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The comics publishing culling of 2011 claimed its most prominent victim as it was announced today that Tokyopop is shutting down its US operations, as of May 31. The German office will stay open to handle publishing rights and the film division will continue.

Founded in 1997, Tokyopop and its founder Stu Levy were at the forefront of the manga revolution in the US, introducing such hits as SAILOR MOON, CHOBITS, and LOVE HINA to the US market in the “unflipped” format for the first time.

Sales surged as the manga bookstore revolution took over in the early part of the last decade. An ambitious program of publishing original manga by creators from around the world — many of them barely out of the teenaged readership years themselves — proved controversial and ultimately saw only a handful of successful franchises but introduced a new generation of creators to the comics scene.

In February, a last round of layoffs had reduced the company to a mere 6 employees…making the shutdown all but inevitable.

Tokyopo’s statement is below, and a personal statement from Levy below that.

For nearly 15 years, TOKYOPOP, led by Stu Levy, its founder, CEO and Chief Creative Officer, has pioneered the English-language manga movement and touched the hearts, minds and souls of enthusiasts worldwide.

Today, we are sad to inform our loyal community of manga fans, our passionate creators of manga content, our business and retail partners, and other stakeholders who have supported us through the years that as of May 31, 2011, TOKYOPOP is closing its Los Angeles-based North American publishing operations.

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TOKYOPOP film and television projects and European operations, including the German publishing program, will not be affected by the Los Angeles office closure. In addition, TOKYOPOP will continue its global rights sales via its office in Hamburg, Germany.


And


A personal message from Stu Levy

Author: Stu Levy

April 15, 2011
 
Dear TOKYOPOP Community:
 
Way back in 1997, we set out to bring a little-known form of Japanese entertainment to American shores. I originally named our little company “Mixx”, meaning a mix of entertainment, mix of media, and mix of cultures.   My dream was to build a bridge between Japan and America, through the incredible stories I discovered as a student in Tokyo.
 
Starting with just four titles — Parasyte, Ice Blade, Magic Knight Rayearth, and, of course, Sailor Moon — we launched MixxZine, aspiring to introduce comics to girls. These four series laid down the cornerstone for what would eventually become TOKYOPOP and the Manga Revolution.
 
Over the years, I’ve explored many variations of manga culture – “OEL” manga, “Cine-Manga”, children’s books we called “Manga Chapters”, the Gothic-Lolita Bible, Korean manwha (which we still called “manga” at the time), video game soundtracks, live-action films and documentaries, anime, and various merchandise. Some of it worked, some of it didn’t – but the most enjoyable part of this journey has been the opportunity to work with some of the most talented and creative people I’ve ever met. 
 
Many of you also allowed me the indulgence to not only produce works but also to take a swing at creating some of my own. I’ve learned that it’s much easier to criticize others than it is to create from scratch – but in doing so, I’ve also in the process learned how to better communicate with creators.
 
Fourteen years later, I’m laying down my guns. Together, our community has fought the good fight, and, as a result, the Manga Revolution has been won –manga has become a ubiquitous part of global pop culture. I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished – and the incredible group of passionate fans we’ve served along the way (my fellow revolutionaries!). 
 
For many years Japan has been my second home, and I have devoted much of my career to bringing my love for Japan to the world – and hopefully in my own way, I can give back to the culture that has given me so much joy.
 
In closing, I simply want to thank all of you – our incredibly talented creators from all over the world, our patient and supportive business partners and customers, our amazingly dedicated TOKYOPOP team – full-timers, part-timers, freelancers and interns, and of course the greatest fans in the entire world. Together, we’ve succeeded in bringing manga to North America and beyond. 
 
Arigatougozaimasu!!

132 COMMENTS

  1. That is sad news indeed. I wasn’t a huge manga fan, but I surely appreciated their efforts. Who am I kidding? I loved Sailor Moon. So the question is, “What happens now for the U.S. manga market?”

  2. That is sad news indeed. I wasn’t a huge manga fan, but I surely appreciated their efforts. Who am I kidding? I loved Sailor Moon. So the question is, “What happens now for the U.S. manga market?”

  3. Wow.

    2011 marks the end of Manga as popular powerhouse, and the beginning of Manga as a mature market segment.

    Although I was never a big fan of Tokyopop and Manga, I do appreciate Tokyopop introducing a much-ignored population of fans and readers to manga/comics/BD.

    So… when do we start talking about the Manga Diaspora, and its effect on American comics.

  4. Wow.

    2011 marks the end of Manga as popular powerhouse, and the beginning of Manga as a mature market segment.

    Although I was never a big fan of Tokyopop and Manga, I do appreciate Tokyopop introducing a much-ignored population of fans and readers to manga/comics/BD.

    So… when do we start talking about the Manga Diaspora, and its effect on American comics.

  5. It was a good run. The 6+ years I spent at the company were the most creatively and professionally satisfying of my adult life. All the best to everyone, past & present. Thanks for the incredible experience and memories that’ll last me a lifetime.
    BPC

  6. It was a good run. The 6+ years I spent at the company were the most creatively and professionally satisfying of my adult life. All the best to everyone, past & present. Thanks for the incredible experience and memories that’ll last me a lifetime.
    BPC

  7. Wow, that’s a hell of a thing. I own tons of Tokyopop manga, and even the first few issues of MIXXzine. A real shame.

  8. “TOKYOPOP film and television projects and European operations, including the German publishing program, will not be affected by the Los Angeles office closure. In addition, TOKYOPOP will continue its global rights sales via its office in Hamburg, Germany.”

    Or in other words, “Do we own a majority share in your comic? Don’t think that this means you have a chance of being able to buy it back. We’ll still hang onto it in the hope that someone wants to option it as a television series or a movie.”

    *sigh*

    And of course, this also means no more Aria, unless a third publisher picks it up…

  9. Everyone who reads pirated manga scans and hosts them on their websites, everyone who stole manga off store shelves, everyone who shit on artists who made their own manga, and the assorted parade of CEO’s who helmed Borders into oblivion over the past few years- screw you all.

    Sorry for that emotional outburst, and I imagine there were other factors, but sad to see a publisher close, sad to see freelancers lose their jobs, and this makes the previous round of layoffs all the more depressing/awful.

    Sad to see Tokyopop go. Whatever people say about them, they put out a lot of great books, and did some good things.

    Here’s hoping Kodansha, VIZ, Yen and Vertical keep up the good work, and manga pirates burn in hell.

    ps– and don’t say they should of done digital- they were doing digital 10 years ago. Digital isn’t the magic bullet that’ll save comics. Though I hope it helps VIZ survive the storm.

