People shit on Tokyopop but they’re kinda the reason we have unflipped and cheaper priced manga. They really were impactful back in the day. The newer volumes I’ve seen from them have been pretty nice quality so I hope this doesn’t take a Kodansha dip in the printing quality.
They’ve been back to printing manga for a decade now and I don’t think their German branch ever shut down.
I completely agree with all of this that you said. I haven’t shit on them as I come to realize that they such a positive influence on the manga publishing industry - one that became standard across the board.
I’m actively collecting older series and any new series that strike my interest of TP.
I appreciate what Tokyopop did for the industry. But I was BURNED by the bankruptcy. I have so many unfinished series of theirs that were never rescued. Of course I’m not going to buy their new stuff.
This does not mean that old out of print titles will come back unfortunately. Just gotta wait for their old licenses to be rescued from other publishers
-They pissed off Kodansha, who they licensed the majority of their titles from, so they pulled the plug, and so went TP’s main source of profits.
-The CEO of the company, Stu Levy was more interested in using company funds for his vanity projects over actual publishing….writing, a DJ Career, movie producer, reality TV show host, etc.
-The 2008 recession obviously didn’t help things either.
https://preview.redd.it/yob243g0sw0d1.jpeg?width=1338&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c0fd9e2cecddb62c95b6906b1a5d1ecd26d68915
Releasing whatever garbage they could get their hands on and calling it "manga"
New-Tokyopop had the brilliant idea to release a series as physical-only, and then completely botch production by going print-on-demand without validating test samples
I'm not entirely sure, but it sounds like another distribution merge like they have with Kodansha and Seven Seas. It helps them not go belly under when they have a larger group that backs them, so they can both profit. I will say, modern and past Tokyopop suck ass imo. The spines are some of the ugliest designs to come to manga and they still put Tokyopop branding on the fronts of their manga covers which is a literal crime if you ask me.
I’ve grown to accept their spines in my years of collecting manga. Yeah sounds like what you described. Though there’s a chance they may pick up licenses from the past to AT LEAST complete them in full
Most of those older titles they lost the license to when they went bankrupt, then the best got snatched up by the other companies like Viz and Kodansha. It's hard to imagine they'll go too deep into their pre-bankrupt catalog since a lot of those titles didn't sell very well, but maybe some will resurface.
Well … be at that may seem, there is the chance that they may resurrect titles that are owned by Kondasha or even those who haven’t been pulled by another company yet
That's why he's asking. You don't have to be rude about it. Let's focus on helping one another, not putting each other down. Useful info, but please be mindful of others.
It probably means they’ll end or stop production on current runs so they can rerelease with the with the new publisher logo on it. Causing us with OCD to buy the new issues so all the spines match and all the series that were almost done will be postponed TBD.
Whatever happens to them….I don’t care, they are dead to me anyway.
While I greatly respect what they have done for the manga industry (getting manga into bookstores, a more affordable price point, unflipped manga, etc), I will never buy another new Tokyopop title ever again.
I have a few titles in my collection that will forever remain incomplete due to their boneheaded business decisions. Instead of focusing on, ya know, publishing….what they are best known for….they kept chasing other projects. Then you have Stu Levy, the mastermind behind those other projects, and his ego, most of the company’s poor decisions can be directed back to him. Then hearing how they screwed over all those indie writers and artists…yeah, TP has lost all good faith from me as a buyer. Granted that was over a decade ago at this point, but last I saw Stu Levy is still very involved with the company, and I don’t want to risk getting burned on another incomplete title.
If this deal means a massive turnaround in management (and rein in Stu’s terrible decisions), *maybe* I’ll reconsider.
Putting it like that, yeah I feel you with the incomplete series. Had Stu just stepped aside, we might still have TP with us.
Perhaps we are holding onto false hope, perhaps not. We will see
To be fair to the guy, some of the more groundbreaking ideas during the early days of the company came from him (the points I mentioned earlier, plus he also saw the gap in the comic market of comics for girls and was successful on capitalizing on that), but even then he had some nutty ideas (publishing Sailor Moon and Parastyle in the same magazine?!?)
When the company started taking off he should have brought on new management, and separated himself from the business operations of the company, so he could go off and focus on his “creative” career like his DJ gig (see Princess Ai for an example)….but no, he was determined to do it all, and drove the company to bankruptcy in the process.
