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The ongoing saga of Tokyopop...
Thought I was done blogging about Tokyopop, but the saga continues...
I feel really bad now for ranting about Tokyopop editor Lillian Diaz-Pryzyb's article about series on hiatus, since she and several other staff members were recently laid off. The beginning of the article did come off as a bit accusing and snarky to me, but I certainly didn't want to see her or anyone else lose their jobs. If they had an idea at the time that layoffs might be coming up, the snarkiness is a lot more understandable. Maybe still not the best way to win over customers, but I get that it was coming from a place of passion and frustration. There are a number of links to news and commentary about the layoffs on this MangaBlog post, and it sounds like Lillian is someone who was a great editor who was very dedicated to the manga industry, so I hope she's able to find a job with another publisher.
On the more selfish side, I have to wonder what this means for the TP series that I've been buying. I did appreciate the positive side of Lillian's article, in which she assured readers that suspended series could come back from hiatus if sales increased. And now that she's gone I'm wondering, does that still hold true? Not to mention that CEO Stuart Levy tweeted from the Game Developers Conference "Why have I been stuck in such an old-school, out-of-touch industry for so long?! (yes I mean books!)" A number of manga bloggers took note of this and felt that it was insensitive at best, considering that several of his employees had just been laid off, and pretty worrisome for the future of TP's manga line. If the CEO of the company is no longer interested in books, that doesn't exactly fill me with a lot of confidence that they'll be able to continue current series, much less bring back ones that were on hiatus.
Last week, I was talking to the guy who owns the comic shop where I buy my manga, and he mentioned a new Tokyopop series called Stellar Six of Gingacho. He was saying that it started off as a slow seller but recently a few of his customers bought Book 1 and loved it, and came back to buy Book 2. It was one of those series that I was on the fence about--sounded interesting, but wasn't sure it would be worth the investment--so I said maybe I would check it out. I had already gotten a bit carried away and spent about $80 on manga that day so I didn't pick it up right then. I was thinking maybe I would come back this week and buy it, but now...well, maybe I'm the kind of person that Lillian was complaining about in the article, but with the company in rough shape and the CEO seemingly losing interest in books, I'm hesitating to invest in another series that might never be finished. If it was a short series, I'd probably risk it, but a quick google search seems to indicate that it's 10 volumes long, so I'm gonna have to think it over.
Going a bit off-topic, but according to Comic Shop Guy, cover art makes a big difference in sales. Back when I bought the Age of Blue manga, he told me that it wasn't selling well because people thought the art was ugly. And recently, my local library added Viz's shoujo title Crown of Love vol. 3 to their collection, but not 1 or 2--it was probably a donation. So I decided to pick up 1 and 2 while I was buying the latest batch of yaoi manga, and he told me that Crown of Love is also a very slow seller because the cover art isn't attractive enough. The covers show simple, sketch-style art in black and white (or rather, black and pink), while apparently bright, full color cover illustrations are much more appealing, which I suppose isn't surprising. This is a completely unofficial survey, of course, limited to the clientele of this one shop, but since I don't normally think about marketing and advertising when I'm buying manga, it was an interesting observation.
Getting back to the Tokyopop saga, Levy blames the layoffs on the Borders bankruptcy, saying TP hasn't gotten paid for books they've been sending to Borders. MangaBlog has another roundup of links about the news and reactions to it. Some bloggers have pointed out that it's well known that Borders has been in jeopardy for a long time, and feel that TP bears some responsibility for continuing to ship books to them knowing that company could go under. Levy expressed regret about the layoffs, but as far as I can tell, did not address or clarify his tweet about books being old-school, nor did he address concerns fans have had about side projects like the Otaku reality show airing on Hulu. People worry that it's sucking money away from the manga line, though from what TP freelancer Daniella Orihuela-Gruber said in the comments of this post on her blog, the media and publishing lines are essentially separate companies, so the Otaku show is not taking money away from the manga line. However, instead of officially explaining this, Levy has merely called the show's detractors "haters" on the Otaku show's blog.