  10. Greg- Yeah, I do hope they revert publishing rights at the very least back to creators if they’re truly shuttering their publishing division. It would be a shame if DramaCon and the Dreaming went OOP forever. The right issues was something TP didn’t do right, hope they clear it up.

    But yeah, still sad about it all, and today is not a day to tell me about how awesome scanlations are and I shouldn’t nitpick you for it.

  11. I wish Stu Levy nothing but the best. I remember when he came to me with an idea during my days in Diamond’s Purchasing Department. The creator of Sailor Moon was scheduled to be at SDCC and he thought it would be a great idea if we did a limited run Sailor Moon comic with a pink and silver foil cover that would only be sold at the show. Diamond would sell it to retailers on the floor of the con, and they in turn would sell them to the consumers. It was a huge hit all the way around. And I would argue that its success paved the way for convention exclusives in the comic industry.

  12. damn, i’ll never get those last volumes of Dragonhead now.

    Hopefully, someone will pick up Lupin the 3rd again.

  13. Andre
    Yeah-yeah. Of course, it is to blame everyone else except yourself. Of course, it had nothing to do with goddamn awful translation, edition, etc., or with stupid fiscal and other decisions. And, of course it had nothing to do with financial crisis in US.

  14. Tokyopop may have brought a lot of manga stateside, but they took a while before they stopped editing and flipping pages and generally making a mess of some of the series they got licenses for. Will I miss them? A little, yeah. But the manga and anime industry-hell, Japan-anything-is nothing if not resiliant. I believe other manga publishers and distributors can come out of this strong and learn from Tokyopop’s costly mistakes.

  15. Torsten’s “Although I was never a big fan of Tokyopop…” does far more to explain the consistently questionable business decisions that led to this moment than anything else.

    It rode the coattails of its initial success without the wisdom or ability to build on it. Other factors just aggravated an already doomed lack of intelligent market strategy. Meanwhile, TP alienated the critics and creators who wanted so badly to root for it.

    As for scanlations, when was the last time TP published anything that anyone would even want to read for free?

  16. I’m shocked and saddened, yet somehow, after hearing this past February that they had laid off long-time stalwarts like Lillian Diaz-Pryzbyl (sp?), and that their publishing staff had been reduced to all of six people, I had a feeling it was only a matter of time before their manga division went belly-up.

    And yet, they said their European manga division will remain operational. Will this mean they’ll continue to publish books and get a third-party to distribute them? Or will this simply be the last domino to fall before Tokyopop devotes its remaining resources to film (and padding Stu Levy’s bank account)? Only time will tell…

    (On a personal note, I’m glad I got the remaining volumes of every other Tokyopop series I wanted… all except for Aria, which, depending on the days and months ahead, may either continue to be published, dropped and rescued by another publisher, or join “Harukaze Bitter Bop” and countless others in licensing limbo. Stay tuned…)

  17. “As for scanlations, when was the last time TP published anything that anyone would even want to read for free?”

    December 2010, volume two of Hetalia: Axis Powers. Volume three would’ve been May 2011.

    (Never liked it myself, but *lots* of people do.)

  18. I don’t know if it’s just me or what, but I feel this whole manga thing is just a fad in North America. My son and his friends were all into this, but according to him they are no longer interested in this material, and they are trying to sell their collections.

  19. “I don’t know if it’s just me or what, but I feel this whole manga thing is just a fad in North America. My son and his friends were all into this, but according to him they are no longer interested in this material, and they are trying to sell their collections.”

    That’s how I felt about Manga too, that it had a finite lifespan here in the U.S.

    The few Manga books I tried out all had two things in common: great artwork and lousy stories/writing.

  20. You guys, I have a feeling that Image Comics was just a fad. My friends were all into Rob Liefeld and Todd McFarlene but now they are onto something else.

    Manga was definitely a TREND which has left behind two major publishers and a half dozen smaller ones and STILL DOMINATES U.S. BOOKSTORE SALES.

    The mange publishing business is a mature one, and the huge audience has grown up and moves on, but there will remain a subculture that likes and reads this material.

    Just as there is a subculture that likes and reads Green Lantern.

  21. I think what killed Tokyopop was all the really commercial licenses were no longer available to them. They tried a bunch of things, OEL, Cinemanga, adaptations, nothing quite clicked enough to keep them going. Add in the crashing bookstore market, changing demographic/marketplace and it was a storm they couldn’t weather.

    But yes, I do hope they give creators the option to own their IP again. If only to allow some creators to finish their stories and keep popular works still in print.

  22. When I said “Although I was never a big fan of Tokyopop…” it doesn’t mean that I was overtly critical of their company. It just meant that I didn’t read much that they published, partly because there are a lot of comics vying for my attention.

    They sold amazingly well, enticed an audience that American comics publishers had basically ignored, and blazed new markets.

    It might sound crazy, but Pokemon saved the American comics industry. Had Tokyopop done a better job with distribution, it would have been Sailor Moon instead of Pokemon, but the SM manga weren’t distributed to bookstores at that point (and the dubbed anime really alienated fans).

    Is Tokyopop the new Valiant?

  23. Second Heidi on that. And now publishers who have specialized in other types of comics and graphic novels are now adding some manga to their output: I’m thinking of Fantagraphics, in particular.

  24. Yeah. I think Tokyopop shutting down has more to do with them losing all their big name licenses thana real downturn on the managa market.

    There was honestly nothing left that people would actually want to buy towards the end there.

  25. For someone who has loved Anime/Manga way before this publishing company ever came to be, don’t worry, there will be another company to pick it up where Tokyopop left it. Have good cheer my fellow fans, our favorite Asian media is still strong and need not to worry. Let’s support the next company as we did Tokyopop. Thank you Tokyopop for all your hard work and effort to bring us our Asian media, it’ll be sad not to see ya’ll at any anime cons.

  26. I’ve just returned home from the Texas Library Association Conference, where I heard directly from librarians and teens that they LOVE manga and anime, they want more of it. Lots of librarians, hundreds of teens. They were swarming all over a display of graphic novels and manga that was given away in a prize drawing this morning. Not a fad, people. How can something that has been published in the US for more than a quarter century be a fad, anyway?

  27. I think there’s a tendency among older school comics fans to want manga to be a fad and I’m actually seeing a lot of people in that school of thought gloating over the idea the manga bubble is bursting.

    Which it kind of is. But in all honesty? Tokyopop collapsed because of the growing success of the manga industry more than it’s collapse. Kinda crappy translations put out on the cheap coupled with the rights holders realising that the market was actually worth something meant there really wasn’t a space there for Tokyopop anymore.

