As promised, today Tokyopop has shut down their website. If you try tokyopop.com or any more specific links to that site, you’ll get directed instead to their Facebook page. We knew that they’d been doing more promotion of that venue, with exclusive contests and the like, but it never occurred to me that they’d use it as their only public venue online. The comments currently appearing on that page are somewhat sad — fans who hadn’t heard the news about […]

While it’s horrible that Tokyopop is closing, at least folks remembering both the good times and bad have resulted in some thought-provoking reading. Tokyopop Changed the Industry For the Worse… Matt Thorn blames Stu Levy for depressing the page rate for translators to the point where professionals couldn’t do the job any more: The point being, there were standards, and even a rookie was guaranteed a decent rate…. Mind you, there was no shortage of enthusiastic otaku willing to work […]

Viz first began collecting multiple volumes of previously published manga series in 2008, with the release of “VIZBIG Editions” for Rurouni Kenshin, Dragon Ball, and later, Vagabond. All were boys’ manga, focusing on fighters, all were lengthy (ranging from 28 to 42 books in their series), and all were at least five years old (per their original American release dates). The next year brought shojo to the program, with Fushigi Yugi, Hot Gimmick, and Inuyasha. Again, two of these were […]

Following up on the closing of Tokyopop as an American manga publisher … Instead of updating their website, as previously announced, they have declared their intentions to shutter it on April 26. As stated in our previous newsletter, on Tuesday April 26th, TOKYOPOP.com will go offline. We know that you probably have kept copies of everything you’ve uploaded (photos, videos, drawings etc.), but we just wanted to be extra-sure and give you this notice so that you could pull anything […]

News broke yesterday that was simultaneously shocking and unsurprising. Tokyopop is closing as of May 31, although they plan to continue their film division (split off in a 2008 reorganization), an area where company head Stu Levy’s attention has been more focused lately and the reported holder of the intellectual property rights. Sales of those rights will continue out of Germany, where a licensing office will remain open, as well as the European publishing program. (This news might also explain […]

The Manga Guide series of true-science books — The Manga Guide to Statistics, The Manga Guide to Physics, The Manga Guide to Databases, and more — will continue this year with three new volumes. (The previous set of six came out in 2008-2009.) The Manga Guide to Relativity is due out this month, promising to help you master difficult concepts like inertial frames of reference, unified spacetime, and the equivalence principle. You’ll see how relativity affects modern astronomy and discover […]

Several years ago, Tokyopop tried to make its website “stickier” by adding all kinds of social networking features to emphasize the “manga lifestyle”. You had to log in to access certain areas of their site, and they encouraged discussion and posting of fan art. Brigid Alverson called it an attempt “to create a kind of MySpace for manga fans… What they ended up with was exactly what you always get when you open a website to user content and don’t […]

Kodansha’s summer lineup consisted of significant carryover from the previous Del Rey line. Then came the Sailor Moon announcement, and fans began to get excited about out-of-print titles returning. Kodansha’s Fall line includes two reprint series, repackaged in omnibus format, and two sequel series that are new to the US. Press release follows: Kodansha USA Publishing is excited to announce the addition of four series to their fall 2011 list. Two are reissues of popular classics, and two are new […]