CBI Archive
Manga Before Flowers — Publisher & Fan Woes
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 12:40 PM EST
Updated: Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 7:17 PM EST
This is a quick news round-up of recent shake-ups in the world of manga publishing and my usual column will probably appear later this week….
1. DramaQueen — The Boys Next Door Blog reports that former DQ employee Taisa has news that DQ is pretty much dead in the water until an investor of some kind gives the company a much needed infusion of cash to start publishing titles again. This situation is disappointing in a number of ways, for me, as a manga and a yaoi fan. DQ releases were quite lovely, and were very clearly labors of love.
Simon Jones, always ready to analyze from a small manga publishing perspective (& even the small adult manga publishing perspective) has written in response to the news as his (VERY NSFW) blog:
As quickly as yaoi rose in the bookstores and was ordained the hot new thing, misfortune has befallen several of its publishers. Was the yaoi boom simply overblown? I don’t think that’s quite the case. But the surge in yaoi publishers may have lead to an arms race that snowballed into the problems we see right now with DQ. One possible scenario is that with sudden competition, DQ may have been inclined to snatch up more licenses than they could handle, and set release schedules they couldn’t possibly keep. The demand also surely drove up the expectations of Japanese licensors, along with the asking price. Now mix this together with bookstore distribution, where returnability and long lead times between shipping and payment mean higher upfront costs for new publishers, and a well-planned, promising yaoi upstart can suddenly become severely underfunded as investors grow skittish at the unexpected rise in outlay.
My response in the comments:
2. Tokyopop is restructuring — Brigid Alverson at Mangablog breaks down the recent announement here, Tokyopop is basically dividing into two entities — one that handles publishing and one that ….does not. They are also laying off 39 people, never a good sign.
Being a manga person, this is what gives me a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach (from the original press release):
Publishing production will be reduced by roughly 50% through the rest of the year, reducing output to roughly 200-225 titles per year from a planned total of over 500 titles. Tokyopop CEO and Chief Creative Officer of the Tokyopop Group, Stuart Levy, explained the reasons for the reduction in output. “The time is now for us to focus our publishing business to overcome current market challenges. Few releases will allow for less cannibalization at retail.”
Simon Jones is putting together a nice set of reaction links here (REMEMBER: NSFW!).
My first (very shocked) response about this (posted over in the Mangablog comments?):
blerg.
I feel old, who wants e-everything’ed media? Not this customer.
Just. No. Tokyopop.
Way to plan to fail at the one thing you *were* doing well with (i.e. being a book publisher — be it manga or OEL books) and now you decide new media is somehow going to be the fix here.
Unless I’m missing something here I don’t see an upside to this (although, it is true, Tokyopop puts out way too many books on a monthly basis that a lot of people aren’t reading. Which could be how they’ve gotten here I suppose….this could be the only way they could correct for being nudged-out of licensing the “you now have permission to print your own money” titles. Fruits Basket can only you take you so far….)
Anyone else want to explain what exactly is going on here? Is Tokyopop on the right track or am I going to regret ever meeting them and taking their product home when all is said and done?
16 Comments
As I speculated on my own blog, I expect that they’re pushing the western stuff because they’re no longer getting the top-tier licenses from Japan…but I also expect that most of the western stuff isn’t selling especially well, aside from, say, Warcraft and stuff.
hi gia! yeah, I agree with the logic, I’m not sure I’m really down with this notion that Tokyopop just really wants to be a seller of other people’s ideas (i.e. comics turned into films, or disassembled to be dispersed via other new media) instead of actually producing a material product (i.e. the comic itself).
This means that Tokyopop isn’t really….well. A company that concerns me, in the end, if that is where they are headed.
I’m sure they’ll keep producing new material, both OEL and licensed stuff. The Manga Pilot Program certainly seems to indicate that they’re still interested in strip mining new comers imaginations. It’s just that once they get the books out they want to turn them into movies, or animated series, and make even more cash off of it.
Yeah, I hope they are not going to a more OEL focus. It seems to me the more they would move away from manga, they more they become a comic book company selling books in a manga sized format and while the two markets have some overlap I don’t think TokyoPop has any real good knowledge/experience at selling comic books. They at least have some knowledge of the anime/manga market. My personal thought is that the tertiary stuff should be hit hardest (anime novels, korean manwha. cine-mangas and the like) and just some less licensing. OEL doesn’t seem to me to be a unique business model. It’s just comics graphic novel sales.