Which brings me to Daniella's post, which is titled "Borders Vs. Manga Publishers," and expresses her conflicting emotions over being both a Borders supporter and a TP employee, and asks people which one they support. Naturally, she's upset about seeing friends and coworkers laid off, but she goes a bit off the deep end in the comments. When someone named Jura said that he or she (another commenter calls refers to Jura as "he," so I'll go with that for convenience's sake) avoids TP titles because they've been canceled or gone on hiatus in the past, Daniella pretty much rips him a new one and says, "It’s basically fans like you who think Tokyopop won’t try to bring back series they’ve had to put on hiatus that are keeping the company from doing more to bring those series back," and they argue back and forth until she's virtually shouting at him, "I’m sorry it just pisses me off that you can’t see why Tokyopop does things any publisher would do with a poor selling title. Are you mad at Del Rey for releasing low-selling titles very slowly before their Kodansha merge? Are you mad at Viz for canceling Inubaka? Are you not buying their titles SOLELY because it’s taken them awhile to release a new volume of a series, despite the fact that those companies try to bring you new titles you might already like?"
(Just to note, Jura has not mentioned Viz or Del Rey, nor has he said that he even reads Inubaka.)
Katherine Dacey weighs in and tries to more tactfully remind Daniella why people might be frustrated with TP, and how as a dedicated manga fan and TP employee, she could help to win them back over by engaging with them in a more positive way instead of just scolding them. But Daniella seems to think that there's some sort of anti-TP conspiracy, or at least that fans are unfairly picking on TP more than other publishers:
But still, to hold it against a publisher and not buy manga from them just because they don’t have the financial means seems petty, especially when the company doesn’t have outside funding. Do I hate Viz for canceling Inubaka? No. Did I hate Del Rey because they put Moyashimon and My Heavenly Hockey Club on REALLY slow release schedules? Did I hate CMX for doing the same thing with Swan and From Eroica With Love? No. But everyone seems to hate on Tokyopop because they have to put series on hiatus. I realize, there is a point where it’s the company’s fault for trying to release so much at one time, but as a fan, would I hate Tokyopop for not having the money to release everything quickly? No, I wouldn’t. I was always a realistic fan like that. I would just sit and wait patiently for the next volume to come out.
Finally, she admits that she's just too upset to talk about TP right now and that she needs to learn more patience. Normally I'd be upset with an employee who went off on potential customers that way, but since she just saw her coworkers lose their jobs and was apparently very close to Lillian, I'll give her a pass. And you know, if she just wants to rant, fair enough, but if she actually wants to get people to buy Tokyopop manga, I'm just saying...that's not exactly the best way to win people over.
She made it clear that she doesn't want to hear "Tokyopop bashing" on her blog, so I'll respect her wishes. But if she wants an honest answer to her questions, I would say:
First of all, I'm not mad about Viz canceling Inubaka (though technically, it's on hiatus) because I don't buy Inubaka. Similarly, I don't hate Del Rey for Moyashimon and My Heavenly Hockey Club being on slow release schedules because I don't buy those titles. Ironically, I'm upset with Tokyopop because I'm a good TP customer! Aside from DMP's yaoi and BL titles (in the June, Dokidoki, and 801 Media imprints), most of the manga I buy is from Tokyopop and their yaoi imprint, Blu. As I said in my earlier post, Tokyopop has canceled or put on hiatus at least a dozen series that I was buying; in comparison, none of the Viz titles that I buy were canceled. (I regularly buy Bleach, Kekkaishi, and a handful of shoujo titles.) A couple of series were licensed even though they were incomplete (X/1999 and Descendants of Darkness), and I believe that Nana and Honey Hunt went on hiatus because the manga-ka had health problems, but none of those were due to Viz deciding to put them on hiatus. I'm not saying that they don't cancel series, but I haven't been personally affected by them, so I'm not mad at Viz about it, from my own personal perspective.
As for Del Rey, I was mainly picking up Mushishi, Tsubasa, and xxxHolic, and the first two are now complete; xxxHolic seems to be coming out regularly. There was a long wait for the last volume of Mushishi, but getting it as a 3-in-1 omnibus edition made it worth the wait. I am upset that they stopped Nodame Cantabile at vol 16, but I cut them a bit more slack because I love that they put translator's notes in their manga. It's a little extra touch that I love, because I like translation to be as close to the original as possible, so I'm happy that when there is a change, the translator/editor explains why it was made and what the original wording was. And as someone who's been learning Japanese so that I can read manga in the original form, it's very educational, as are the little cultural notes that they sometime include. In fact, I feel guilty that I don't buy more Del Rey manga, because I want to support a publisher who goes to such effort. (Though my local library does buy quite a few Del Rey titles, a few of which I personally donated and/or recommended. ^_^) I'm also cutting Del Rey additional slack due to the takeover by Kodansha--I'm assuming that things are slow because they're in a period of transition, and I'm hoping that things will pick up once the transition is complete.