  28. I visit about 20-30 schools and libraries a year where kids ONLY read Manga. They think the occasional graphic novel or comic book is okay…but they devour manga and anime in large doses. Shame American publishers can’t find a way to make this profitable.

    The bookstore component of this “fad” may be over, but the medium will always have a devoted cult following.

  29. I’m not entirely surprised. I figured this was inevitable because of the sudden rise in prices by Tokyopop. If they just kept their prices lower, I would be more likely to purchase Tokyopop manga. But alas, I’ve been getting more manga from Shoujo jump.

  30. Dave has a good point- manga are still big with kids and young adults, and will continue to be for years. I imagine the remaining pubs will work to survive the current storm, and indeed several have digital iniatives, or have otherwise adjusted their schedules to best suit current situations- Vertical’s really taken off recently by catering to more general audiences with stuff like Chi, graphic novel conoisseurs with Tezuka books and the core manga fans (ones who actually *buy* books) with high quality, lesser known series like 7 Billion Needles. Their focus on smaller range of books and gorgeous packaging is a major thing.

    The general shift to higher quality/higher priced books is something that some pubs have done that the core buyers [and libraries who are a major source of revenue for manga pubs] don’t mind.

    Just like Image’s shift to a focus on creator owned books has led to many creators big and small taking that path, I imagine manga’ll be with us for years to come, whether it’s more translated japanese works, or stuff like manga influenced graphic novels and webcomics.

    BTRE–not saying there aren’t other factors, but piracy is a major one and definitely a part of many a publisher or artist’s woes [be they manga or comic or prose novels]. As much as people like to apologize for it or attempt to downplay it, it the ugly farting, mildly rabid dog in the room people can’t put a pretty bow on and just ignore.

    The fact that companies like Noez are making profits off it while manga artists are losing thousands (in some cases, maybe even tens of thousands) of dollars in royalties with Tokyopop closing and their works disappearing from shelves just adds to it’s puke-like luster.

  31. ps- not that digital’s going to be a magic saviour [it’s not- still gotta make $$$, still have to work to make it and print successful], just that VIZ, Yen and others have put their feet in the water, and it’s now in fandom’s hands to follow along.

  32. Piracy is definitely a huge factor, possibly even /more/ than with Western comics and novels.

    Keep in mind, folks, this is no longer Bittorrents and emailed .zip files. Most pirated manga these days are distributed on sleazy aggregator sites that post the scans right on the page – much like how legitimate webcomics present themselves.

    The rise of these aggregator sites lines up way too neatly with the recent dip in manga sales. And while, yes, those both /also/ line up with the recession, the fact that YA novels like Twilight and the Hunger Games have sold so well in the past few years shows that people /are/ still willing and able to pay for entertainment – if pirated versions of it don’t immediately float to the top of Google results.

  33. Google’s general evilness http://musictechpolicy.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/ducks-come-to-the-congress-google-finally-shows-up-to-answer-for-aiding-and-abetting-theft/ means that they don’t seem to care much about creator’s rights or honest hardworking employees of manga companies, so yeah, you have to waft throught dozens of pages of manga aggregators to get to any decent content. That stuff just floats right to the top of any search result, even though they got rid of some of the autofill’s related to piracy recently.
    Pirating manga is a big business- Noez even launched a webstore selling bootleg merchandise they claimed on their forums is “advertising” for manga artists. I’m sure said artists would have choice words for that [god help them if they ever get into comics bootlegging- many a Marvel or DC creator knows how to use a battleaxe].

    It’s kind of sad how much people flock to defend or justify piracy in the face of many out of work comic industry folks. People will rage endlessly about Rob Granito stealing from artists, but when it’s HTMLComics or Mangafox doing the same sort of crud they want to defend it.

  34. I remember the old days of Mixx when I was a student at UC Irvine. It was a great little oasis of anime and I was so excited to see it grow into Tokyopop–which also meant more stock and more selection. Sad to see it go. Wish Stu and the rest of Tokyopop the best in whatever comes next for them.

  35. There’s an incredible awkwardness, though, about western manga distributors complaining about piracy.

    While they have every right to, there’s also the fact that the rise of the manga industry is directly tied to the easy accessibility to pirated material and the accompanying communities that came along with high speed broadband, not to mention that anime fandom has always been built around pirated product.

    It comes across a little like ‘I’m shocked, shocked to find gambling is going on in here!’

  36. “Sad” but inevitable. Even when I was in HS I noticed that despite how large the manga selection was, it was not proportionate to the actual demand.

    Reading his farewell letter, the former 90’s dot com mogul Josh Harris comes to mind(We Live in Public). so i guess this means Levy is 1-2 Crash&Burns from starting a watermelon farm in Japan.

    Well @least there’s some more room on Barnes & Nobel’s bookshelves.

  37. I hadn’t followed a TokyoPop series in ages. They sure did pop back in the day. Yet due to poor planning and putting almost everything except publishing damn manga first, this day was going to come. You don’t see Viz wasting money on a reality show with their president in the spotlight that was Big Bang Theory by way of Hoarders. You don’t see Dark Horse releasing a Hellboy movie comic based in its own continuity because it’s unrecognizable from the original book. Well, there was an animated one, but it was still the same characters, unlike whatever the hell TokyoPop did to Priest. Funny how they’re calling it a ‘graphic novel’ in the trailer. So much for their manga brand name. Thank heaven they never got around to butchering Lament of the Lamb in a US film.

    I loved a number of their titles, yet sometimes I wonder if they did or if they were just a means to an end. Levy’s comments on that US film of Lamb makes me wonder if he ever read any of this supposed favorite of his. I even like some of their original graphic novels. Yet they were simply different from the manga they published. Not worse. Different. Okay, some were horrible. Yet even the good ones were different as they weren’t serialized chapters and the publishing format was totally different.

    Plus, for example, they screwed over creators like Becky Cloonan and never released the two following chapsters to an Eisner nominated series. Any publisher that inept wasn’t going to last. And I’m not going to even bother to get more into Levy milking his ego trips on the company dime. They wasted so much on pointless sound and fury instead of promoting what really mattered, the damn books. You shouldn’t be selling manga ring tones (whatever the hell that was) instead of knuckling down on your core product.

    Plus with the Japanese publishers consolidating with stonger houses like even older powerhouse Dark Horse, their own child Viz, or smarter upstart Yen Press; there just wasn’t much left for TokyoPop. Hetalia was a recent hit, but I hear fans took issue with translation and quality. When I almost went to pick one up, I looked through it and put it back when I saw pixelation on some pages. I asked a friend if that was because it was a web comic, but she said the Japanese copies she owned were fine. That sounds about par for TokyoPop’s QC.

