TokyoPop Shuts Down
 

One of the pioneers of the modern manga age is shutting its doors.

TOKYOPOP to Shut Down U.S. Operations in May - ComicsAlliance | Comic book culture, news, humor, commentary, and reviews

Just read about that myself a bit ago. While reading the article, the first thing that came to mind was "Good job, scanlators and freeloading dorks reading in the bookstore. You've destroyed an entire artistic medium in North America and the world. Good. Bleeping. Job."

So it finally happened.
What's gonna happen to the titles that are still being written and released?

I think there's more to it than that. The Borders part could have much to do with it. All of those stores closed near me (Wrigley Field) and I have to go downtown to go to an actual bookstore. Most things seem to be sold online or are in digital format nowadays. The fact that a few people were reading for free can't be the main cause, though you see that happening in Japan all the time and they still seem to put out pulp manga like crazy. Licensing issues was probably the other main issue.

Not that I'm into anime as much as I used to be, but I don't seem to see that much out there anymore either. I wonder if licensing and distribution has been a problem there too.

illegal downloading has only affected music business. and even that by a little %. still all of the big stars make up for it with live shows.
lets say torentleech. one of the worlds largest torrent sites. just checked giants in their respected fields - on average 300 downloads for "Bleach". some Lady gaga song - 11 000 + DC++ where music is transferred in millions, but not anime. and movie Avatar - combined downloads 50 000 yet it made 2 billion dollars.

so it's not that. simply loss of interest and digital distribution which is much cheaper for manga and as mentioned - licensing costs.

The licenses will be dissolved and go back to the Japanese publishers. One can only hope that other publishers will pick up on the titles and continue with them.

Illegal downloading affects all media industries. The nice thing about the music business is that bands can go on the road and play live. What can a comic book artist do?

You are comparing apples and oranges. People who steal manga don't usually go to the major torrent sites, but go to sites specializing in manga.

Yes. A lot of it is that.

Tell me what you know about licensing costs and how that has debilitated the manga industry.

yes. there are specialized sites, and so does everything else has. and still anime is small part of illegal downloads overall.
for anime "average contemporary anime licensing starts at around $20,000 per episode and can go as high as $80,000 per episode" not to mention cost of dubbing ....i say - seeing how money isn't as big as for movies, it is quite a lot.

and if they feel like illegal downloading is pushing them down then it is simply because the fan base itself is small. every product suffers from downloads on the internet - so...do what others do and make it more popular so you can get by.

i think its possible that without illegal downloads, anime, manga in western countries could suffer even more. anime dvds are a risky thing to invest your money compared to movies/music since they very often can disappoint and you can't judge anime sieries by trailers like movies, however lot of people after seeing it on the web buy and even spread the word.

That's a pretty good point, and I can't help but wonder if the fanbase is small why the company didn't do its best to make it more popular. There's TV and radio advertisements, or even cut-outs and posters for the bookstores, and it just seems like if they made more of an effort that they could have had more people buying the manga.

Then again if they didn't translate/censor so much so badly, had a wider variety that catered to more tastes and ages, and didn't have such high prices . . . that might have helped too.

People download music illegally all the time (which I don't condone), but we still have Lady Gaga and JLS and whatever else being blasted all day every day, even small groups that don't have a huge following - heavy metal or foriegn music - still get by incredibly well. Illegal downloading costs money, but it doesn't have that huge an effect. I feel like the company is merely making excuses . . . illegal downloading, the closure of Borders . . . and that if they did a better job there wouldn't be a problem.

Illegal downloading is really overestimated in money size. A kid who downloads a few hundred songs, would never buy more than a few, but every download is counted as a loss... Someone who isn't buying, wouldn't buy it, even if it wasn't available for download somewhere.