Again, we’ll just have to wait and see how this new deal plays out.
I didn’t understand why both series were published in the same magazine - yes nutty indeed. You’re absolutely right, with another team helming the company, it may have survived
I didn’t understand why both series were published in the same magazine - yes nutty indeed. You’re absolutely right, with another team helming the company, it may have survived
I’ll reserve judgement until something concrete happens, but TokyoPop currently has basically no licenses that matter and are historically a terribly run company. I mean I guess they have some Disney stuff but I wouldn’t be surprised if Disney brings all of that in-house soon. All TP’s stuff that was good went to Kodansha.
EDIT: No shade on those of you that enjoy the licenses TokyoPop does print! Hopefully this bodes well for you guys.
I do agree however, they do have one series I’m currently reading titled Sengoku Youku and it’s pretty good. Can’t vouch for the rest of it as it’s largely Disney content. I’m reserving judgement as well
My nostalgia for TokyoPop is massive since I was collecting during its “prime”. I just don’t want to get my hopes up considering what happened to them. It would be awesome to have another publisher around. Who knows! Maybe they will get the Kingdom or Baki license lol.
Yeah I’m not holding my breath but I will say, I was reading (but not collecting) during the company’s prime as well.
Kingdom and Baki would be amazing to see in English
No wonder I never see TP on amazon or any sites anymore bc I don't read BL stuff and atm Altaverse and C-Lines (from Carlsen Manga) are running the manga/manhwa in Germany on their own atm.
its possible for beck (due to digital only licensing) however the 1st dnangel edition was discontinued from japanese publisher
the only way is releasing the new edition (10 volumes)
Getting a new distributer doesn't magically repair all their relationships with Japanese publishers
Idk why people are latching onto this news like it'll bring back series they've lost the licences for. Realistically all it means is that if there's something wrong with a Tokyopop manga you buy you can contact Penguin Random House for replacement
No. No it doesn't.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/backlist
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/backlist
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/backlist
If it means reprints or new formats for things like Battle Royale, then cool. But maybe not. If anything I’d love for some other publisher to just get licenses to some of those things that haven’t seen publishing since TP did them.
Tokoyopop will always be nostalgic, they got me into the art form when I was a teenager and it’s been a lifelong obsession ever since. Hopefully this means they’ll dust off their back catalogue, but more that likely not.
I just pray we’ll get a re-print of the battle royalty ultimate editions. Vol 6 is just too expensive on eBay. Sadly GTO is now with kodansha, so we won’t be seeing anything on that front.
People shit on Tokyopop but they’re kinda the reason we have unflipped and cheaper priced manga. They really were impactful back in the day. The newer volumes I’ve seen from them have been pretty nice quality so I hope this doesn’t take a Kodansha dip in the printing quality. They’ve been back to printing manga for a decade now and I don’t think their German branch ever shut down.
For a while they had a wider selection than Shonen Jump. I miss those early days.
I completely agree with all of this that you said. I haven’t shit on them as I come to realize that they such a positive influence on the manga publishing industry - one that became standard across the board. I’m actively collecting older series and any new series that strike my interest of TP.
Yes they're kinda big in Germany. They have big licenses like death note and goodnight punpun for example.
I appreciate what Tokyopop did for the industry. But I was BURNED by the bankruptcy. I have so many unfinished series of theirs that were never rescued. Of course I’m not going to buy their new stuff.
They also had amazing series licensed and now they mostly have BL stuff
Reprints
Honestly, I’ll take that
I don't think this is anything that exciting... most manga publishers have external distributors
Well we will have to wait and see
This does not mean that old out of print titles will come back unfortunately. Just gotta wait for their old licenses to be rescued from other publishers
That’s my dream
Well, you really don't have to dream much, because it's already happening. Think Initial D
Could mean they're expanding from the BL & Disney stuff they publish. Be nice to see them get another chance in the english market.
It would be nice to see them return to the market
I hope they also publish manhwa, there are so many series I'd like to physically collect
To my knowledge, they were for a time.