    They sure had some fantastic titles back in the day and pushed the non-flipped format as well as a lower price. Yet they took their fame and fortune and squandered it on trying to create a brand instead of just publishing good books and getting them out to people.

    In the words of Ian Malcolm, “You read what others had done, and you took the next step. You didn’t acquire the knowledge for yourselves, so you don’t take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had.. And now you’ve patented it, and packaged it, you’ve slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you’re selling it. You want to sell it, well… “

  38. For someone who has loved Anime/Manga way before this publishing company ever came to be, don’t worry, there will be another company to pick it up where Tokyopop left it.

    Ooo! Another comics company will flood a market with sub-par works to the point of killing it?

    Can’t wait!

    (Thankfully, we can blame piracy for it. I bet they wished they had THAT excuse back in the 90s Image era! Or back in the 80s B&W glut. Or the 70s romance comics crash. Or the 60s superhero flood…)

  39. William, it never hurts to try to be considerate when people are losing their jobs, freelancers are losing valuable contracts, japanese creators are losing their royalties/incomic, and honest fans of the books and series involved are losing out on something they loved. I’m sure you’d like people to be considerate about your comics work. Have some empathy [which is why I hate piracy- economic reasons/legal balther aside, it’s all about being jerks to creators and ignoring their wishes at it’s core]

    But I suppose it’s easier to overlook/undermine the reality of the situation, and trash on others professional work.

  40. Stu, really proud of you for growing this business from scratch – a three-person start-up at that incubator on the USC campus – to a successful company operating in the US and abroad. Thanks for the opportunity to work together early on in my last year in B-school for E3. Was so much fun choreographing/performing Sailor Moon with the other girls. Who would have thought that theatrical entertainment at a Tradeshow with the demographic of young, geeky men would be such a smash? :) Congratulations on the newest chapter of your professional life. I’ve no doubt you’ll follow your heart.
    Much love,
    Shana (Sean, Maggie & Mena)

  41. For the record, I think Xenos commentary nailed a lot of TP’s successes and missteps [though w/Hetalia, part of the image quality was due to it being a tablet drawn/shaded webcomic from my understanding- only lower resolution files existed for some comic strips]. I think manga might be okay given what Vertical and DH have stated about their manga lines doing well, Seven Sea’s success with original content at TOR books, and VIZ’s general dedication to making manga.

    Hope someone finds a way to get the unreleased completed OEL books like Gyakushu and East Coast Rising to print, and that their assorted freelances find good work. Their publishing division was full of people who cared about the books and worked to get quality releases out there, despite the assorted problems plaguing the manga industry lately and the cutbacks TP experienced over the past 3 years.

  42. Shana– sweet to hear from you. I know people say different things about Mr.Levy, but despite all the wackiness/criticisms, I’ve heard generally good things about him from people who’ve worked for TP. Hope he finds happiness in his future, and kudos to him for the good work TP’s done.

  43. This is almost a rant about the piracy being a cause of TP’s demise. Take it as you like.

    I, for one, only buy manga I’ve already read or I’ve at least seen in raw scans (I can’t read Japanese, so for those, it’s more liking the art rather than the story.)
    I don’t follow overlong series – never got caught in them, and if it’s really good, there will be an anime based on it, sooner or later (though lately there’s a rush of producing anime based on almost every which manga published, no matter how good it is. Maybe I’m not appreciating them as the target public is.)
    Anyway – if the scans / translations aren’t available in English, the manga will basically “stay” in Japan or will become known just a bit through the anime based on it. It’s easier, on the long run, to watch the anime and skip the manga, in such cases, anyway (especially with Funi and other related businesses providing the anime cheaply and as soon as it is released in Japan, to anyone interested.)
    That being said, I admit the piracy does subtract from the publishers and mangaka, but not more than they’d lose if the manga remained unknown. There are sales, even if – or rather precisely because – fan translations exists.
    Honestly – I buy what I read and like. What I don’t like, I don’t read, in fan OR official translation. Maybe not a lot of all who read and like end up buying, but that is caused by lots of things – Internet is cheap, books are not. Internet access is easy to obtain, manga books are hard to find off-line in removed parts of the world – and even in the US. Some can read online genres they can’t justify buying on paper – or might face charges if some judge decides it’s illegal for them to own those books (it’s not TP’s issue, or not a lot, but it applies to other manga. People can be real hypocrites when they get the power to decide how other people may live their lives. And if you haven’t understood yet, I mean loli and shota. People were jailed over owning those books – just to show you how strange the world is starting to be. You DO realize loli and shota aren’t about real minors, I hope. And if we’re talking about it, violent games hurt kids more than reading a shounen manga – parents still buy more games than books for their children, no matter the kids’ preferences in the matter. Anyway, let’s leave this.)

    It’s sad to see a manga-publishing house go down, but maybe it wasn’t surviving well enough before the crisis hit, and that can’t be ALL due to piracy.
    Or the books being published…
    Or the overall quality of the books published.

    So yeah, I’m sad to see it go, especially since I was waiting for the third and final volume of a manga I DO like and they were publishing in English and that is now in limbo. And btw, I bought the previous two volumes… after reading the fan translation.

    Manga publishing houses have closed before. This is a historic landmark for manga in the US, so to speak, but it’s a natural process. It was good while it lasted.

    But if the demand is high enough, and the offer is appealing, someone else will move in and take the spot.

  44. I agree, the important thing here is to return the rights to publish in English back to the original authors and artists, so there’s no barrier to other companies picking up the titles.

    I’m a fan of Tactics, which I’m using as supplemental fun-reading while learning Japanese. So I’ve been buying the Japanese volumes rather than Tokyopop’s.

    That said, within this particular fandom, those who *can* ‘fanslate’ have been holding off on doing so, in deference to the usually superior product produced by Tokyopop AND to the notion the community prefers to support the authors by buying from an authorized source (or in my case, direct from their usual Japanese publisher).

    What will probably happen now, at least within this small fandom, is people will return to posting fanslations until someone else buys the rights and produces a US edition, at which point the fanslations will stop again.

    The pirates are really NOT trying to eat the authors or publisher’s lunches. With smaller titles, the fans are really just trying to keep the English-speaking fandom alive in the absence of reliable authorized releases.

