Tokyopop Senior Vice President Mike Kiley has confirmed that the company will shutter its Los Angeles-based North American publishing operations on May 31.
In a post on the website for Tokyopop's America's Greatest Otaku reality web series, the company's CEO, Stu Levy, announced that he will spend the next year in the Japanese prefecture of Miyagi, making a documentary about the effects of the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake disaster of March 11. The proceeds of the documentary will go to support the victims. He also posted a farewell message on the official Tokyopop website.
The company's film and European operations will be unaffected by this closure, and its office in Hamburg, Germany will continue to handle global rights sales for the company.
May 31 is less than three weeks after the first major feature film based on a Tokyopop property, Priest, will open in American theaters.
Last month, Levy commented that the February bankruptcy of the Borders bookstore chain had played a significant role in its decision to lay off a number of the company's employees.
The bankruptcy of Borders, a key retailer of manga, and the associated disruption of cash flow and likely losses, was undoubtedly a final nail in the company's coffin.
Not much I can say here. So that's the end of TokyoPop manga (and BLU). It's not like we didn't know it was coming, and I think making movies is a much better endeavour for Stu than publishing manga. He's a creative person but he never really did know what he was doing in the manga business. His business ideas for Digital? DOA. Print on demand? DOA. Concentrating on bookstore channels and alienating your directs? DOA. Selling direct from TP's website and alienating ALL your channels? DOA. On and on and on. From what we've seen going on in the supply chain for over a year, we're surprised they lasted this long. Stu "fought the good fight", but in the end, he lost - and now so do we.
So I'm sure everyone will be wondering what will happen to TP's licenses and what previously announced upcoming manga will be published and won't be published. Don't know yet, but I'm sure there won't be much good news if any - only 2,000 headaches. I'll post more info when we have it.
UPDATE: Well, it's official. All TokyoPop and BLU titles scheduled for release after May 4, 2011 will be canceled and not published. We'll begin removing these books from the site shortly, and all pre-orders for them will automatically be canceled. Sorry folks, I'm just the messenger.