[…] Danielle Leigh gives her take at Manga Over Flowers, and commenters weigh in as […]
hi Ken H. — This is my feeling as well, the problem I see with this is that the quality of comics are never going to be very high if TP is concerned with SELLING IDEAS first and the actual material product (i.e. the comic itself) second.
Publishers should be publishers first is how I view it but with the way publishing is changing I suppose TP is willing to take this chance to ensure market stability that lasts beyond the lastest manga/comic fad.
Still. I’m suspicious.
Grico — I don’t really see this as an OEL versus Manga thing so much as I see it as a “what exactly are we going to sell?” kind of thing. TP is moving from selling an object to selling ideas or selling various permutations of the object (leaving the object behind for the most part).
Since I’m invested in *manga publishing* I’m concerned, even if I recognize TP might need to evolve to survive the current market conditions they are faced with (i.e. they lack the licensing clout / relationships to bring the big titles like Naruto and Bleach).
Viz is basically dominating the US manga market right now, in my opinion. And with the newer competition, it seems like Tokyopop can’t keep up. I mean, the last hyped up release of theirs I heard of is “Mang Sutra” and, face it, that’s not exactly best-selling in the sense of Naruto, Vampire Knight, Nana, or their own title, Fruits Basket. I cant’ remember the last time they had a well-known hit.
It’s obvious they would downsize, especially since they’ve gotten so much backlash for the Pilot contract, and the OEL creators don’t seem to be lining up for them anymore, and the ones that do aren’t that good….Their OEL line is both THE best, and the worse I’ve seen, and they’re taking on just too much.
It’s good that they’re cutting releases, and tightening up. Instead of licensing like mad and releasing stuff that aren’t selling well, they should focus more time on actually writing good contracts, searching for new talent if they still want to go the OEL route, and find their next big manga hit, or they’re sinking fast. For a long time, I thought they were going for “speed” and “quantity”, not “quality”. Hopefully, cutting back releases will help. Downsizing isn’t good, but if that’s what it takes to get Tokyopop to take less and give more of the attention their projects DESERVE, (because they’re biting more than they can chew), I’m all for it. I just hope they don’t sink. Maybe it’s just sentimentality, but they were my first manga company, so even though they aren’t the greatest or the best, I still really like them.
The problem with this report is that though they’re downsizing the publishing part of their company, they’re branching out into comics-turned-movie and such. Which is a bad idea. Maybe Viz’s success is giving them ideas, but they’re not stable enough. Only branch out into what you can do! Global manga is great, and I’d like to see them put more effort into that area while still maintaining their Japanese manga piles, instead of branching out into things while leaving others half-finished. Their report strikes me as downsizing so that they could focus on the comics-turned-movies and stuff, NOT the comics.
hi Michelle!
The problem with this report is that though they’re downsizing the publishing part of their company, they’re branching out into comics-turned-movie and such. Which is a bad idea. Maybe Viz’s success is giving them ideas, but they’re not stable enough. Only branch out into what you can do! Global manga is great, and I’d like to see them put more effort into that area while still maintaining their Japanese manga piles, instead of branching out into things while leaving others half-finished. Their report strikes me as downsizing so that they could focus on the comics-turned-movies and stuff, NOT the comics.
I can’t tell you how strongly I agree with this — while I understand Tokyopop needs to downsize parts of its manga publishing (even though I hate that notion as a fan), I really can’t see them trying to turn into an idea factory either here. I just don’t think it will work but then *shrug* I suppose we’ll have to wait and see what actually Tokyopop media *means*…but, in the end, I actually don’t care about Tokyopop media, I care about Tokyopop *manga*. sigh…..
Over the years, I’ve really seen the number of Tokyopop titles I’m following decrease, particularly when various CLAMP properties or well-known shoujo series finished up. Honestly, right now I’m buying Fruits Basket, Gakuen Alice, and Suppli. I plan to buy more GetBackers and Kindaichi at some point. Possibly Genju no Seiza. And that’s it.
Instead of buying tons of crap and OEL, maybe they should’ve saved sufficiently to score one great license that might profit as much or more as all the rest put together.
Let’s not forget this isn’t the first time TokyoPop has tried to get into multimedia. I have some anime DVDs and even an anime soundtrack (Trigun believe it or not) published by TokyoPop. Needless to day, those divisions are long gone. Lest we forget, TokyoPop was behind the horrible Initial D DVDs that redid all the music in the English dub.
