other.

Karin was stopped because of Geneon issues
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneon

I am sad about this, not only for the manga but all their employees being laid off.  I have tons of their manga on my shelves.  Heck I am IN a volume of manga they put out.
This will only make it harder to get manga, with them out of buisness means less manga offered.  The companys can only put out so many titles at a time and now there is one less.

[Kimiski]

WHAT??!??!!

[superjaz]

Scary thought for Furuba fans: Until/unless someone license-rescues it, once the backstock that bookstores have are gone, that's it. If you've been putting off completing your set, now's the time. (I had a heck of a time tracking down all of the Kodocha manga after TP lost the license on that one.)

Got all my Baskets, but now I am wondering what I might want to get before this happens.  Luckly a lot of mine have finished up recently.

For my hubby kindoichi case files is one.

[Kimiski]

I was specifically applying to art schools in Cali to be near Tokyopop for hopes of a future career or even internship... like.... been planning to try and work there since I was small... was part of my dream... =/

What now for manga?

[DaemonForce]

I'm just going to say I'm glad they're closing.

OMFG finally someone agrees. o_O

I used to get a few magazines from Tokyopop years ago and since then I have bought two novels because I liked what they were highlighting(and I was almost immediately disappointed). I'm glad I have raw copies since both these volumes are bad quality. Cheap paper/inks and really poor translation ruined the mood. It's not like walking in on your SO cheating on you with two of your best friends kind of ruined but it's pretty high up there. Now that most of my interests have come, been ruined with bad judgement and are now long gone, I really don't care what happens to Tokyopop after this point. They had a pretty big foot in the door for certain large dealer rooms at cons and their demise means it will be much harder for me to get ahold of the manga I like but if anything, this teaches me that I don't need a middleman getting in my face and screwing up everything I like. I don't need English. If anything, it's a strong cause for my disappointment.

Spending millions on making that awful "America's Greatest Weeaboo" crap just to put entry level idiots running around screaming KAWAIIIIIIIII was the last straw for me.

Oh God...This burned a hole in my brain when it fell into my inbox. What the ****?! No wonder I've lost so much interest in anime and cosplay these past few months. I'm not sure if I should attend AX this year because of this. (;ω;)

I was specifically applying to art schools in Cali to be near Tokyopop for hopes of a future career or even internship... like.... been planning to try and work there since I was small... was part of my dream... =/

I wish I were that creative. I'm still trying to get my hands on a full set of Copic markers. The dealer halls at AX are doomed. I can tell this is it for them. Next year the price adjustments and movement demands are going to be so ridiculously ****ing high that I shouldn't be supporting this crap with my attendance. I really hope I don't see this going on at Sakuracon or this first one is also going to be my last. I don't support extortion from the providers of all the art and animation I once largely appreciated so much. This hurts. :/

[jaybug]

Jaz, I mostly said that 'cause you are in one issue. Wait, that sounds bad. Um... See if I can fix this right. Because they are special to me. It's been a while but I remember meeting you at a con meeting at Chemeketa. I still haven't gotten your autograph for that book.

[superjaz]

Jaz, I mostly said that 'cause you are in one issue. Wait, that sounds bad. Um... See if I can fix this right. Because they are special to me. It's been a while but I remember meeting you at a con meeting at Chemeketa. I still haven't gotten your autograph for that book.

I thought you were talking about Karin anime, the DVDs were being put out by geneon which stopped when the company had issues
Yup we met then, I think you were talking with Sara B who was working on charity auction stuff.  Funny enough that meeting turned into was my husbands and I's first date .  We got take out teriyaki and watched Vampire hunter D. 5+ years later, married and preggers

For signin, any time I make it to most meetings and uwaji events, not often to E town tho.

[jaybug]

Does he still have a thing about bells?

[Kimiski]

Does anyone know when they are closing? =(

[CheshireStray]

Does anyone know when they are closing? =(

The North American branch that they have set to close is shutting down on the 31st, I believe.

[luvan1me]

i think i just died a little....

[CheshireStray]

Out of curiosity, what exactly are the people who are upset in this thread even upset at?

Tokyopop has been doing nothing but releasing the first few volumes of series before dropping them for no reason, doing inconsistant printings to make random parts of any given franchise impossible to find, with horribly butchered translations, and godawful quality PRINTING, for that matter. They changed their entire image to cater to an obnoxious japanophile demographic, dabbled in the terrible cesspool that is Original English Language manga, and focused more of their energy on rapidly printing as many cheap volumes as they could before they dropped a series, whether it was good or not.