  45. The few Manga books I tried out all had two things in common: great artwork and lousy stories/writing.”

    This was really the problem with Tokyo Pop and with a lot of Manga publishers in general. The art translates well, but they don’t put the time and money into capturing the nuance of the original story. I’m sure the quality of manga published in Japan runs the same gamut as comics created in the U.S. but a lot gets lost in the translation.

  46. @Andre: I didn’t say a damned thing about the employees and so forth. Though thanks for reminding me that I should have brought up the OEL rights problem.

    But since you missed the point the first time: Tokyopop, like the rest of the comics industry, is the manufacturer of it’s own woes. And no amount of finger pointing about piracy is going to change that fact.

  47. William- why all the angst at the comic industry? What’s your problem with them? It’s really awful to people who’ve lost their jobs, and honestly, incredibly ignorant towards people who work in comics in general- there’s lots of great people all over the industry doing good work, everywhere from webcomics to Marvel/DC to small press to manga pubs. They’re not expressing your levels of bile about this either.

    It was calling the work sub-par that was disrespectful, and acting like a jerk when something really horrible for lots of people happened. [and having dealt with some of the folks at TPop who were consistently very professional throughout the years something I take personal issue with],

    And dismissing piracy is very disrespectful towards creator’s rights. Everyone loves to downplay it or apologize for it, but as digital grows more, it’s only going to become an even bigger probelm for all involved.

  48. As for scanlations I will say I am guilty of reading them. However unlike some people I actually went out and bought the manga as they were released. Like Black Butler, I was already into the noahs ark arc when they announced it was being published, but as soon as it was released I immediately bought it and have been buying every book as it comes out. I’m so far ahead of the publishing I don’t want to wait…

    It is very sad to hear, the industry is loosing a much loved publisher. I wish everyone all of the best in the future.

    does this mean the big re-release of sailor moon and all future manga releases after May 31 will be canceled?

  49. William, no one’s saying that Tokyopop was a perfectly perfect flawless company. They dug a fair bit of the hole they got into, yes. But piracy isn’t something than can just be swept under a rug, /especially/ with manga. For a while, the most popular scans aggregator was in Google’s top 1000 sites index – well above any legitimate publisher sites.

  50. I know this is comics, and I know this is fan culture, and we’re not too keen on self awareness. But unless we want to keep seeing these short term booms and busts happening, we should be willing to put the blame for falling sales and shuttering businesses where it belongs: On the shoulders of the publishers and their business decisions.

    So to appropriate something you wrote…

    Dismissing the bad decisions of the publishers is very disrespectful towards creator’s loss of employment. Everyone loves to downplay it or apologize for it, but as this keeps happening every ten years, it’s only going to be an endless problem for anyone foolish enough to get involved with them in the future.

  51. William– where did I or anyonelse dismiss their bad decisions? Like I said earlier in the thread, Xenos was pretty spot on about some their issues.

    Sorry I said something nice to Stu’s sister, I guess?

    And honestly, there’s lots of great publishers who are still around and should be around for decades to come, and respected by creators and fans. One publishers iffy track record doesn’t make defending piracy okay. Colleen Doran’s site is a great resource for both accurate information about the harm of piracy, and the dangers of bad publishers, you should check that out if you want better insight into the industry, rather than picking fights.

  52. My thoughts go out to all the staff of Tokyopop that lost their job, may you all have a quick recovery.

    This is terrible news, Tokyopop is one of the most well known Manga Publishers around, to see them go would be like seeing Marvel or DC shut down.

    Truly a sad day. :(

  53. This is sad news. As a manga fan the closing of not only borders but also one of the biggest manga companys in america crushes me. Fruits basket was the manga that inspired me to start reading and now i am aiming to become a cartoonist. I wish i could thnak them for giving me a dream and hope that someone picks up the market.

  54. The comments on piracy being a big issue is flawed. As someone said, how do you think the community finds out something they want to get behind if they never have heard of it before? There are many series I’ve read up online and bought the american release. Thing is I’m waiting for even more obscure titles that may never reach the shores due to its highly niche fan base. The appeal of manga to japanese is different to the Americans, whom are certainly going to be picky. So why as a company take up as much licenses that may or may not pan out and hope that they sell, when you can put hype on things that you know sells well to a devoted fanbase and see what the scanlators do with obscure titles? Also, why work against scanlators when they can be allies in an already niche industry as it is? Its not like only Americans are the ones filling those sites with fan translated manga at times of iffy scan quality.

    Anyway, the lousy writing thing is funny. Since Tokyopop introduced many to manwhas (korean mangas), I was wondering when they will try bring IM Dal-Young’s stuff over. His works usually have GREAT GREAT art, but HORRIBLE writing on his part. Similar to Ogure Ito.

  55. About manga being a fad here in US that’s because the only tittles being released are for young readers. When I’ve visited Japan, I found that Manga is one of the most active and competitive field because there’s so many genre and titles to choose from. Seldom adult mature mangas with life related plot and good stories get attention here in the US. Don’t know maybe it’s a difference of culture that most people here see graphic novels as a thing for kids.

    Aside that, shame Tokyopop had to close down.

  56. Please someone help me i haev sent soem emails to the german and us and also asked amazon to help save the company they could keep going and move to somewhere else and forget stu levy he can go off and do his movies but its not fiar to the ongoing series that were popular also blu aswell i belive they can do something to stop this we have untill end of may, i dont like giving up.

  57. To me, this news really touches my heart. Tokyopop publushed the first 5 or 6 series of manga I got into nearly 10 years ago.

    A lot of people are ripping on TP as a company itself, but you know what; without them, so many great series might have been lost to us (or simply scanlated, which doesn’t always go well with poor translations and such). Over the years, they cleaned up their act with the quality of their productions and it’s a shame that we who are still loyal to the manga world are losing one of the companies that brought us so much joy.

    In truth, over half of my manga collection is TP publications; but only one of those 32 series was even ongoing without being on hiatus or completed already. It seems like I could have seen it coming.

    And yes, online manga readers are part of the problem: one of the biggest parts of the problem, actually. (They aren’t buying manga, so both the manga industry and the bookstore industries are hurt, etc. etc.) But just like with manga, people illegally find music, movies, television, games, etc. online (and come on, who doesn’t have a pirated song or two at the very least?). The difference is that manga is a much more specific industry so it suffers more easily than the others if people abuse the law. I prefer to have a solid book in my hands rather than read online, but I do like to test the waters out, so to speak, by researching new books and reading the first few chapters if possible. If I like it, I go out and buy the series (Deadman Wonderland, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Bakuman, etc.) and then stop reading them online. Of course, DMWL was a TP production so if no one picks it up I’ll be finishing it online anyway. But I think that the series that get read online the most anyway are big series like Bleach or Naruto: ones that have dozens upon dozens of volumes and in this economy most people can’t afford to buy. And yet Viz seems to be all right, seeing as how such series are still in production after 30+ volumes each. So although online manga readers are a huge problem for the industry, it isn’t ALWAYS their fault in entierty.

