Tokyopop's woes hit ST: TNG the manga

[The Laughing Vulcan]

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/new...-manga-volumes-pulled-from-july-solicitations

Postponed from July until Spring 2009

---------------- Now playing: Mikuni Shimokawa - All The Way via FoxyTunes

 

[Christopher]

What woes are responsible for this?

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

What woes are responsible for this?

Basically manga isn't selling as well as it should, and the market is oversaturated.

Tokyopop has had to restructure

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-06-04/tokyopop-to-restructure-update

which is business speak for closing divisions and laying off the workforce.

They've dropped titles from their output both in the US and UK

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-06-09/tokyopop-output-to-drop-to-20-22-monthly-releases
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-06-12/tokyopop-to-cut-manga-output-in-united-kingdom

It's troubling times for Tokyopop manga. The ST manga are just a minor casualty.

 

[KRAD]

What woes are responsible for this?

TokyoPop laid off 39 of its 100 staffers, including the editor responsible for the Trek manga (and two of the editors responsible for the Blizzard games manga).

Right now, I'm still waiting to find out who's going to be editing my StarCraft manga series. *sigh*

 

[Christopher]

Regrets to everyone affected by this, but I can't say I'm surprised that the manga market is oversaturated...

 

[JoeZhang]

As I understand it, the original Japanese stuff is still selling well, however the sort of crap* that tokyopop and others were pumping onto the market has not being selling at all....



* I don't mean that all american produced manga is crap but rather than Tokypop's low quality controls meant that an awful lot of sub-standard material is currently stinking up shelves.

(if people want to read more about this - The Beat is a good place to start:

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2008/06/16/yet-more-tokyopop-stuff/ )

 

[ronny]

I see shelves and shelves of Manga at various stores and those rare times I go down the aisle, like when I'm looking for the new ST manga, I have to wade through a bunch of kids who are standing around reading but when they leave I never see them take anything to the register.

I was going to ask how this affected KRAD's upcoming works but he beat me to it as usual. I was looking forward to those.

I'm just not a big manga fan. I've thumbed through a lot of Tokyo Pop stuff but it just doesn't do anything for me. I've gotten a couple Dark Horse book, as far as I can tell all they do is reprint Japanese works with the books in the same format as in Japan, back to front, and the only change being the text translated. Museum of Terror for example. They just seem more interesting than the TP's I've thumbed through at the store.

 

[JoeZhang]

I see shelves and shelves of Manga at various stores and those rare times I go down the aisle, like when I'm looking for the new ST manga, I have to wade through a bunch of kids who are standing around reading but when they leave I never see them take anything to the register.

It's anecdotal, but from what I hear this is fairly common, they come in, read the books and leave - leaving a tatty copy that nobody wants to buy. The older manga readers who have disposal income are buying the original translated material and don't seem to have any interest in the material produced by the likes of Toykopop.

Also the older crowd thought (to an extent), that Toykopop was the devil - some out of snobbery towards the material, others because of the various "bend down and lube up" attitude of tokypop towards creators rights - I mean check this out, this was part of a contract that they wanted young talent to sign:

“MORAL RIGHTS” AND YOUR CREDIT

“Moral rights” is a fancy term (the French thought it up) that basically has to do with having your name attached to your creation (your credit!) and the right to approve or disapprove certain changes to your creation. Of course, we want you to get credit for your creation, and we want to work with you in case there are changes, but we want to do so under the terms in this pact instead of under fancy French idea. So, in order for us to adapt the Manga Pilot for different media, and to determine how we should include your credit in tough situations, you agree to give up any "moral rights" you might have.

Of course, you still have your rights under this pact to your credit.

Yeah, those fucking french and their moral rights...

As the creator of Scott Pilgrim put it:

They are saying, literally, that you are giving up your moral rights. And that it's okay, because the French invented them. We are replacing your normal, god-given rights with only the jovial words in this sweet-ass contract, dude.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

American copyright law doesn't recognize moral rights. Tokyopop's contract was asking creators to give up something that American creators wouldn't have to begin with.

 

[JoeZhang]

American copyright law doesn't recognize moral rights. Tokyopop's contract was asking creators to give up something that American creators wouldn't have to begin with.

That's what I get for being a filthy citizen of the (European) Union.

