Kodansha to take over Del Rey's titles

chaos

chaos

The Boss
"In a press release issued on Monday, the Japanese publisher Kodansha has announced that it will gradually take over publishing duties for manga titles currently published by Random House's Del Rey Manga imprint in North America. Random House will distribute the Kodansha USA-published volumes as part of its Random House Publishing Services (RHPS) division. Dallas Middaugh, associate publisher for Del Rey Manga, will remain involved in the partnership by transferring to the RHPS division.

Del Rey's Kodansha titles which have not yet been published in their entirety in English include xxxHOLiC, Fairy Tail, Air Gear, Negima, and numerous others.

Kodansha announced its intent to publish manga directly in the American market through a new Kodansha USA holding company in July of 2008. A year later, Tokyopop confirmed that all of its Kodansha licenses had ended.

Kodansha has already re-issued the first volumes of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira manga and Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell manga last October; both were formerly published by dark horse, and Marvel Comics' Epic imprint had published Akira before Dark Horse Comics. Not incidentally, Kodansha licensed the live-action film adaptation rights for Akira and Ghost in the Shell to Leonardo DiCaprio's team at Warner Brothers/Appian Way and Steven Spielberg's team at DreamWorks, respectively, in 2008.

Writer and editor Sean Michael Wilson revealed in August that Kodansha International is planning to publish the manga memoir Yakuza Moon. Kodansha International is a separate company from Kodansha USA, the subsidiary which will be working with Random House.

<b> Del Rey has not finished publishing the following Kodansha manga titles in their entirety:</b>

Air Gear
Alive
Arisa
Aventura
Code:Breaker
Dragon Eye
Fairy Tail
Four-Eyed Prince
Gakuen Prince
Ghost Hunt
Maid War Chronicle
Moyashimon
My Heavenly Hockey Club
Negima! Magister Negi Magi
Negima!? neo
Night Head Genesis
Ninja Girls
Nodame Cantabile
Papillon
Pastel
Princess Resurrection
Psycho Busters
Pumpkin Scissors
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
School Rumble
Shiki Tsukai
Shugo Chara!
Suzuka
Tsubasa, RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE
The Wallflower
The Yagyu Ninja Scrolls
Yokai Doctor
Yozakura Quartet
"
<a href="http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-10-04/kodansha-usa-to-take-over-del-rey-manga-titles">From ANN</a>
 
What's the bigger picture behind this? What happened to Del Ray? Or is it just that Kodansha think they can make more money doing things more directly?

/doesn't really pay any attention to the Western manga market
 
Del Ray started due to a partnership between Random House and Kondansha. Which has now largely ended.

Kodansha have started to move to publishing their own titles themselves.
They allowed all their licenses to Tokyopop to expire, nearly killing them in the process.
They withdrew some of the licenses from darkhorse, (Akira, GitS) but have also licened them new titles, like the CLAMP ones previously held by Tokyopop.
They're now removing their titles from Delray. Who were dieing, note: their UK version closed 2 years ago.
They are still using the same publishing house Delray were under, Random House, to distribute their titles. But under their own imprint.

So part we can do this better than baka gaijin, part rebranding excercise.
 
Wow, my Negima collection is gonna be full of different publishing icons on their spines. Tanoshimi, Del Rey and now the head cheeses themselves. At least they all have Kodansha on the back of them. lol

So altogether, instead of just licencing the manga series and getting another party to publish it, Kodansha are doing the work themselves? Sounds good in a business sense, since you can tell how well that department is doing easierly when it's closer to you. Can be a little more fragmented in communication when dealt with another team - specifically it's work environment.
 
That now makes sense as to why several of the ones on that list I get have had the release dates for some up coming issues pulled.
 
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