  58. I’m a bit sad to see tokyopop go but its ok a new company will come along and take its place maybe that company will be ran by me XP

  59. I was just in shock. This means no more Fruits Basket Ultimate Editions or any other Fruits Basket stuff… and not only won’t Hidekaz Himaruya’s “Chibisan Date” never get published *at least by them*, Hetalia Axis Powers volume 3 and onward won’t either. Hetalia 3 was scheduled to come out THE DAY BEFORE THE MAY SHUTDOWN; they could have at least pushed for that one to come out before they stopped their “publishing efforts.” Anyone who ordered the Hetalia Postcard Book is out of luck. AND we were promised Koge-Donbo’s Naki Shoujo no Tame no Pavane! Very disappointed and sad. Can’t imagine who’s going under next. Del Rey already got taken out; Viz or Yen Press/Plus and we’re screwed. I blame Borders for Tokyopop; do some research and see that I’m at least valid in that. Just sad.

  60. As a creator of AFTERLIFE, one of their OEL books, I have to agree with Becky Cloonan’s April 16 blog post — that T-pop didn’t know or care to market their original books. Her book, East Coast Rising received an Eisner nomination. My own book received rave reviews and was listed as one of the top ten manga of 2006. But no one at T-pop did anything more than raise an eyebrow in admiration. “Oh, that’s nice,” they seemed to say, as if our success had nothing to do with them. They rarely advertised on their own website!

    The bottom line: T-pop had a lot of talented people working there, but they were under the helm of a man who didn’t care about publishing. He squandered company money to promote his own music (DJ Milky) instead of promoting the books he was publishing.

    -Stormcrow Hayes

  61. I’m so upset that they are closing down! I was really looking forward to the 3rd Hetalia manga… I’ll miss Tokyopop, I really will…

  62. Oh man! What about those series that haven’t been fully published yet?
    I’m sure there are some… Will the German office publish them? Or what?
    D:

  63. wait sorry, it won’t go through my head. does this mean that just manga in general is going to stop being published in the U.S?!

  64. In response to knowing the day after the Tokyopop website shut down, I searched the web hoping to find it wasn’t in fact true, that our beloved Tokyopop wasn’t actually shutting down the LA branch but after a lot of research I found out it was true. Manga will not completely stop being published in the US, but I have a feeling that most of our favorite titles by Tokyopop won’t be in America anymore so grab them while you can. Tokyopop became a large part of my school, with more readers than you can imagine, the librarian was always being asked to borrow more mangas from the surrounding libraries that never seemed to get here.
    Tokyopop will be greatly missed, they are a huge part of the culture today, it is almost guaranteed that if you go to a persons house they will have at least one Tokyopop manga on their shelves. I hope that some of the other manga publishing companies will pick up the other series books that aren’t finished and bring back some of the old titles that we all love.
    I hope that Tokyopop might come back in time but I have a feeling that’s just wishful thinking. :/

  65. Hi i’m really sad to hear u guys are shutting down =( will this affect Fresno and the manga and i heard a rumor that all manga with any violence is going to be taken away is that true ??? 2 question why didn’t u ask all ur manga fans for donations? i would have helped u if u guys ever asked ^o^ i think other people would to

  66. I didn’t even know TokioPop existed, when i was 5 and watching sailor moon on tv, but without it, i never would have had sailor moon. I owe soo much respect to TokioPop, it has changed my life forever.

  67. Wait!? If they r closing it down in north America, does that mean the we won’t get any new manga from them OR updates on current ones? Or will the company out in Germany or anywhere else continue ones that hav yet to be completed? Or r they over forever? *crys*

  68. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo *coughs* oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  69. A sad, sad day for me to catch this :< It scares me to see articles like this, especially considering how I'm trying to get into the comic business (specifically, manga styled). I remember getting Sailor Moon and MKR from the early days, and loving them to pieces. To see US branches closing is quite disheartening, even more so since most people suggest Tokyopop as the place where budding artists should submit to. I hope for the best for all of the employees, and thank them for bringing a great past time to us all!

  70. This is awful! I loved Tokyopop manga! I have all of Maid Sama and now I won’t be able to see how it ends! Is there any way that English translations can still be created?

  71. This is what Tokyopop gets for not translating Japanese light novel series into English. Instead, they catered to the anime fangirls and the OEL manga-influenced comic lovers. It’s so funny to see the OEL manga-esque comic fanbase literally collapse and light novel series like To Aru Majutsu no Index are becoming more and more popular. Tokyopop was literally too blind to see the trends in anime/manga culture in the US.

  72. wow…… i’m ashamed to say that i have read manga online but i also bought 40 plus volumes of manga because i knew that i must some how help to support the industry….. tokyo pop produced the first manga i ever bought….i’m very sad to see this happen. the only reason i think people read online (this includes me) is that its hard to wait 1-3years for your favorite manga to come out when people on the internet translate in a week. i’m not condoning my crimes but i’m just saying that if a couple of highschool kids can translate and clean a chapter, faster and sometimes better than the people who get paid to do it, its hard to compete with that. and all of these priate translators do it for free. i will contiune to buy manga until they stop selling it!

  73. Truly the end of an era. You know, I remember seeing Mixxine on a store shelf in a Mexican grocery store back, it must have been, in 1997…it was the first issue, the last page was missing, but once I saw it, I was hooked. I regret having let go of all the issues I had. *shakes head* Now I need to repurchase them off of eBay one by one.

    You will be missed. It’s been a long run. I wish the staff of Tokyopop all the best. *cheers and a toast*

  74. I can’t believe that Tokyopop is gone from the US! I own over 700 volumes of manga, at least half of which are Tokyopop titles. I’ve been with Tokyopop from Sailor Moon to Love Hina to Fruits Basket to Hetalia and beyond. I’ll admit that when they started raising their prices I started drifted more towards some of the other publishers, but I didn’t stop buy their manga entirely. I was so looking forward to the 3rd volume of Hetalia!

    I’m sad to see a company that was such a forerunner in this area close its doors, but I take comfort in the fact that it by no means signals the end of manga for the American market. Manga and anime are not just passing fads for preteens, with stilted storylines and silly pictures. I have been a fan since I was 11 years old; being 24 now means that the past 13 years of my life have involved these unique mediums. I have shared my passion with my family, who have become as big of otakus as I am.

