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Forum - View topicINTEREST: Tokyopop Founder Stu Levy on Reddit's "Ask Me Anything"
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RAmmsoldat
 Posts: 1261 Location: North wales coast |
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Ugh, the day manga goes all digital is the day i stop paying for it.
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Kosaka
Posts: 239 |
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Stu Levy also recorded a podcast on March 28, 2014.
Stu Levy and Tokyopop – A3K Radio (interviewed by Sean Russell, taping date March 28, 2014): http://www.anime3000.com/stu-levy-and-tokyopop-a3k-radio/ Stu Levy - A3K TV (YouTube version of podcast): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7zq9F4gw1k |
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Dark Absol
 Posts: 813 |
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Never liked digital manga, never will pay for it. :/ (coming from one doesn't own tablet/ipad/etc.) Shouldn't TP have stayed in business since there's manga (physical) selling alot better online (rightstuf, robert's, etc.) than at any physical stores such as B&N, BAM, among many bookstores? |
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phia_one
Posts: 1657 Location: Pennsylvania |
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Count me in among the crowd that won't bother with digital manga. I have an iPad but I just use it to save pics and for youtube. If I like something enough, I want to actually be able to hold it in my hands and not stare at a screen.
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Nemui_Nezumi
 Posts: 343 Location: Europe |
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same here |
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7580 Location: Wales |
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That doesn't change the fact that they lost 1/3 of their regular income overnight as well as having to write off $1M in debts. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15324 |
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Some of these titles just don't have a choice, even if the manga market didn't implode. The audience ain't there for 'em.
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bones2039
Posts: 103 |
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Maybe I'm too out of touch, but I still prefer actual paper to computer scans. There is something about the feel of flipping pages. I think there is still a market for people that want an actual book over a computer file.
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bones2039
Posts: 103 |
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Well didn't that happen to all the other companies as well? When borders collapsed it hurt the market but isn't that just an easy excuse as to why Tokyopop failed in the end? Viz survived Borders. Did Tokyopop have a part in Borders? If they did, my local store never promoted there titles ahead of competitors. You would think that would have been something they would do. |
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Sailor S
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Apparently Tokyopop was getting by on much slimmer profit margins than Viz was, so the loss of 1/3 of their business, plus being saddled with $1M in unrecoverable debts was more than they could take.
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14773 |
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And Viz is more than just manga, plus owned by big Japanese publishers. Just depends on how much exposure a business has. For instance, a collapse of the disc video market would be survived by Viz too, but that'll kill bigger Funimation. |
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partially
Posts: 702 Location: Oz |
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Perhaps, but the disc market is not going to collapse overnight, neither did books. The fact was Borders was a single company that went down, and TP had way too much tied up in it. Lessons learned, don't tie up the majority of your business in a single partner, it is not good for long-term health. |
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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^So, by that logic, making Hetalia (the only ongoing Japanese manga title you have a North American license for) available only via print on demand through Right Stuf isn't the best idea if you're trying to rebuild and grow a viable business.
Except who can really be sure that Tokyopop is genuinely trying to regrow their business? They have plenty of licenses (mostly for OEL), but besides for an Indigogo campaign for an anime and a Kickstarter campaign for a game, their not really doing anything. No answer in the AMA indicated any concrete plans to get back into manga publishing in North America. There website sells things like hoodies and tablet sleeves. It makes me so angry that the company is being kept alive to keep licenses viable when there are no real plans to make things *widely* available again. And maybe their profit margins would have been bigger without that Greatest Otaku show and the Van Von Hunter movie? |
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shamisen the great
 Posts: 658 Location: Oregon, USA |
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I actually like reading comics on my ipad. I primarily only buy books (Novels,comics, manga) digitally now. It saves a lot of space and I realized I rarely reread anything. I still like physical copies of blu-rays/DVDs though. I'm not sure why I feel different about books. I guess movies/TV series are just more important to me.
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GATSU
Posts: 15324 |
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Agent: I'm not sure if Stu is trying to rebuild Tokyopop. I think he's just trying to make a living off whatever he's got left.
What do you want them to do about it? They lost most of the big stuff to the competition, and they're lucky they got anyone still buying anything from their catalog at all.
No, I'd say if they didn't bet it all on Princess Ai, they'd still be viable. |
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