Pretty much anything they were putting out worth buying is out of publication already, save a few series, and there are far better publishers still alive and kicking. I fail to see the tragedy here.

[Saki-the-cat]

This is a reason why i read manga online. So i won't give any craps about stuff like this happening.

[@random]

Out of curiosity, what exactly are the people who are upset in this thread even upset at?

If nothing else, 'cause they're family.

If you were at a convention and saw people openly ridiculing a cosplayer from an obscure series you like, how would you react? Would you join in and start mocking them for being ridiculous because the buttons are at least 0.5 cm larger than they ought to be, and their wig is 6 inches too short and sky-blue when it ought to be more of an aquamarine, not to mention that they're crying when the character is supposed to be so genki and cheerful they make your teeth hurt? Or would you feel bad for them because even if they effed up the wig, they obviously cared about a series you also care about but most people have dismissed as not worth their time? Maybe even defend them because you recognize that they at least tried, even though they made mistakes?

That's how a lot of us feel about the publishers who do/did make an honest effort to bring over anime and manga without "improving" it to death for the average American. Even when we agree that the founder should've been a lot less self-indulgent, or broke our hearts by dumping Seikai no Senki halfway through... they still gave it a real try. And that's a lot more than you can say for their early contemporaries, who without TP's influence might not have ever tried to make it more affordable (albeit at the cost of newsprint-quality paper), stopped flipping the artwork, started keeping honorifics instead of awkward approximations like "Ranma-honey", stopped effing with plotlines out of fear that someone would be offended, or even so much as tried to bring light novels over. God knows they did make some awful mistakes... but we still share a bond with them, because they care about the same things we care about even though most people dismiss it as perverted kids' stuff.

Beyond the "family" aspect, there's also the stark recognition that manga and anime are dying back in the US, and it's a bad sign when yet another of the leaders (ADV, Del Rey, Tokyopop) can't even keep their doors open - let alone try to acquire new titles. Some of the most popular licenses will probably be rescued eventually... but there's no guarantee. And a lot of them, no one will ever bring to the US again.

Thank you for asking this question - it helped me clarify, at least for myself, why it mattered. That doesn't mean it has to matter to anyone else, but at least now I think I understand a little better why I was so sad to see this news.

[Kimiski]

I agree whole hardheartedly... I seriously fear the future of anime/manga here... and part of me died inside too... =(

90% of my manga collection is Tokyopop, 9% VIZ, 1% Yenpress....

[Saki-the-cat]

*coughcough**points to my post*
Just remember, there will always be stuff online...It's not like it'll go away completely. There will just be less to actually buy in stores.

[DaemonForce]

Out of curiosity, what exactly are the people who are upset in this thread even upset at?

One of two reasons: Either Tokyopop had such an integral part in the introduction of manga that it's hard to pick anyone else or these people actually accept the mediocre unfinished printing/translation of the volumes they want. For me, Tokyopop was my introduction to English translated manga and is exactly the reason I avoid it so much now. When the signs are there, don't ignore. That's my rule. >.>'

Tokyopop is(lol was) 10% of my insignificant manga collection and 100% of the English parts. Don't even bother asking me about the rest. They're randomly categorized and overpriced imports thanks to strict publisher rules and really nasty dealer hall practices that are designed to extort the dealers whenever they need to move their section. Yeah, I can't get these from bookstores so I get 100% of my manga from conventions. Without these, I'm mainly focused on all the manga that I can find online. It's because of this that I've heard of Yenpress maybe once and none of the others. Does this make me a bad person? No. Not yet anyway.

If nothing else, 'cause they're family.

You've forgotten your family.

If something is bad enough, it will attract vicious amounts of ridicule no matter what the intention. I don't openly mock Tokyopop or cosplayers. I just dismiss the mediocre as uninteresting and lame. Thing is, my photographer nature usually keeps me from doing that to cosplayers but there's no check and balance for manga publishers. This isn't a so-bad-it's-good battle and certain groups need to pick up the pace. We can all understand a lot of small mistakes. It's huge mistakes and bending over backwards over every insignificant complaint because they're scared of losing attention and money that bothers me. Just accept the fact that sometimes there is someone at the very bottom of the barrel and if you invest enough sloppy effort to look bad or make everyone your demographic, it's probably going to be you and you will lose. Some people are just in way over their head and you have no business being one of them.