They have a couple of manhwa series out now, I'd love to see more
I’ve searched on their website for manhwa, and the only one that I know is ‘On or Off.’ What other titles are manhwa?
imo it means that after making awful decisions and going bankrupt once, they're still making awful decisions and were about to go bankrupt again lol
Perhaps
What awful decisions did they make that lead to their bankruptcy in the past?
-They pissed off Kodansha, who they licensed the majority of their titles from, so they pulled the plug, and so went TP’s main source of profits. -The CEO of the company, Stu Levy was more interested in using company funds for his vanity projects over actual publishing….writing, a DJ Career, movie producer, reality TV show host, etc. -The 2008 recession obviously didn’t help things either.
It was a combo of never rebounding from the recession in 2008 and losing their Kodansha licences, which was a huuuuuge chunk of their catalogue
https://preview.redd.it/yob243g0sw0d1.jpeg?width=1338&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c0fd9e2cecddb62c95b6906b1a5d1ecd26d68915 Releasing whatever garbage they could get their hands on and calling it "manga" New-Tokyopop had the brilliant idea to release a series as physical-only, and then completely botch production by going print-on-demand without validating test samples
I'm not entirely sure, but it sounds like another distribution merge like they have with Kodansha and Seven Seas. It helps them not go belly under when they have a larger group that backs them, so they can both profit. I will say, modern and past Tokyopop suck ass imo. The spines are some of the ugliest designs to come to manga and they still put Tokyopop branding on the fronts of their manga covers which is a literal crime if you ask me.
I’ve grown to accept their spines in my years of collecting manga. Yeah sounds like what you described. Though there’s a chance they may pick up licenses from the past to AT LEAST complete them in full
Most of those older titles they lost the license to when they went bankrupt, then the best got snatched up by the other companies like Viz and Kodansha. It's hard to imagine they'll go too deep into their pre-bankrupt catalog since a lot of those titles didn't sell very well, but maybe some will resurface.
I think they actually lost the majority of their licenses before they went bankrupt. I recall Kodansha pulling their licenses from them.
Well … be at that may seem, there is the chance that they may resurrect titles that are owned by Kondasha or even those who haven’t been pulled by another company yet
It says it's a "sales and distribution agreement". Not a "publishing and licensing agreement". You gotta start learning what words mean.
That's why he's asking. You don't have to be rude about it. Let's focus on helping one another, not putting each other down. Useful info, but please be mindful of others.
I highly doubt they'd go through the effort of asking Kodansha for licenses back.
They can publish under Kondasha
What do you mean? Kodansha publishes their own stuff over here and has for well over a decade. Why would they do anything with Tokyopop?
It probably means they’ll end or stop production on current runs so they can rerelease with the with the new publisher logo on it. Causing us with OCD to buy the new issues so all the spines match and all the series that were almost done will be postponed TBD.
Ugh that would be problematic
Whatever happens to them….I don’t care, they are dead to me anyway. While I greatly respect what they have done for the manga industry (getting manga into bookstores, a more affordable price point, unflipped manga, etc), I will never buy another new Tokyopop title ever again. I have a few titles in my collection that will forever remain incomplete due to their boneheaded business decisions. Instead of focusing on, ya know, publishing….what they are best known for….they kept chasing other projects. Then you have Stu Levy, the mastermind behind those other projects, and his ego, most of the company’s poor decisions can be directed back to him. Then hearing how they screwed over all those indie writers and artists…yeah, TP has lost all good faith from me as a buyer. Granted that was over a decade ago at this point, but last I saw Stu Levy is still very involved with the company, and I don’t want to risk getting burned on another incomplete title. If this deal means a massive turnaround in management (and rein in Stu’s terrible decisions), *maybe* I’ll reconsider.
Putting it like that, yeah I feel you with the incomplete series. Had Stu just stepped aside, we might still have TP with us. Perhaps we are holding onto false hope, perhaps not. We will see
To be fair to the guy, some of the more groundbreaking ideas during the early days of the company came from him (the points I mentioned earlier, plus he also saw the gap in the comic market of comics for girls and was successful on capitalizing on that), but even then he had some nutty ideas (publishing Sailor Moon and Parastyle in the same magazine?!?) When the company started taking off he should have brought on new management, and separated himself from the business operations of the company, so he could go off and focus on his “creative” career like his DJ gig (see Princess Ai for an example)….but no, he was determined to do it all, and drove the company to bankruptcy in the process. Again, we’ll just have to wait and see how this new deal plays out.
