The Dirt on Tokyopop

On June 2, a week ago today, Tokyopop announced a sort of splitting of their company. Tokyopop is literally THE Manga company, and are responsible for most (if not all) the translated material we get here in North America. They have decided that they will spin off their comics-to-film and digital operations into a new company, called Tokyopop Media LLC.

Publishing, which will still remain with Tokyopop Inc., will be reduced by around 50%, reducing output to only 200-250 titles per year. Tokyopop had over 500 titles. This move has required the ‘reducing of their workforce’ by 39 employees, however the executive level will also see some changes.

ICv2 reports that “Group President and COO John Parker will take over as Publisher at Tokyopop, Inc. Marco Pavia, previously Director of Marketing, has been promoted to Associate Publisher. Mike Kiley, who has been serving as Publisher at Tokyopop Inc., will take over as the key senior executive in Tokyopop Media.

If you think about all this, however, it seems to make sense. Out of 500 titles per year, dropping it to 200-250 means only halting the translation of the ones who don’t nearly do as well anyways. Guaranteed the top 200 are the breadwinners with Tokyopop, where the last few are lucky to sell a few hundred copies. The market is simply diluted with far too much material out there to absorb! By separating resources into this new venture, Tokyopop will be able to fully focus on success in the two departments that mean something currently.

50% of the company can now focus solely on producing these excellent titles, while the other 50% can fully focus on their job of bringing these materials to the big or small screen, and onto the internet in unique ways. As we can all see, when Marvel made their big push into entertainment, it was pure gold for them. With Tokyopop now able to focus on comics-to-film, we can expect to see big things coming from them through different forms of media.

ICv2 has a new article up just today of a particularly insightful interview they had with Mike Kiley, the former Tokyopop Publisher who will be taking a ‘yet-to-be-named’ position at Tokyopop Media. I urge you to read it!