I'll admit Tokyopop was okay with me at first. Their monthly issues around 2006 were the first manga I've seen in print but they quickly turned into the crazy cat lady that no one likes. I've moved on. I guess a lot of other people haven't. Anyway this depresses me for all the wrong reasons. I need to go back to college. Cheshire's awesome argument has me convinced that my English is too sloppy for my own good. Also, I'm getting a widescreen tablet. I can tell that most of my manga reading is going to involve a computer and CDisplay about 4x more often once the other publishers start trying the Tokyopop tactics to survive. Wow I sound like such a defeatist...(´・ω・｀)

[@random]

I don't openly mock Tokyopop or cosplayers.

I wish this were true. 

But as far as our perceptions of reality wrt Tokyopop, I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree.

[DaemonForce]

I wish this were true. 

There's always something that falls through. Usually something completely absurd.

But as far as our perceptions of reality wrt Tokyopop, I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree.

You're free to appreciate what you want. I just want you to raise your standards on how you spend your time and money. No one should be wasting it on everything below average. The acceptance of it is exactly how this horrible mess stays alive long enough for us to notice(hence the thread).

[CheshireStray]

To be fair, you're defending what TP USED to be. That TokyoPop has been gone for years now. For me, this is like having your family replaced with people you hate, THEN those people dying.

But hey, opinions. I can respect yours.

[Washougal_Otaku]

This makes me sad!  There's a lot of their series that I love, and have yet to finish!  I SHALL BUY THEM OUT WITH MY OLD POG COLLECTION!!!

[Kimiski]

Psht, manga online.... it can only bring me so far..... -____-

Like the reason I HATE the kindle... I want to hold a BOOK in my hands. Be able to lay back with it in my bed, the tub, on the go, etc. To feel and smell the fresh print pages as I flip through it. I love the feeling of getting a new manga at Borders, I sit down and read it right away. With manga online it's NOT the same at all.

[VampireFangs103]

I totally agree Kimiski. D< I hate reading manga online. I like REAL books on REAL paper. I don't to imagine a future where books fail to exist.

And as far as Tokyopop goes, it's true that it's very frustrating with how they've been in the past few years. I'll agree that they have dropped a ton of series that has made me want to scream.

However, I'm sad too, because this really is an example at death of anime and manga in the U.S. Not only that, but it was a big company that really helped get anime and manga going in the US (yes, I know other publishers were out there first.) Shojo beat magazine died a while back, and now Tokyopop is dying.

But Tokyopop brought us big series like Magic Knight Rayearth, which helped people in the U.S. become introduced to CLAMP, and Sailor Moon. I can guarantee that without Sailor Moon, there would be TONS of fans out there that had never discovered or bothered looking into anime and manga. It's just the fact that in a way, Tokyopop really helped and represented the birth of manga in the U.S., and unfortunately, it's really seeming to represent the beginning of death of it as well.

[Kimiski]

Yup, Sailor Moon was my first anime and manga, before I even knew what anime was. Then when I found out Sailor Moon was anime, I looked into other things.

[VampireFangs103]

Exactly! A lot of people discover anime through finding out that a specific show they love is an anime. Sailor Moon is a HUGE example of this.

[Kimiski]

Ah, the early days~ been with Tokyopop when it was known as Mixx. =(

http://www.tokyopop.com/Stu/tp_article/3203033.html

[JeffT]

This is a reason why i read manga online. So i won't give any craps about stuff like this happening.

Apparently not giving any craps about whether creators and publishers are compensated, and hence, it keeps getting created? It's the people who "give any craps" about this who enable anyone to read the manga at all.

*coughcough**points to my post*
Just remember, there will always be stuff online...It's not like it'll go away completely. There will just be less to actually buy in stores.

To the extent it doesn't go away completely, it's because some people don't share this attitude and pay for it. But some people who read online can continue to pretend that the state of the industry doesn't affect them, either.

[@random]

^ Technically it's not true that a complete boycott (which is what "refusing to pay for product" is) of print manga would result in no manga ever being produced. We'd still have periodic DA-quality-or-lower doujinshi and suchlike. But as far as professional, regular series go... yeah. Sayonara to the manga world as we know it.

Even if we created a widespread paperless option tomorrow (which I would advocate despite being in the print industry), someone still has to pay the salaries of the manga-ka, their assistants, their editors, etc. Otherwise, they have to make a living doing something else.

[fleur_fraise]

Hasn't TokyoPop been declining for a while?

I remember a while back they did an English version of the Gothic&Lolita Bible, but by the last issue they put out it was about half the size of the normal one and half as interesting. The lolita community was talking about how it was because TokyoPop wasn't doing well, and this was easily over a year ago.

It's sad that they're going out of business, but that just happens. What's worrying me is what exactly will happen to all the stuff they put out? WILL it be gone forever? Will someone else pick it up? I'm not too into Fruits Basket myself, but it's enormously popular and whoever can get the rights to it will probably be swimming in money.