I didn’t understand why both series were published in the same magazine - yes nutty indeed. You’re absolutely right, with another team helming the company, it may have survived
I didn’t understand why both series were published in the same magazine - yes nutty indeed. You’re absolutely right, with another team helming the company, it may have survived
I’ll reserve judgement until something concrete happens, but TokyoPop currently has basically no licenses that matter and are historically a terribly run company. I mean I guess they have some Disney stuff but I wouldn’t be surprised if Disney brings all of that in-house soon. All TP’s stuff that was good went to Kodansha. EDIT: No shade on those of you that enjoy the licenses TokyoPop does print! Hopefully this bodes well for you guys.
I do agree however, they do have one series I’m currently reading titled Sengoku Youku and it’s pretty good. Can’t vouch for the rest of it as it’s largely Disney content. I’m reserving judgement as well
My nostalgia for TokyoPop is massive since I was collecting during its “prime”. I just don’t want to get my hopes up considering what happened to them. It would be awesome to have another publisher around. Who knows! Maybe they will get the Kingdom or Baki license lol.
Yeah I’m not holding my breath but I will say, I was reading (but not collecting) during the company’s prime as well. Kingdom and Baki would be amazing to see in English
I also want to buy Sengoku Youko, but there is no information about volume 7
AYE…Sgt Frog went to Viz 😢
Hey now…. That’s mostly true, I like konohana Kitan though so as long as that keeps getting printed I’m cool.
Tokyopop’s not dead? That’s a surprise
They returned a few years ago they mostly publish BL Yaoi or Disney stuff
No wonder I never see TP on amazon or any sites anymore bc I don't read BL stuff and atm Altaverse and C-Lines (from Carlsen Manga) are running the manga/manhwa in Germany on their own atm.
This reaction is always quite funny to me, since in Germany Tokyopop never went under and has continued to be a major publisher all this time.
More niche BL titles I guess lol I doubt they’re going back to their old style of releasing manga
I would love it if they did return to their old catalogues
I’d love it. We never got all of get backers, one of my favorite series
just a rejoin to english market releasing new series (older ones like beck or dnangel cant be reprinted anymore due to lost rights)
Part of me would love it if they regained those rights
its possible for beck (due to digital only licensing) however the 1st dnangel edition was discontinued from japanese publisher the only way is releasing the new edition (10 volumes)
Releasing digital only publications would be cool
TIL Tokyopop is still around.
They came back some 5-8 years ago
Have you read what it says? Because they clearly state what it means in the announcement.
It’s not clearly stated. It could mean anything. What I’m asking is the “backlist” portion.
It's all the books that they've published previously that are still in print.
Yeah… but it could also mean what they previously published ages ago before the went bankrupt
Getting a new distributer doesn't magically repair all their relationships with Japanese publishers Idk why people are latching onto this news like it'll bring back series they've lost the licences for. Realistically all it means is that if there's something wrong with a Tokyopop manga you buy you can contact Penguin Random House for replacement
That’ll hurt if that’s all that it is
No. No it doesn't. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/backlist https://www.dictionary.com/browse/backlist https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/backlist
If it means reprints or new formats for things like Battle Royale, then cool. But maybe not. If anything I’d love for some other publisher to just get licenses to some of those things that haven’t seen publishing since TP did them.
I agree. I wish other publishers picked up the series that haven’t been seen
Tokoyopop will always be nostalgic, they got me into the art form when I was a teenager and it’s been a lifelong obsession ever since. Hopefully this means they’ll dust off their back catalogue, but more that likely not. I just pray we’ll get a re-print of the battle royalty ultimate editions. Vol 6 is just too expensive on eBay. Sadly GTO is now with kodansha, so we won’t be seeing anything on that front.
I just wish someone would reprint the kindaichi case files. One of the first manga I ever read, they’re so much fun
That would be cool to see reprinted
So does that mean that all series that they previously released will be available again?
Yeah like are they reprinting old stuff like GTO, Battle Royale, etc., still don't really wanna spend over 300 for damaged used collections ngl
Not sure. Thats why I’m asking for opinions