Tokyopop Is Closing

I'm sure that most otaku, at least ones that love their manga just as much as their anime, have heard the bad news about Tokyopop. Just in case you haven't heard, the US branch of Tokyopop is shutting down which means say goodbye to all the Tokyopop manga. New releases have been stopped, old series are not going to be in print any longer, and we still haven't heard their word on what will happen to the licenses of their many series. May 31st is the official closing date, soon the end will be upon us.

Here is a link to the article that I was directed to when I first heard the news in case anyone else wants to take a look at it, here it is.
** Please note the bottom of this blog post for an update from Tokyopop themselves that may answer more of your questions. **

Their website, www.tokyopop.com, has been shut down and now re-directs to their facebook page. Recently they had yard sales at their headquarters to get rid of the rest of their stock and have been holding some final contests for their fans. The one thing that has us all pretty confused and some of us pretty enraged is how they ignore all questions relating to the future of their series. Being such a huge player in the manga revolution/industry they have hold over a ton of series. I'd assume personally that the very popular series (such as Fruits Basket, the CLAMP titles, the many .hack series, etc.) will get picked up by other publishers. My fear is for the less popular series, It would be terrible for them to end up in limbo and out of reach for all of their US fans.

( A few Tokyopop books from my personal collection. )

The next question that raises in my mind is what will happen to all of the Tokyopop exclusive titles like Princess Ai. Series that were produced by Tokyopop hand in hand with the artists and writers sound to me like they are in the most danger. With no more US branch who will be supporting these original series? Rising Stars of manga is no more as well, which led to some great American-made manga series such as Re:Play. Will other publishers give these rising stars their chance to share their series with the world like Tokyopop did? This particular question means a lot to me, seeing as my ultimate dream is to create my series that has been in my head for some time now and have it published.

Take this chance to grab all the Tokyopop manga that you can from bookstores both on and offline. They are already becoming harder to find in some cases and I'm sure that many of you would like to finish up some series before it is too late. Some places have them for sale and others jack up the prices, so shop around! But I do urge you to try and buy any volumes that you need as soon as possible. I got lucky and was able to finish all of the ones that were important to me.

With many series unfinished, leaving gaps in the fan's collections, and with many unanswered questions we say goodbye to Tokyopop. Looking at my collection of 505 manga I see so many Tokyopop books looking back at me. First Borders had to close down a lot of their stores, now this (granted that Borders closing may have affected Tokyopop in some way being that they sold a lot of their manga).

( Tokyopop books from another angle. )

So what are your thoughts? I'm eager to hear from more fans out there. Was it that Tokyopop wasn't getting the license to many great series lately? The economy? What's next? Will the other manga publishers (Viz, Yen Press, DelRay, etc) stay in business? Do you blame manga scanslations and the sites that host them? I know I certainly do, to an extent. But I'll likely rant about that in future blog entry. Were they good to their fans, or had they failed them at some point or another? Maybe you never cared for many of the Tokyopop releases, or perhaps your collection is full of their prints. Either way I bid Tokyopop farewell and thank them for all that they have done up until this point. Some of my first manga were Tokyopop titles and they helped to fuel my craving for more anime and manga from the start.

**Edit** On Monday May 23 Tokyopop has posted their replies to the many questions that we fans have been dishing out via their Facebook page:
" TOKYOPOP -Our general absence on Facebook hasn't gone unnoticed, but it's mainly due to the fact that we were looking for answers to all of your questions too! Shutting down a publishing company like TOKYOPOP isn't exactly pulling a plug out of a wall, so please understand that it might take a little bit longer than usual before we get to your questions.

-Secondly, we're very grateful that even in these hard times, our fans still stand behind us. Of course, there are some rants here and there ... but we can't blame you for being emotional; so are we. It means a lot to us to still receive fan mail on a daily base and read all of your comments here in Facebook. It's good to know that even when TOKYOPOP is gone, the community will still remain.
-Thirdly, the unfinished/unpublished titles. What is going to happen to them? To be honest: it's out of our hands now. The licenses belong to the original Japanese creators, so it's up to them what to do with the series. They might pull the plug on some series, or find another publishing company to complete their series. The best thing that you can do is keep supporting the original creators, hoping that they'll here your cries like we did so many years ago.
If you have any questions, we will try to answer as many of them as possible. We're here, we're listening and we're answering ...
With love,
TOKYOPOP ♥ "