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.

There are no anime publishers that can afford to pay $20,000 to $80,000 an episode for licensing. A 24 episode series at $50,000 per episode would cost the American distributor, before production, voice actors, shipping, etc. $1,200,000 just to get the door open. For many anime distributors, that is more money than they can make in over a year.

I would check your sources on that (and feel free to show your source). Anime distributors are not that insane.

Wait a minute. Didn't you just say this?:

I am the one that said all media suffers from internet DLs. So which one is it?

Yes, when an industry is small it is more affected by illegal DLs, because every stolen title is a larger % of the bottom line.

How do you "make something more popular"? If you could answer that, you'd be a billionaire.

Of course you can judge anime movies and series by trailers, just like you can with movies. A small % of people will buy it after stealing it, but they are certainly the minority.

The problem now, especially in the manga and anime "fan" community is that the culture of stealing is so ingrained, that many young people don't even realize what they are doing is wrong or illegal. What the manga (my focus) companies need to do is give the fans a better online or electronic experience than they can get from scanlations. An example of this is the ComiXology reader. And give it to them at a reasonable price.

Look at sales of music 20 years ago and look at it now, and tell me illegal downloading isn't a significant reason for the crumbling of the music industry.

Exactly, who adapts to present conditions survives, who stays with the old ways will eventually "fade away".
Not really, production costs where a lot higher, so was the logistics involved (cd printing, cover printing, transport expenses of a CD) and the final shop costs. Now to maintain an online music store, you have less than a quarter the expenses. And even though you sale a lot cheaper and your anual total income is less than 75% (just a estimation for exemplification purposes) of what you used to have, your total profit exceeds the ex ones.
BTW, every time you listen to an officially listed song on youtube, the artist gets a bit of money, also, every electronic device that can capture, record or listen/watch through, includes a so called copyright tax (which is applied in almost 60% of countries worldwide), in case you use it to copy something. So they are not really loosing exactly the high amount of money they are pretending.

You are making my case for me. Yes, it is much less expensive to make and produce music these days, and they are STILL losing money. They have eliminated much of the "physical" product, so what you are buying is data. The cost to produce a single physical CD is monumentally higher than an MP3, which is basically zero. But 20 years ago you would have several platinum singles (1,000,000 sales) a month. Now it is several a year.

Because singles are still counted in physical sales, the online sales, mp3 or any other format are not included.

I agree, illegal downloading is bad, it causes losses, but overestimating the losses, on that I can't agree. One million downloads doesn't mean 1.000.000 songs not being sold as they imply in losses reports all the time on media everywhere, this is what I was saying.

A wise man[well a few wise men] said this:The future is always trying to control the past. We cannot stop our children illegally distributing music,we can only drive it underground.

i didn't convey my idea correctly. my contradiction - "only music is affected" was meant like...when you compare money music industries lose on CDs, then anime, manga probably can't scratch even 1% of that money...of course its a rough guess. so idea was in pure sums of money, not for each media.


why attack me about popularity issue? it is their product, their jobs on the line. it is them who have to think how to develop their product and how to market it. and if they can't fix popularity issue then it is also up to them to fight illegal downloads.

Underestimating the losses is also just as bad. People are listening to their iPods more than ever, but somehow sales are down.

And you better believe online sales count. If they didn't these albums would have sales in the four-digit range. (Billboard started counting paid online sales over five years ago).

The music industry is much larger than the anime industry, so dollar for dollar it is much higher, but it also takes much less to take the smaller industries down.

I am not attacking you about the popularity issue, but I am saying that if you knew the secret of how to make something popular, then you'd be a billionaire. My point is that it isn't as simple as "making it popular".

And the industries are fighting illegal downloads, but you also understand these are small companies and legal battles are devastatingly expensive. Lately the companies have joined forces and even the Japanese license holders are putting in their fair share, so hopefully more progress will happen.

i agree with you and more power to these people and their business. my underlying point was simply that it is still all up to developers if they want to stay in business. people won't stop downloading spontaneously and they also won't start buying products by the shipload if there isn't a very good reason aka - great marketing or actions taken against masess.

Yes, developers are starting to understand that if you don't go digital, you go out of business. The problem with anime and manga is that you have to convince the slow moving license holders in Japan of the same thing. It is moving, but moving slowly.

The other key is cease-and-desist letters to the hosts of illegal DL sites.

wow tokyopop is going byebye :crykitty: this just made my week even worse

I think illegal downloads, may seems to be a loss, but on the other side, some music won`t be here, without illegal downloads. (For example J-Rock) I think many people wouldn`t have discover J-Rock, if it is not for illegal downloads. There also other music, which you may can`t buy anymore and then you`re glad you find at least some downloads. (For example, I would really like to buy a cd from chinese band silver ash, but I didn`t found anything to buy it) I think also bands, which are not that popular can became more popular, if people find them through downloading. (I think someone would more fast say yes, to get music on this way, then when their would have to buy it).

And like some other people said, it doesn`t really mean, that people, who downloads, also would buy more. Indeed I think people, who download much, may also people who buy much. But anyway, you can`t spend more money you have. And sometime, you don`t have any space anymore for stuff.

I think Mangas was less effected from downloading before, but since their are iPad and such stuff here, it seems more comfortable reading Manga on such a device. (I think it`s not comfortable reading Mangas on PC, but if I think reading it on a iPad, that would be comfortable.) This surely comes to a problem too for books, mangas and comics.

An other aspects, which may not effect American manga market, but German market is, that people buy mangas in other languages than German. (For example English Mangas or French, or some even buy Japanese, but I think, that are not that much people. At least I does may one person, who can that much of Japanese, that he`s able reading mangas in Japanese) Some people buy even mangas in English, which are realesed in German, but their think English translation is better than the German one. Some may started a serie in English, because it was first published there and continue then, even when there`s a German release.
Same goes for games and may also books. (Games are often cheaper buying in English than in German. Especially if you buy it in Switzerland, games are so expensive here..)
Sure people buy the stuff, but their don`t helping the local market. (I mean for example German market and so on) And so their market will have a loss und may stops or reducing bringing games, mangas on the German market.
But anyway, I like buying stuff cheaper and want get it faster, so I buy it in English. So for me it`s really a pain in the ass, that there something like regional codes on dvd or games. (It won`t be a problem if there would publish everything in German then, but their don`t. And so I may miss some stuff, because of not being able using it.)

I`m also unhappy that Tokyopop shuts down. But at least I have more or less finished the manga series, I had from Tokyopop. Only Vassalord is unfinished, but I will just buy the German volumes, the design of the manga is the same, because German Tokyopop didn`t shut down. Hmm, I also hat the Embalmer, which I didn`t finished.

About this, Delrey has also some Mangas, which won`t be published anymore, because Kodansha didn`t take all series which Delrey had. So I won`t be able to continue Moyashimon.