I just heard that Tokyopop is shutting down??!!
Please someone tell me I was misinformed!!
I'm too dismayed for words.
Tokyopop shutting down??
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JWR
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No you are not mistaken
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 ... g-division
What we are seeing is the aftermath of Borders going bellyup and leaving most publishers like Tokyopop unpaid for a ton of inventory.
This is simular to what happened to ADV and other companies when Musicland/Suncoast went under.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 ... g-division
What we are seeing is the aftermath of Borders going bellyup and leaving most publishers like Tokyopop unpaid for a ton of inventory.
This is simular to what happened to ADV and other companies when Musicland/Suncoast went under.
"Like the wind crying endlessly through the universe, Time carries away the names and the deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we are, all that remains, is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment." Harlan Ellison
The good manga selection is the main thing that kept me loyally supporting Borders over other book stores in my area...
This is literally devastating to me. I don't really watch new anime series, I'm primarily invested in reading manga. Tokyopop published about 90% or what I've been reading. And my favorite series aren't popular enough for another publisher to be likely to pick up. I could cry. Holy heck, I'm seriously beside myself right now.
This is literally devastating to me. I don't really watch new anime series, I'm primarily invested in reading manga. Tokyopop published about 90% or what I've been reading. And my favorite series aren't popular enough for another publisher to be likely to pick up. I could cry. Holy heck, I'm seriously beside myself right now.
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JWR
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And they wonder people use scanalation sites.Sky Rat wrote:The good manga selection is the main thing that kept me loyally supporting Borders over other book stores in my area...
This is literally devastating to me. I don't really watch new anime series, I'm primarily invested in reading manga. Tokyopop published about 90% or what I've been reading. And my favorite series aren't popular enough for another publisher to be likely to pick up. I could cry. Holy heck, I'm seriously beside myself right now.
I myself have tried to stay away from Tokyopop titles after having a couple of series discontinued with less than 3 issues left in the run. Tsukuyomi Moon Phase being one I was really ticked about. It is very hard to trust a company that will do that after they have already gotten $125+ investment from you.
I look at the vacant never to be filled spots on my bookcase in sadness.
"Like the wind crying endlessly through the universe, Time carries away the names and the deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we are, all that remains, is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment." Harlan Ellison
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rallihir
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Ah! so that's what happened to Moonphase. I guess I'll have to get the remaining japanese tankobon issues at Bookoff or Mandarake when I am in Japan later this summer.JWR wrote:I myself have tried to stay away from Tokyopop titles after having a couple of series discontinued with less than 3 issues left in the run. Tsukuyomi Moon Phase being one I was really ticked about. It is very hard to trust a company that will do that after they have already gotten $125+ investment from you.
I look at the vacant never to be filled spots on my bookcase in sadness.
There is no such thing as too much cuteness
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eyes0nme19
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Not Happy
I follow about 15 manga titles and half are published by TokyoPop. Really not happy with this! 
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Quacker
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To be honest, I was only mildly surprised to hear of Tokyopop's (TP)decision to close-up it's Publishing division; in my continuing Postgrad.studies one of the main topics is devoted to Higher-level management, namely how to best run & optimize your business, especially under frequently changing consumer demands; Apple being a good example of how it can be successfully achieved.
But I was surprised to find "Tokyopop" as being listed as one of the 'main' examples of how NOT to run a business. The text lists how TP effectively controlled a growing niche-market (a desirable outcome for any business) in the late 90s & early 2000s but then lost that control & market-share around 2004-06 through poor management and ultimately through frequently poor & hasty, re-active decision making. As pointed out by JWR, on numerous occasions TP would suddenly drop a series, even though it's consumers had already invested quite a bit of money already or change/alter the dates of certain releases without any explanation or apology; thus alienating & confusing the "loyal" following the TP brand had created in its early days - which in any Business acumen is a huge Cardinal sin! They lost perspective & treated their consumers with disrespect, so much so that the brand-name of TP was untrusted at one point!
The text, which surprisingly is Aussie co-authored but borrows sections/chapters from a US counter-part, printed in 2009 lists other examples but I will not go to in depth, needless to say, it was not very flattering.
As any successful Business owner can attest to, leaving your Balance Sheet exposed to a single bad debtor is poor financial management - you never try to put yourself in that position simply for the fact that that debtor may turn into a Borders - which will leave you with a huge hole in your cash-flow & little chance of ever seeing that money come through and endangering your own Business, which clearly has happened here.
I say RIP Tokyopop and here's hoping that another company steps in to the void & learns from TP's mistakes, allowing all those people who have lost their jobs with TP to find new work and also so that the consumers know that if we pick-up & start to read a series, we know it will be carried all the way through to the very end & not be thinking "will this latest volume be the last?"
But I was surprised to find "Tokyopop" as being listed as one of the 'main' examples of how NOT to run a business. The text lists how TP effectively controlled a growing niche-market (a desirable outcome for any business) in the late 90s & early 2000s but then lost that control & market-share around 2004-06 through poor management and ultimately through frequently poor & hasty, re-active decision making. As pointed out by JWR, on numerous occasions TP would suddenly drop a series, even though it's consumers had already invested quite a bit of money already or change/alter the dates of certain releases without any explanation or apology; thus alienating & confusing the "loyal" following the TP brand had created in its early days - which in any Business acumen is a huge Cardinal sin! They lost perspective & treated their consumers with disrespect, so much so that the brand-name of TP was untrusted at one point!
The text, which surprisingly is Aussie co-authored but borrows sections/chapters from a US counter-part, printed in 2009 lists other examples but I will not go to in depth, needless to say, it was not very flattering.
As any successful Business owner can attest to, leaving your Balance Sheet exposed to a single bad debtor is poor financial management - you never try to put yourself in that position simply for the fact that that debtor may turn into a Borders - which will leave you with a huge hole in your cash-flow & little chance of ever seeing that money come through and endangering your own Business, which clearly has happened here.
I say RIP Tokyopop and here's hoping that another company steps in to the void & learns from TP's mistakes, allowing all those people who have lost their jobs with TP to find new work and also so that the consumers know that if we pick-up & start to read a series, we know it will be carried all the way through to the very end & not be thinking "will this latest volume be the last?"