 

[Trent Roman]

^ Canada too, although, like in the EU, a lot of contracts have 'moral right waivers' in them. And the U.S. is a signatory to the Berne convention, so it ought to respect moral rights of foreign artists even if it doesn't grant it to its own citizens. I recall hearing that Monty Python managed to get American edits of Flying Circus stopped by claiming a violation of moral rights. To my knowledge, American publishing firms contracting out abroad include the standard waiver found in Canadian and European contracts... although why Tokyopop felt it needed to explain this in such a backhanded, nigh-Francophobic manner remains to be explained. Wonder if the cafeteria serves Freedom Fries, too.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[JD]

That quote actually comes from a professional contract?

 

[JoeZhang]

That quote actually comes from a professional contract?

yep -

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2008/05/28/tokyopop-hey-dude-totally-bad-contract/

 

[Newspaper Taxi]

Another thing that plagues the manga industry is theft of items. If the Manga section isn't in an area directly under employee's line of vision or in a store with fancy electronic safties than it's ripe to be stolen. One of the audiences that responds well to manga is the anti-social teen-age boy type. I had a good deal of those kind of friends in high school and one of them had a massive manga collection of which 70% was stolen. Every six months or so the book store in my town would forget why they had manga by the front check-out and then move it to the back corner of the shop again and theft rates would rise again. Bigger chains like Barnes and Nobles or Boarders probably wouldn't have that problem, though.

Also, I think another problem with the manga industry is that it over charges. It's not as bad as it used to be -- I remember getting new mangas for 16.99 a pop -- but it still limits my ability to purchase them. Buyers in the market are oftentimes under 18. So even if it's only 9.99 per volume eventually they're going to want to save up their allowance or slave-labor wages to get new CDs or a new Video game. A new console video game sells for the price of about four to five mangas together, and if its one of those series with 30+ titles you can see where the conflict of interest will eventually arise.

Still, kinda too bad for everybody involved.

 

[Trent Roman]

Another thing that plagues the manga industry is theft of items. If the Manga section isn't in an area directly under employee's line of vision or in a store with fancy electronic safties than it's ripe to be stolen. One of the audiences that responds well to manga is the anti-social teen-age boy type. I had a good deal of those kind of friends in high school and one of them had a massive manga collection of which 70% was stolen.

Not that I disbelieve you, but I have enormous difficulty picturing the ne'er-do-wells that bedeviled me in high school not too long ago standing about the schoolyard, smoking their spliffs and reading manga. ("Yo, check out the face this Sailor bitch just made." "Fuckin' kawaii, man.") Hell, the general effiminacy of the male protagonists should by itself repel the macho subhumans who consider 'gay' to be a universal insult.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Christopher]

^^You're making an overly broad generalization about manga based on only one or two of its subgenres. Manga isn't a genre or style, it's simply a medium. It's the Japanese word for comic books, nothing more. And there are quite a few manga series that are nothing like what you describe. If manga series are anything like the animes based on them, then a whole bunch of them are overloaded with violence and guns and testosterone and amorality and highly sexualized and/or objectified women.

 

[Newspaper Taxi]

It could be a local cultural thing. I'm from central Iowa and anime and manga comes off as pretty exotic when compared to the rest of the state.

 

[ancient]

Since when do people have to be both anti-social and macho? There are a large number of wimpy freaks, in my experience.

 

[Trent Roman]

^ Good point. I suppose I saw 'theft' and 'anti-social' and assumed we were dealing with the 'bad boy' cadre. But yes, 'anti-social' could also refer to the awkward recluse crowd, who are far more likely to appreciate manga. It's just, speaking as an alumni of the awkward recluse fraternity, us 'wimpy freaks' tend to look on non-computerized crimes with a certain kind of horror. After all, you could get caught, and that means drawing tons of attention to yourself (voluntarily!), which is something to be avoided.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[fleetcaptain]

This has been a long wait through for the TNG Manga series. When did this all start? I don't really remember when it was but I know I have been waiting for this series.

I for one only read certain Manga series myself. I don't watch every anime that comes out from Japan. I am a fan of the various Gundam series and I do like the Dragon Ball series as well. Plus there was a few others I liked too but I think they were more American made ones.

So I think Tokyopop should cut the Mangas not being read and just focus on what the fans read and love period.