    I am proud to count myself as an otaku, and to look around my room and see my manga, anime, posters, figures, etc., I know that this field will survive and continue to grow and thrive. Arigato-gozaimashita, Levy-san, and ganbatte! ^_^

  75. Tokyopop has done well over the last decade and a half. Stu made his passion available for everyone. Maybe we can blame recession and all that but there were also faults at their end. Releasing manga after manga and acquiring licenses left and right didn’t really do anything for them. Maybe if they focused on quality vs. quantity they might have a shot at surviving. I hate to set an example and comparison but look at Dark Horse and their Blade of the Immortal. Sure, they have other titles but damn, tokyopop’s lineup keep coming in & maybe they should’ve looked into the sales of their top notch titles and slowed down a bit. There were a lot of compromises and Borders keeping the manga for everyone to read didn’t help at all and of course there’s scanlations everywhere on the net.

  76. So, I’ve never had a company die during one of my favorite series. I’m getting the impression that another manga company can or will pick them up and publish them? Or will the German Tokyopop do english versions for some reason? I’ve been waiting forever and a day for Loveless vol 9 T.T I know its online, but I refuse to read it. I want the booooook!!!! (I guess I might read it online if I knew the book was never ever coming out, but I still have hopes for the book version to come out) Also, since the company is shut down, does that mean that all their books will be taken off the shelves (thrown away..?), or will they still be sold and then not restocked?? In other words, just selling what they have till its gone. I like a few other manga and anime, but Loveless is the only manga that I am super passionate about, I am hoping that it will get picked up by someone else…soon.

  77. I’m so depressed about TokyoPop shutting down, I had pre-ordered Maid Sama vol. 9 three months ago and was eager to get it, but then I received these news :(.
    I read a few of the comments and noticed that people blame the manga scans on the internet, I always read the scans of manga that I like in hopes that they will eventually get published here in the U.S., but I have also bought all the manga that I have been able to purchase. I don’t think that manga scans are a bad thing since I’m the type of person that wants to read a story before I buy it, no one wants to buy something that they won’t like. TokyoPop gave me so much happiness when I saw that some of the manga I liked was being published by them, so it’s upsetting to see it all disappear. I wish everyone that worked at TokyoPop all the best and hope that this will all get better soon. Really, thank-you for all the happiness you gave me.

  78. This is horrible. Gakuen Alice!!! Maid Sama!!! Kare Kano!!! All of these series will be discontinued!! I am soooooo sad!! I love the omanga that TokyoPop gives us!! I love you, Tokyopop!! please, PLEASE don’t be shut down forever!

  79. I’ll be really sad to see Tokyopop go. They’ve published alot of my favorite mangas. I just hope that someone keeps making the Warriors mangas, They’re my absolute favorites!

  80. tokyopop was the first manga i ever read now that theirs no more tokyopop manga coming out..it just sad…………….i feel hreat broken:(

  81. My friend and i were really hoping to buy kaichou wa maid- sama. now i heard of this news, it’s so upsetting… tokyo pop is my favorite manga publisher!

  82. “Oh man! What about those series that haven’t been fully published yet?
    I’m sure there are some… Will the German office publish them?”

    “Or will the company out in Germany or anywhere else continue ones that hav yet to be completed?”

    The German office already publishes them, and will presumably keep publishing them, in German.

    “Or will the German Tokyopop do english versions for some reason?”

    DING DING DING WE HAVE A WINNER! :D You get that the German Tokyopop doesn’t already only do English stuff!

    I was another one of the non-German-speaking people super confused by the stuff about the Hamburg office staying open. I still don’t speak German, but now I’m less confused instead of super-confused – I searched for Tokyopop on the .de domain and found http://www.tokyopop.de/ which seems to be a normal book publisher site even if it’s in a language I can’t read.

  83. This is sad, that some series they started will not get finished. I had to buy zone-00 from someone online in Japan and am going to have to find someone to translate it just to finish the series myself :( and I know that zone-00 isn’t getting picked up since the last one was published like 2 or 3 years ago…..Such sadness when it stopped half way through..Sigh…

  84. no! they cant do this! wat about hetalia volume 3! it never came out! where am i gonna find it?! fly from canada to japan?! that sucks! im a HUGE manga/anime fan, so this is really sad to hear. tokyopop is my lifeline to manga! its bad enough that my stuff had to get shipped from la, but this is depressing! i ish sad. :.(

  85. “but they took a while before they stopped editing and flipping pages and generally making a mess of some of the series they got licenses for.”

    Flipping pages, or flipping the sequence of panels while leaving the insides of each panel unflipped, for translations from a right-to-left language into a left-to-right language or vice versa is actually not a problem.

    I know someone who prefers flipped Dark Horse manga to unflipped Tokyopop manga for that reason. She’s very literate and has been reading books in English left-to-right for decades so it’s harder for her to read a book in English right-to-left (and yes, a book translated from another language into English is still a book in English!).

    Someone else describes the effect at http://www.animevice.com/news/nonsense-from-the-noob-whats-wrong-with-flipping-manga/4447/ :

    “…I do understand the thinking behind this — the effort to preserve the mangaka’s original intent — but it makes the whole thing more difficult to follow than it needs to be, in my eyes. The Japanese characters have been replaced, so you’re reading the word balloons right-to-left. At the same time, however, you’re ‘reading’ the page left-to-right. I’m getting such bad ‘wire-crossing’ in my visual-narrative preceptors that I’m drawn out of what I’m reading with almost every panel. It almost feels like opposing forces are tugging my brain in different directions, and I think that’s unfortunate, because it seems like this would be such a breezy read if only it were flipped…”

    Perhaps Tokyopop could have appealed to more of the English-reading audience (to people looking for a good story regardless of nationality too, instead of only the it’s-good-because-it’s-Japanese crowd) and stuck around longer if it kept publishing its books in English left-to-right.

    Meanwhile, editing is definitely not a problem either! Fixing misspellings, double-checking inconsistencies, etc. is editing and is important even before publishing a book in the language the author wrote it in! :)

  86. wow ok so your just gonna leave it at that.. what the hell is the us supposed to do what we have to pay 100 dollars for one book how can you just randomly stop so many series.. like there was no possible way to keep it up and running.. so you just walk away from all these people who are expecting to have more volumes and your just saying F it.. who does that to so many loyal fans.. I am so confused and angry

  87. This sucks I love manga and Tokyopop is my favorite publisher… I`ll never be able to finish Silver Diamond now or Monochrome Factor why!!!!?