Getting back to TP--I'm sorry, Daniella, but you guys have broken my heart a dozen times over! And it doesn't help when your CEO acts like a bit of an ass at times. As far as I know, no one from Viz or Del Rey has publicly insulted their customers or made disparaging marks about print publication. Maybe I'm overreacting to a couple of ill-advised, offhand comments by Levy, but since they seem to have upset a number of people, he could earn some goodwill by issuing a clarification if he feels they were taken out of context. If, for example, by saying books are "old-school," he means that he wants to expand into selling manga as e-books, then tell us that. (Just an example, of course, since I have no idea what he's thinking.) Although I do still think it's an odd and disparaging remark, considering that the major part of Tokyopop's business is, well, book publication. Honestly, I don't even know what's going on in the media line other than the Otaku show and the Van Von Hunter movie, and I don't imagine that they're raking in a lot of money. I tried to poke around the TP website a bit and find out, but it's so ill-organized that trying to find anything on it gives me a headache. (Which is another TP gripe, while I'm at it. I'm not too fond of Viz's recently revamped website either, but it's still much better organized and easier to use than TP's.)
And I'm sorry, but not all of us are willing to "sit and wait patiently for the next volume to come out"--especially when we have no idea of when that might be. I would be more patient if TP would actually say that a title is on hiatus and not just canceled, and if they'd actively encourage us to support that title. I get that it's difficult to do that because you "lose face" with the Japanese rights holders by announcing a hiatus, but if you're not going to give us any info, it's unfair to expect us to wait around for two or more years on the off-chance that you might get around to publishing the next volume someday.
One good thing about Inubaka going on hiatus--it sucks for Inubaka fans, of course, but at least Viz came out and announced that it was on hiatus. Actually, I do kind of like Inubaka, but I've been reading it at the library instead of buying it. It's silly but fun, and I love the stories about the dogs, which seem to be very well researched, but I find the extreme level of fan service offensive. There are constant gratuitous panty shots of Suguri, the heroine of the story, sometimes even in the middle of an otherwise serious or heart-warming story. If the fan service were cut out or at least cut down, I would probably buy it, but it's just too annoying at the current level. I see women being objectified enough in the media every day without having to pay extra money for it.
So that's my TP rant. I really do want them to survive, if only because they're publishing a lot of series that I'm currently reading--including Tokyo Pet Shop of Horrors, Happy Cafe, VB Rose, Karakuri Odette, Alice in the Country of Hearts, and various Blu titles. And that doesn't even include the titles that are on hiatus or a delayed schedule! So I really am trying to do my part to support them. But with the editorial crew cut down to a skeleton staff and the company seemingly being run mainly by freelancers, I really worry about their future. (ETA 3/9/10: Oops! Tokyo Pet Shop of Horrors actually is on the delayed schedule, but a new copy did just recently come out.)
no subject
From what I understand, TokyoPop made manga cheap and popular, but in the process they drove the costs they can sustain when the market's not growing too low. Without TP, the retail price of manga would be even higher, but it may not be high enough now to sustain them and all their titles.
Levy sounds like a bit of an ass, but I take "old school" in the context of the publishing industry to mean moving to e-books and possibly also new licensing arrangements. I think it's also frustration with the state of the business now.
no subject
It seems to me, and from what I've heard, TP overextended themselves, licensing more titles than they could handle. And as you say, may have driven the cost down too low.
And I think that Levy aggravates a lot of people. He's not exactly tactful, and rightly or wrongly, they feel like his side projects are taking money and focus away from the manga line. I've heard quite a few people bash the Princess Ai manga, calling it his "vanity project" (apparently he's the writer, using the pseudonym "DJ Milky"). I don't know how well Princess Ai sells, so I can't say whether it's being kept alive at the cost of other titles or not, but that seems to be the perception among disgruntled TP fans.
no subject
I've heard people complain about TokyoPop's media line -- actually, its movies -- but from what you say, it doesn't take money from manga. Besides, in this economy, I can see why someone might want to diversify. It's fan's assumptions and lack of research into the actual business of publishing that annoys me. And what's aggravating in a down-market can come across as visionary in a good market -- think Steve Jobs, who I absolutely cannot stand; I think he's an arrogant ass. I suspect Levy is bitter that his business model is crumbling around him for reasons he thinks are not in his control.