From AnimeNewsNetwork;

ANN has confirmed with Tokyopop Senior Vice President Mike Kiley that the company will shutter its Los Angeles-based North American publishing operations on May 31. The company's film and European operations will be unaffected by this closure, and its office in Hamburg, Germany will continue to handle global rights sales for the company.

A PR representative working for Tokyopop CEO Stu Levy informed ANN that "TOKYOPOP will announce the future of specific titles and other releases in the coming weeks."

Wow, as much as I was expecting it it still comes as a shock to me that one of the biggest and most successful English-language manga publishers has kicked the bucket. It was only a matter of time before that jackass Stu Levy ran it into the ground anyway.

What do y'all think about this? Does this affect you regular manga purchasing in any way? Has a series you were following been cut off?

For a while now Tokyopop hasn't been publishing anything of interest to me, so I don't really care if it goes down. Now if it's Viz...then I will be sad.

Last edited by chineserider at 2:46 pm, Apr 15 2011

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Nulla in mundo pax sincera
"Always go too far, because that's where you'll find the truth." - Albert Camus

I've been avoiding Tokyopop licensed manga like the plague. I really don't like them, so this doesn't affect me at all.

Doesn't really affect me at all. The only manga of theirs I was currently following was Tsukuyomi - Moon Phase, and since it was pretty obvious they were never going to do the last four volumes I can't say I really care.

tokyopop was horribad anyways.. good they die.

let better ones take their place

it´s because american manga are so expensive. no, i don´t really know the matter and since it doesn´t affect the offices over here i don´t really care.
quite funny that the german office will get the cake, but the german manga market has really grown here. tokyopop has so many well going manga here (and almost all manga here are well-goin. the only ones which had been canceled where voice from a distant star and yakitate japan!) it would have been sad if they close when they start to publish deadman wonderland and hapi mari this month.
good luck americans if you had a series you liked from tokyopop

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I'm worried After I saw this announcement I looked on the Tokyopop website and saw that they publish several series I would like to own eventually. Some are completed so I should be able to get them all second-hand eventually (I do that anyways because manga is expensive). It's the ongoing series like Immortal Rain that I'm bothered about. I wonder if Tokyopop might sell the rights to the series they won't be finishing to other English manga publishers like Viz? I like physical manga volumes and I don't like holes in my collection

I don't care much either, they can really piss off manga fans. as long as jump is okay then all life is safe.

I don't waste my money on manga since it's free on the internet, so this doesn't affect me. It may actually be good since now maybe some scanlation teams will pick up their series, if they haven't already.

I felt like it was going to happen so I tried to avoid buying manga from them.
I'm just hoping that some other company pick up V.B. Rose...only 2 more volumes OTL

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I haven't bought Tokyopop manga for almost two years now, so I guess this doesn't really concern me. I do admit I liked their choice of which to translate before, though. Ehem, Mars.

It kinda affects me, only cus they were? publishing Loveless,even though there are no news as to what's the status of the series here in the States, and I was collecting NG Life, but luckily for me that series just ended...
Even though I wanted to get into Hetalia eventually, so now I'll have to wait and see before I plunge into an ongoing series...
I wasn't happy when they canceled the releases of Zig*Zag and left me w/ an incomplete series..grrr!

oh wow i'm surprised but then again i'm not (i mean really we all saw this coming) i was a tp fan from way back but then like most people they lost my love. but they still send a bijillion emails to me. If they're closing why are they redoing their website though? I read an email about it recently... why are they always asking for interns?

but yeah Tokyopop you were awesome and i got into manga with your series Kare Kano, INVU and Peach Girl about 8 years ago. I'm thankful for you translating x-day(which my friend stole </3) MARS, and a slew of other manga.

... prays that someone picks up the abandoned titles Junai Tokkou Taichou! and LIFE.

Tokyopop is on my extreme hate list of manga publishers, so it's about time.

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That's really surprising.

But seeing as though-- years ago-- they cancelled all of the series I bought from them, I haven't bought anything from them in ages... So it doesn't really affect me, seeing as though I buy my stuff primarily from Viz (and a few from Yen press)

Hope neither of them are negatively affected by this...?

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