  88. If only I had known in May. Me and my friends were planning on camping out in the streets so we could get hetalia volume 3 first….
    *hangs head in utter disappointment*

  89. “Perhaps Tokyopop could have appealed to more of the English-reading audience (to people looking for a good story regardless of nationality too, instead of only the it’s-good-because-it’s-Japanese crowd) and stuck around longer if it kept publishing its books in English left-to-right.”

    No. Everyone else is keeping it unflipped too. Viz Media is doing it unflipped. Kodansha USA is doing it unflipped.

    The problem with flipping is that it distorts the original art. It also forces companies to do more work in editing what is flipped, so it makes sense to readers.

  90. Makoto ni Otsukare-sama desu (_ _)

    You did not only help introducing Japanese manga to the world, but you have also help artists that share the same passion to shine.

    I…don’t know if that came out right, it’s 2 p.m. here, and I just got the news…

    Aww…now where can I get my Dragons of Outland? T^T (among other lovely works you would publish…)

  91. oh no . it is literally gone . but , but .. -sigh- i’d wish a breakdown like this on no appreciated company such as this one . is there any way to help? come back soon enough please . i’m rooting for you ^_< :)

  92. Wow, in a way it is kind of sad. I have long grown out of manga, but my daughter had discovered my Sailor Moon collection from when the company was originally ‘Mixx’. I remember when I would eagerly wait for my ‘Smile’ issue to arrive in the mail, the joys of visiting my favorite comic shop to purchase that newly released chapter of Sailor Moon. Nostalgia overwhelms me now as I remember my ‘geek girl’ days.

    Now I watch as my own daughter engrosses herself in the world of Sailor Moon. She is now interested in reading other manga titles. I believe she will be thrilled that she has a monthly subscription to ShojoBeat (published through Viz)

    Thanks for providing all the titles I had fallen in love with in my teens. Thanks for the memories.

  93. Why did it have to close?!!!
    Where are we going to get our manga, anime, and awesome news from, plus the friendly people and servise we love!
    We’re going to miss you TOKYOPOP!!!!!!!!!!!

  94. What the crap!? D: i love tokyopop! ive bought soo many series from there like fruits basket, chibi vampire, psychic powers nanaki, love attack, chobits ect and now theyre going to have to go unfinished in my collection? Thats not right! Ebay here i come D,:

  95. This is very sad to hear. I was wondering why I could not find certain mangas that were suppose to be published. This is a huge loss to the manga industry.

  96. What annoys me is that a bunch of great manga is just left unpublished in english because of this, like Hetalia and Genjuu no Seiza.
    FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

  97. ….no more Hetalia?!?! TT-TT
    Tokyopop, you will be missed by many, but I can’t say I didn’t see this coming.

  98. Agreeing with Kandace, it’s really upsetting me that so many translations will be cancelled because of this!

    I was really looking forward to collecting Nostasu Junkie and Maid-Sama…

    It’s going to be hard, looking for a publisher(s) that’s willing to pick up all of TP’s cancelled series…

    Most likely, they’ll never see the light of day again…

  99. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

    Now I never get to read the last book of my favorite series Bizenghast!! I love that series so much and only had through number 7 available. I come out to search for number 8 (which i think was going to be the final conclusion of the series) only to find out its been canceled because of this?!?! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!

  100. i can’t believe this is happening!!! who will continue with togainu no chi now??? :O someone must save everyone’s favourite manga a.s.a.p

  101. What are the people who were waiting on the new releases supposed to do? Seriously, I was waiting on the next Fruits Basket Ultimate and Tokyopop left me hanging. If they don’t intend to publish things no more give the publishing writes back to the authors/creators or at least sell them to some other company who can take over all the manga projects they were working on. This really makes me sad and angry. I love manga and now they have stopped their American publishing.

  102. it is so not a fad…i been watching anime since i was 4. im 15 now and i luv anime. i seen 80 animes and i own 60 mangas which i started collecting 2 yrs ago. i feel ill always be into it. even 30-40 yr olds still like it…with anime and manga i dont think age matters. and there r really amazing mangas and rlly horrible ones. when it comes down, manga will always be more creative and better than comics. i used to be into comic books…then i found manga and i got hooked and sold all my comics. manga, anime, video games…its all awesome! and Japan culture/pop is just so interesting…

  103. this better not be a mega man legends 3 situation. “We wanna here your voice!” 10,000 facebook likes….”Oh…um no mega man…yah…we’re lazy…f u all. ok bye. mega man dies.” at least we should hav better chances with this TP situation than MML3

  104. It’s absolutely disgusting if they keep all those licensed manga for themselves but don’t publish them. Forever trapping the many series that have worked so hard to be popular and get good ratings in Japan. It is incredibly difficult for manga-ka to be licensed in Japan let alone be published in the U.S. market.

    And to everyone saying that reading manga and watching anime is a trend, fad, only for young teenagers. I must inform you that almost all the manga translated and published in the U.S. falls into the genres of Shoujo or Shounen. Shoujo targets girls ages 10-18 while Shounen targets boys of the same age. There are many other genres for older readers like Josei and Seinen. Josei for women, Seinen for men both targeting ages 18-30. Besides these there are Tragedy, Psychological, Romance, Mature, Yaoi , Yuri. All of these aim for older people, or people with specific interests.

    The reason buying manga has become less popular is due to several reasons. Most people who read manga are of the age where money is tight especially now, and they can’t spend ten or more dollars on a book that takes two hours at most to read. Translations or quality of English adaptation is not up to par. And the market of manga in U.S. is extremely limiting. This is why online reading is so popular. There is a vast amount of manga to choose from that would never see the light of day in the U.S.

    Many people stop reading after their teenage years because one, the U.S. publishing companies don’t license many series that would keep the interest of older people. Two they don’t even know how vast the world of manga. And that is not even including Manhwa or Korean, and Chinese written manga.

    The next time someone writes or speaks about their interest in manga and anime. Don’t disregard and label them as childish, or that manga and anime have no value. Some of my most important life lessons, morals, ethics, and ideas about society, I have learned and been introduced to through manga and anime. Not only are they forms of entertainment but, they are very good at guiding a person to look at something in a different manner.

  105. What if manga fans of tokyopop, blu, junje manga, nad other manga translation sites made their own volounteer company? Not like when you read manga online and its translated. But one where you can sighn up, pick a group to be in (blu, june, tokyopop, etc.) translate the latest issue or chapter, and put it in stores? It wouldnt be a thing where you get paid, or walk into a building, but it would be runing on donations from the volonteers and fans.

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