[@random]

It's sad that they're going out of business, but that just happens. What's worrying me is what exactly will happen to all the stuff they put out? WILL it be gone forever? Will someone else pick it up?

This. My guess is that most of it won't return to US shores, though I really hope I'll be proven wrong.

Look at Kodocha. Unless Kodansha pulled the license out of pure spite with no intent of granting it to anyone else, Kodocha's fate is a bad omen that most publishers won't even license-rescue a popular series unless they're SURE they can make more money off of it. And this was in 2006, when manga was a hot commodity. In 2011, with manga in sharp decline, there are few titles (like Furuba) about which you can say that.

[superjaz]

^ true, I have talked with some at various cons and they can only release so many at a time, they might not have room for picking up series.  I esp wonder when there are series that, they already own, that they wait on releasing because of the way the market is.

I always buy my manga to support the industy I <3.  I just wait for a deal or a coupon first.

[fleur_fraise]

I was going crazy thinking "what's Kodocha, I know I've heard of it somewhere..." and I remembered my aunt bought me a random stack of manga from a second-hand store, one of them being Kodocha #8.

I'm obsessive about needing to have complete series, so the idea of stuff just disappearing is scary. I don't own much manga (I read it too fast, so there's not really a point to me) but I need to check if any incomplete collections of mine are put out by TokyoPop...

[Chibachi Nero]

Well, this is kind of depressing. I agree that they'd been declining lately, and all the OEL was getting kind of annoying, but still. Like people said above, they were some of the front-runners who pioneered a lot of the stuff we take for granted (non-flipped format, honorifics, etc.) And even though I wasn't terribly interested in most of the stuff they put out, it's a distressing sign that they're closing. If Tokypop can't keep its doors open, what'll happen to the smaller publishers (like my precious Yen Press)?

I try to buy manga and support the industry as much as I can, but I read way too fast to afford new books all the time.

Ack, this means I've gotta get the rest of Furuba soon. I'm still missing about a third of it. :/

[CheshireStray]

I wouldn't be worried about any other publishers, guys.

Tokyopop pretty much deliberately ran the US print branch into the ground with the way they handled it, and the company itself isn't even really even close to going down. They're keeping the film branch here, and the main body in Europe is still fully operational. Other publishers like Yen and Udon are keeping their stuff managed soundly, and as far as I can tell from a quick glance, are nowhere near any potential crisis.

Until we see another company go so deliberately suicidally insane as US Tokyopop did, dropping series they just started, cutting down on quality, investing in horrible live action/OEL contracts, I wouldn't even start to blink 

[Wrath-Chan19]

They are?
I makes me a bit sad, because like for most people it's because of TokyoPop that I found out about Manga
but then I have been noticing how crappy they are. I get my Manga form the library and I do my best to keep the books I get in good condition and it so hard with their books.
and I'm also upset that I treated my Fruits Basket books Cr*ppy so they won't be as rare and I might get less money if I was to ever sell them

[NARUNIK]

Looks like they won't be my publishers...Damn.

[VampireFangs103]

They are?
I makes me a bit sad, because like for most people it's because of TokyoPop that I found out about Manga
but then I have been noticing how crappy they are. I get my Manga form the library and I do my best to keep the books I get in good condition and it so hard with their books.
and I'm also upset that I treated my Fruits Basket books Cr*ppy so they won't be as rare and I might get less money if I was to ever sell them

I wouldn't worry too much about Fruits Basket. It's a really popular series, so they printed a LOT of them. I don't see them being too rare anytime soon. >w>

[Saki-the-cat]

This is a reason why i read manga online. So i won't give any craps about stuff like this happening.

Apparently not giving any craps about whether creators and publishers are compensated, and hence, it keeps getting created? It's the people who "give any craps" about this who enable anyone to read the manga at all.

*coughcough**points to my post*
Just remember, there will always be stuff online...It's not like it'll go away completely. There will just be less to actually buy in stores.

To the extent it doesn't go away completely, it's because some people don't share this attitude and pay for it. But some people who read online can continue to pretend that the state of the industry doesn't affect them, either.

Wait, what? I was only pointing out the fact that it's not like manga is just going to disappear from this world forever. There are still going to be manga online and older manga in stores. I just don't see why people are freaking out over this. In this economy, i'm not surprized what-so-ever.
And by the way, wern't people just complaining about Tokyopop a few pages ago? How they start on a manga series but never finish it? Also that whole "worlds greatest weaboo Otaku" thing? Frankly, from what everyone's been saying, i'm surprized people arn't happy.