http://digitalskye.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] digitalskye.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] hetalia2011-04-19 12:04 pm

TP cancels volumes with release dates after May 4

As we all know, Tokyopop is going to be shut down by May 31. I'm fairly certain that most of us were expecting that the 3rd volume of Hetalia (along with any other series with volume releases in the near future) were going to be canceled. This is just official confirmation from RightStuf: that volumes with release dates before May 4 seem to be okay, but volumes slated to be released after have been canceled. Being that Hetalia vol. 3 was scheduled for a May 31 release date, it has been canceled.

http://www.rightstuf.com/rssite/main/news/individual/?ForumThreadName=FT0000002354&Offset=0&ReturnTo=Archive

EDIT:
Just to let people know, the closing of TP's North American publishing branch appears to affect the United Kingdom as well, as the UK's books are all imports from NA. The German branch of Tokyopop will be unaffected.

[identity profile] hoshiko-2000.livejournal.com 2011-04-21 08:51 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I used to be a massive buyer and follower of Tokyopop's series when I first became a manga fan, and I definitely agree that Tokyopop's focus on publishing OEL 'manga' played a big role in it's downfall. Those 'mangas' were tacky, talentless, and embarassingly awful, and largely the work of (unsucessful) mainstream comic artists who were trying to get a bite out the recent manga fad, by drawing big eyes on top of their usual style and calling it manga. Some of them weren't even manga at all, but just mainstream style comics published under Tokyopop's name.

And most importantly, none of them had the charm of Japanese manga, which is such a big reason reason why us manga fans are attracted to it, and the reason why American drawn mangas are rarely going to work. There were a couple of OEL mangas I've seen that were Ok-ish, but the majority just made me feel embarressed for them, and for Tokyopop too. And finally, when Tokyopop began publishing 'manga' adaptations of Meg Cabot's books was the point where I just stopped taking Tokyopop seriously. Tokyopop used to be a distinguished, select publisher of the best manga's out there, and by this point it was just publishing trash. It really is sad, because it used to be so brilliant.