Tokyopop cut back on their UK manga releases by 20%

Paul

Paul

Ghost of Animes
Administrator
Following up <a href="http://www.animeuknews.net/news/1676/big-restructuring-at-tokyopop-inc-drop-in-manga-publishing">last week's report</a> on <em><strong>Tokyopop</strong></em>'s internal restructuring, <a href="http://www.thebookseller.com/news/61001-tokyopop-cuts-output.html">theBookseller.com have published</a> a short interview with <em>Tokyopop</em>'s new UK sales and marketing manager Andrew Whelan that confirms their intentions to reduce the total amount of manga they publish in the UK by 20%, cutting down from 25 seperate releases (manga volumes) per month to 20. This is in reaction to their falling UK sales ("<em>UK sales dropping by 4.1% by volume</em>") despite an overall boost in the UK graphic novels industry as a whole ("<em>40.2% rise in the UK graphic novels market </em>"). Quotes from Andrew Whelan below:
&ldquo;<em>We are now sharing space and market share more than ever before. In the past, we have had 80&ndash;90% of the market; now it&rsquo;s about 50/50. [...] If you keep churning out stuff, eventually you reach saturation point, [so] in a way not printing as much is a good option. But we are only going to drop series that don&rsquo;t sell. Essentially, we only do the best of the best.</em>&rdquo;
<a href="http://www.thebookseller.com/news/61001-tokyopop-cuts-output.html">Read the full article at theBookseller.com.</a>
 
I figured this might happen, and it seems to be mirroring ADV to some extent, right down to how both ADV and Tokyopop are third-party companies without any streamlined parent company in Japan, so they suddenly find themselves out in the cold when it comes to the big licenses these days. It's ironic that both of them were so influential in establishing the industries they now find themselves on fringes of, but that's business, I guess! Kind of interesting parallel in the sense that both these companies tried to get live action adaptations of their properties made and both have tried producing 'original' content too (ADV in terms of things like 'Samurai X Gun' and 'Lady Death', TokyoPop with their OEL manga).

I suppose Tanoshimi and Viz Media have got a firm grip on the UK manga industry now.
 
I believe the gap between UK and US are so huge, we end up buying the american version because of this. Then, we end up not buying the UK releases. It's sad, but when you can get manga online on the likes of the book depository, I believe that's what happens.
 
Tokyopop do shoot themselves in the foot a bit here. Their 'US' releases also have UK prices on the back and come out 2 vols earlier. They recently released Rozen Maiden 6 about the time Vol 8 was available from Amazon.co.uk.
 
Well Fruba won't be one for the bullet as it's their top seller, but I was buying +anima for my daughter so I hope that one survives.
 
It sounds like bad news but they're probably dropping the titles that are less popular, which is quite a prudent move really. TBH I've always had trouble keeping up with the sheer volume of new releases that TP brings out so this sounds like less of admission of defeat and more of a reality check.

In days gone by they've had the manga sections of bookshops pretty much to themselves but now the likes of Tanoshimi and (finally!) Viz are making inroads, the market has become more competitive.

50% of the market is still quite a lot for one company - I'll wager that Tokyopop still have the highest sales of any UK manga distributor so this is probably nothing to be overly worried about.
 
any of the 25 titles are about to be fininished? I did take a look into their releases for this month on NEO and I realized most of their series are completely unheard of... well, at least to me.

Edit: It just ain't my day today... Martin has a similar view. They have a few great titles and they loads of lesser titles. Kinda give you the feeling that they wanted to try and license whatever they could in an attempt to monopolize bookshelves around the country.
 
Sad in a way, but considering most import their manga to the UK inexpensively (often for less than domestic prices for the same thing, and earlier to boot) it's impact won't be that significant.
 
It's just far too easy to get the American stuff. And more often than not it aint the fault of the buyer. A lot of stores that sell manga seem to be closer to the US releases than the Brit ones.
 
Most of what I see in Waterstones near me is still Tokyopop and i've not seen any other distributors doing manga presentations like the 'ReCons'. Though I have noticed that it's not only TPop anymore, first Negima poked through the monopoly and Deathnote couldn't be stopped but now I'm even seeing things like Black God from the rather obscure Yen Press.

Still a great fan of Tokyopop for Manga though, hoping they continue their Eden series soon. Unlike DVD producers, there's no question who I buy most of my manga from.
King Jimmeh said:
It's just far too easy to get the American stuff. And more often than not it aint the fault of the buyer. A lot of stores that sell manga seem to be closer to the US releases than the Brit ones.
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That's true, I never knew Forbidden Planet imported their stuff until I saw a series I already owned being presented at TPop's ReCon. I guess I never checked but I do like to know where stuff is coming from before I buy it.

One way to be sure you're getting UK manga is to buy from Sweatdrop. :) I picked up a few that caught my eye at the MCM and despite being short, I did like them.
 
I am not a huge fan of Tokyopop but I do probably have twice as much manga from them as any other publisher. The one thing I don't like about TP is that they still lump anything that looks like manga together and market it as manga. I feel manga, manhwa and OEL/world manga should at least get some seperate marketing as their may be seperate audiences for each.

The guy doing th Recon at Newport seemed to be getting a little down on the fact that everthing he was showing to be coming soon most people already had from the US. It was like "this is so and so, but you've probably read it already". Unfortunately for them unlike DVDs there is no region setting on books, so as long as you can read the language you can read a book. And therefore not constrained as where to buy.
 
Conan-san said:
Oh bah to UK offices.

It's utterly redundent in the case of manga.
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They are miles behind US releases I agree, but they do a good job actively encouraging the growth of the scene through their Recon event thingys at various Waterstones and Borders stores so it's not a complete loss imo. I don't think anybody will notice much difference from this new change though...

So far a few of their novel series have been announced as cancelled, I wonder what else will get the chop? :eek: They do have some pretty guff titles titles so hopefully they'll pick some of those. (Fruits Basket has already been confirmed as safe btw)
 
Tokyopop flooded the market with sub-standard releases in the U.S and ultimately lost it's foot due to Viz-Media's grasp of the Shonen Jump IP's.
 
I read a lot of manga but when I went to check my bookshelf I noticed that there are only three TP series I follow: Fruits Basket, Loveless and Trinity Blood. Nearly everything else is Viz and small independent press.

To be honest, I'd always been surprised by why it takes so long for manga to come out here. When I was reading Death Note, if a shop has the latest volume, I don't mind too much if it comes from the UK or America.

Having said that, I think perhaps TP probably thought they had a hold on the market, but the other companies are now giving them a run for their money. It's a business market after all.
 
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