Jun wrote: “Instead of buying tons of crap and OEL, maybe they should’ve saved sufficiently to score one great license that might profit as much or more as all the rest put together.”
I dunno, with Viz and Del Ray scooping up licenses with their contracts with large publishers, is there anything left? Even if there were, would TokyoPop pony up the money? Isn’t that why they’ve become so focused on the much cheaper OEL OGN stuff? Not only is it cheaper, but they get greater control and profit from any media they make from it. Nothing against the work itself and those who make it, but it’s simply cheaper to make for TokyoPop and easier for them to control..
I have actually wanted TOKYOPOP to cut back on the number of titles for awhile now. They have some great titles still- Fruits Basket, of course, as well as BECK, Chibi Vampire. Welcome To The NHK, Rave Master, Manga Sutra, etc.- but their pure volume was drowning those titles and they were preventing their own books from finding the audiences they need. There were just too many TP books coming out that left me scratching my head as to how and why they ever got licensed. I’m all for a full, healthy market with as much stuff out there as possible- but there are limits and this market has reached its current one, in my estimation.
Plus, there was always this “keeping up with Viz” feel to TP’s volume-over-quality release plan. It was like the Cold War in the 80’s all over again, except this time TOKYOPOP was Russia, getting outspent and eventually hitting hard times because of their attempt to keep up. Del Rey’s entering the marketplace and signing that HUGE first-look deal with Kodansha hurt TP as well, because a lot fo their early hit titles came from Kodansha.
I stil buy more series from TP than any other manga publisher, so I’ll be following this anxiously to see how this all shakes out…
hi Andrew!
I have actually wanted TOKYOPOP to cut back on the number of titles for awhile now. They have some great titles still- Fruits Basket, of course, as well as BECK, Chibi Vampire. Welcome To The NHK, Rave Master, Manga Sutra, etc.- but their pure volume was drowning those titles and they were preventing their own books from finding the audiences they need. There were just too many TP books coming out that left me scratching my head as to how and why they ever got licensed. I’m all for a full, healthy market with as much stuff out there as possible- but there are limits and this market has reached its current one, in my estimation.
This was my local comic book shop owner’s feeling about the whole thing as well and I pretty much agree. He barely orders books from TP these days, compared to how much Viz comes through the store on a monthly basis. I still worry Beck might be on the titles to go but I really hope not — the problem with TP right now is gems like Beck fall through the cracks.
The cold war analogy is both apt and pretty amusing actually.
Hi all.
It was kind of shocking to see this news as i was popping around the web this morning but now that i think about it i remember some things about TP that didn’t make sense at the time. Now reading all of your comments it all makes perfect sense. I have only been observing all of this from the bookshelves level, but i remember being a little confused when they started pushing the OEL books. Now i see that it was the the beginning of a new wave of trying to do too much. It was like watching a juggling act, they just kept adding more balls until they couldn’t handle them all. Now that most of the balls have dropped I have to wonder what will happen next. This restructuring could be a good thing if they just learn to work at a sustainable level, though I am a little concerned about the creation of the media division. Hopefully it will turn out to be something good.
I’ve been reading online some of the comments from fired employees and TP is definitely not looking too good right now. Granted, a fired employee is a bitter employee and they’re going to make them look as bad as possible, but if the stories are even half true, I find myself very worried for TP’s long term future.
And Danielle, I’m like you, there are some books I’m worried about as well. I’m hoping the fact that BECK has an anime tie-in will keep it on the safe list as TP’s marketing will always be able to focus on that. Then again, I guess sales are always going to be the final deciding factor.
What I think will be MOST affected though are TP’s light novel line. Stuff like Trinity Blood, Chibi Vampire, Full Metal Panic, etc. I don’t know how well their line is selling overall, but seeing as how several series were stopped already due to low sales (Slayers, Crest Of The Stars, Scrapped Princess, and I believe Kino’s Journey as well) then I have to imagine they’re some of the first things being scrutinized…sigh…
I think the sad part is that Drama Queen certainly licensed a lot of strong titles (which is why a lot of yaoi fans are so testy because they believe other companies would have been working on those books and published them by now), but your notion makes sense that they licensed too many of them and put too much money there when it was needed elsewhere.
Most of the strong start up manga publishers have a great deal of financial backing from larger publishing companies (it appears to me). Yen Press, Aurora, etc. The problem is DramaQueen looks too much like a fan enterprise instead of a business one, so it is hard to be surprised they have had / are having such difficulties.