Tokyopop: When Ego Destroys a Company

[@alexlovessamoyeds]

Just wanted to plug this video that goes in-depth specifically on Tokyopop’s attempt at a reality show: kzbin.info/www/bejne/g5CainmMoseBr6s

[@CvntXDracula]

Hell yeah, Hazel mention! It's a fantastic video!

[@PredictableEnigma]

Anouther anitube treasure

[@vandreadsims01]

Hazel, my beloved.

[@nightmare-neko]

As a German reader it's wild to see how much of a catastrophe Tokyopop was to American readers. Here Tokyopop is probably striving more than ever celebrating their 20th anniversary all over bookstores in our country. Can't imagine the same thing would happen here like what happened in the US

[@alexlovessamoyeds]

Yeah, American Tokyopop is like 60% Disney manga and BL, 20% GL, and 15% villainess, isekai, and romance, and 5% other stuff.

[@emilyl.kaiser814]

But I think, the will go down too, if they don't change their new licences. Other companys like Carlsen, Egmont or Altraverse are way more huger at this point and new companys are on the way too. Some ongoing series didn't had updates in years and they don't have a huge selling series like Carlsen and Egmont. It's just a matter of time, until they are not a thing here too.

[@DieAlteistwiederda]

Tokyopop is definitely struggling compared to the other ones but they are indeed still alive and kicking. They can still turn around and are still one of the OG big three Egmont, Carlsen and Tokyopop with all the other ones being still a bit smaller but close behind by now. Panini also did manga very early with licensing Fullmetal Alchemist and Berserk for example but their quality used to be atrocious and they also used to be way more expensive than the other ones so they couldn't sell as much as a Carlsen that used to sell their manga for 5€ per book. Panini was in the comic game first and it showed with how they handled manga.

[@cursed_strobewi]

I'm not sure if anyone here ever heard of Stu Levy (if you are not actively interested in manga history in general), at least no one I know knows him or the story of tokyopop in the us

[@racamiii]

As a German Reader.... Striving? They are only repeating themselves (how many deathnote versions do the world need? XD) and aside from this the Stoff they are publishing is nearly irrelevant because it's Always the Same trobes repeating themselves. There is only a limited time you can do Something Like this before it crashes

[@inubaka07]

"girls grow out of cartoons" Welp, I missed that memo big time lol.

[@blastermaster5039]

Sadly most girls do out of the peer pressure or ""growing up""

[@lassofgloucester4528]

Something I’ve noticed recently is that Seven Seas has started licensing some older former Tokyopop titles and making collectors edition omnibuses of them-they did it with Marmalade Boy, Gravitation and recently announced Pet Shop of Horrors. Here’s to hoping for series like Kodocha and Gakuen Alice in the future!

[@SnowWolfAlpha]

Rozen Maiden recently too.

[@harpbeat500]

i need all of dnangel to be translated. i need it now

[@ValkyrieTiara]

Are they being retranslated or are they reusing the TP translations? If they're being retranslated I would love for them to pick up Aria the Masterpiece, which TP butchered.

[@goblin_corpse]

I hope they don't continue to use that shiny, cheap looking paper. =/

[@OtakuD50]

Oh shit, I gave up on finishing my Pet Shop of Horrors collection!

[@stahlhort]

"Playing it safe" describes the german Tokyopop perfectly. They re-release Death Note every couple of years because it's their top seller and they don't take any risks at all. They released several special editions for Yona - each with a calendar. How many calendars do you need?

[@alexlovessamoyeds]

I wish Viz viewed Yona as a safe bet and gave us some special editions or cover variants or goodies with it😔

[@tuja1986]

Dance Dance Danseur and Nenn es nicht Mystery are risky licnenses and Dance Dance Danseur sells not very well

[@nightmare-neko]

But on a serious note. How many relases of Death Note do we already have? 4? 5? 😂 I think at some point even the die hard fans are getting tired

[@19Rena96]

@@tuja1986 If you license risky titles, you don't make them expensive because people will be even more hesitant to pick them up.

[@leftdreamer6881]

That is my gripe with German Tokyopop, playing it too safe (and not bringing in titles I like anymore in comparison to the past but that’s a me issue probably)

[@KobayashiKimiko]

I just love it when people do a retrospective on Tokyopop. We need more like this. People don't know the true horrors of Tokyopop but also what it did for our community. Just like 4kids. One was for manga. One was for anime.

[@Artfanbookfan25]

I will always love TOKYOPOP for helping me discover my favourite mangaka, CLAMP. And I also loved how they kept the Japanese sound effects (albeith in newer editions they added small English captions). Sadly, there are some TOKYOPOP series I want to read, but which are now out of print and haven't been relicensed: -DearS -Lament of the Lamb -Mahoromatic -Pita Ten

[@WhyIsYoutubeSoTerrible]

It's always great to hear America's Greatest Otaku mentioned because one of my friends in college somehow ended up being one of the hosts (Diana, and it helped her break into the videogame industry so wasn't entirely a loss but hoo boy you can watch her soul dying through the course of the series.

[@ColleensMangaRecs]

OMG that's so funny. Kudos to her for being able to use that experience as a benefit though!

