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!

Death Note Live Action Movie

Not many people nowadays can say they have never heard of Death Note. The popular manga title has stirred up controversy almost all over the world, with incidences popping up once in a while about a child carrying a notebook with severe death threats and some even acting on them. The story itself, however, is fantastic. A cunning cat-and-mouse detective vs. misunderstood serial murdering (and self proclaimed) hero.

The catch?

How about writing a name inside a death god's notebook, including form of death, and the person who's namesake was written suffers the death along with it. To the 'T'. This manga title has reached ICv2's top 50 Manga Properties List, and also has an anime television show currently aired during Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block.

The live action version of this film will debut in over 300 theaters in America, with a two-night special event beginning on May 20th. A theater list is available over at the FathomEvents Website. Unfortunately the film is only available in the United States and not Canada, however I have faith that we will be able to view it soon enough.

I honestly can't wait to see how well it translates to the silver screen in live action.

Bookoff to Payoff

The Anime News Network has reported that popular used-bookstore chain, "Bookoff Corporation" has opted to pay numerous creators' associations 100 million yen (approximately 1 million dollars US) in order to address mounting complaints. The growing used-book industry has begun to take a certain toll in new book sales, to the discomfort of creators.

Bookoff currently has hundred of stores in Japan and numerous others overseas, and clocked roughly 460 million dollars this last fiscal year. Their primary specialization are manga, books, CDs, DVDs and video games.

This marks the first specific offer of payment to any of these organizations from bookstores.

If you wish to read the rest of this article, just follow this link!

Big Battel!

No, that's not a spelling error. Kaiju Big Battel began as a video project from students at School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The purposeful mis-spelling of 'battle' was due to a mis-printing on t-shirts early in the creation.

The toupe has periodic Big Battels that reference both professional wrestling and Japan's tokusatsu and kaiju movies. As time goes on, more and more characters have been introduced, swelling the ranks to over 70 unique characters including names such as Robox, Dr. Cube, Uchu Chu, and Kung Fu Chicken Noodle.

The crew recently announced the coming release of a new toy, Vegetius. Working in collaboration with Marmit, the toy is slated for release later this year. This is Kaiju's second vinyl release, after the success of their San Diego Comic-con 2007 release - Sky Deviler.

In related news, Bloc Party collaborated with Kaiju to produce the music video for their new song Flux.

Tokyopop to Release Video-Game Manga

Manga producer Tokyopop has recently announced the production of some new video-game based volumes to be released later this year.

In August and November, expect the first two volumes (out of three) of a Starcraft anthology series to be on the shelves. This could definitely help build some hype for the new Starcraft game still in production over at Blizzard!

Also, for all you Castlevania fans out there, a two-volume series will be released in September, building on the already 20-year old franchise.

Now here's the kicker. Tokyopop will also be producing a four-volume anthology of Warcraft. The online game World of Warcraft has recently hit the 10 million subscriber mark and is still rolling along. Three volumes of this anticipated anthology are due out in August, October, and December!

Happy reading this fall!

Tokyopop has plans for another Warcraft manga series sometime in 2009.

Manga of Shannara

For over thirty years, Terry Brooks has published numerous works of fantasy fiction, his Shannara series being the crowning achievement. With millions of books sold to date, Mr. Brooks was able to make history by being the first author to produce a work of fantasy that earned a spot on the New York Times bestseller list.

Now Terry is ready to take another step in the production of his hugely popular series, according to an interview by Laura Hudson. Set to debut on shelves on March 25, Terry Brooks' first ever manga-tized story will be available for fans of both the fantasy and manga genres to enjoy.

'Dark Wraith of Shannara' will tell the tail of Jair Ohmsford, one of the two main characters in 'Wishsong of Shannara'.

Not to worry, Shannara fans. Dark Wraith is a stand-alone series written along the storylines of the title series; a fresh new story with a recognizable character.

As a long-time reader of Terry Brooks' works, with complete faith in his choices, I for one am both excited and intrigued by this new medium through which I can view his works. Stay tuned to Goliath!? when this one comes out. You can be sure there will be a review on it.

The full interview with Terry and Laura can be found here.

The Global Manga Phenomenon

Paul Gravett writes on the global manga phenomenon.

Here, a whole 'Pokémon generation' has grown up with these distinctive stories and styles. Many British youngsters are exposed to them first through card- and computer-games and anime (Japanese animation) in the form of such hit television cartoons as Naruto and Oscar-winning movies like Spirited Away. From here, they discover that their bookshop and library shelves are heaving with Viz, Tokyopop, Gollancz and Tanoshimi manga paperbacks. These sometimes long-running series, imported and translated from Japan, are printed in black and white and often in their 'authentic' right-to-left, back-to-front reading direction, baffling adults but captivating kids.