[@alexlovessamoyeds]

I felt so bad for what she had to put up with on that show, but she was a good sport about it and from what I watched did her best with the cards she was dealt.

[@Linkfan88]

I remember submitting my comic to the Rising Stars of Manga contest. I didn't win, and I never had the chance to try again as that was the last contest they had. But I do remember it was a super eye opening experience as I really had to criticize my own work and really began to study Manga with serious intent. I realized how bad I really was. My panels were absolutely atrocious, my characters flat without proper proportions, and no backgrounds. It was super bad. Especially with the art I make now. Despite all that I'm still glad I entered. It was a real growing experience for me.

[@msmoon6011]

Oh my goodness, I entered the contest as well! The MEMORIES. I knew I wouldn't win but the experience of creating my submission and shipping it off through USPS is a fond memory of mine. Still have the "Thank you for participating" certificate. 😅

[@gaerekxenos]

I had wanted to, but I realized how boring anything I wanted to try to make was, as well as how I didn't have concrete enough ideas at the time. I think I can try making something now, but... you know... all of the publishing shenanigans and reading up on some behind the scenes stuff with publishing with certain platforms kinda makes me not want to. I'd rather just jump straight into self publishing or finding a proper publisher instead of going the contest route now, unless said contest allows for just being promotion only and not ask for any rights to the work if it wins (fat chance of that though)

[@NopaliToons]

Dude, you're my hero for just applying! Thanks for sharing your story. :)

[@princessjellyfish98]

Stu's company he once used to fund his vanity projects has transformed into one of the largest vectors for yaoi

[@elkeyes]

I had subscriptions to Mixx and Smile back in the day through my local comic store. I had first found Sailor Moon at a store in the Midwest called Farm and Fleet. Though usually a store for tools and animal feed, at Christmas time they would have a Toyland section with all the hot toys. I talked my mom into getting me Sailor Moon, Mercury, and Mars dolls on clearance for like 3$ each, probably in like 1996. This kicked off my love of manga (especially shoujo), so thanks for taking me down memory lane here :) it's so disappointing that some of these titles are stuck in licensing limbo.

[@kickflipindi]

Manga? in MY Fleet Farm? It's more likely than you think

[@KPeck-c3i]

This was the biggest surprise during the great manga crash - they seemed to big to fail, even with the loss of Kodansha. GoComi was too fragile, it was felt that DC would dump CMX the moment the winds of popularity shifted, and ADVManga was a badly-done cash grab. Stu was always up to something but it was a surprise that it went so badly that he managed to kill off Tokyopop.

[@fireworks5462]

As a German manga fan, I've never heard of Stu Levy and wasn't even aware that American Manga-Fans hold such a grudge against Tokyopop. Half of my collection consists of Mangas from Tokyopop and I have the feeling that they really care about their shojo fans. Every month, they publish a new shojo manga with a collector card in the first edition. They're called Shoco Cards and really have beautiful designs. Because of that, I'm like a K-pop fan wiht a photocard collection. But they also have their own share of criticism. They're pretty known for not reprinting old, but popular series like Kimi ni Todoke and Kamisamm Kiss (although that one got a new 2in1 edition).

[@moon-smeraldo]

Same, I never knew of the American Tokyopop and was a little confused when I saw the title. I really like shoco cards and I think it's a good incentive to get people to buy more shoujo, if anything to at least get the beautiful cards. I'm really glad they've recently started reprinting some older shoujo like princess sakura and fushigi yuugi and of course kamisama kiss. Hopefully we get kimi ni todoke and dengeki daisy reprinted one day too.

[@nightmare-neko]

@@moon-smeraldo I'm hoping so bad for Kimi ni Todoke. Getting all the single volumes is too hard

[@moon-smeraldo]

@nightmare-neko me too and there are 30 as well so it's a long journey. They started releasing them as e-books and idk how to feel about that. either it's a sign they'll reprint it soon or they'll say you have it in digital so no reprint. I'm really hoping it's the former

[@Zivilin]

As a danish manga fan, i also didn't know about him. Mangismo brought danish translations of manga and manwha titles here in the 2000s. Still miss Mangismo because they brought in quite a few of my favourite manga titles like Basara, The Demon Ororon, Demon Diary and Vampire Game.

[@deathsdoodles]

I was so heartbroken as a kid when so many of the smaller series I was a fan of never got completed English releases. Over 15 years later a lot of my favorites still haven't been picked up for the English language market again but I keep holding out hope that maybe one of the publishers will feel like picking up any of those older titles to rerelease and finish.

[@holothewisewolf405]

My bone to pick with Tokyo pop is about light novels more than manga. They managed to axe and make them all fail one after another. Clowns

[@beanqueenie_324]

I know what you mean. For me specifically it was the Gundam SEED light novels and the Good Witch of the West novels. Just never finished and so hard to collect now 😟

[@fourleafisland]

im sorry im about to start watching the video but i need you to know i was an intern at this company and getting jumpscared by my old bosses' name is a doozy. also 'when ego destroys a company' could not be a more perfect name for the guy

[@thefunnychiptuneman]

tell us more i wanna here if you got any stories

[@fourleafisland]

@@thefunnychiptuneman the most interesting thing i have to add other than nodding in agreement with everything said here is that stu is still 100% not focusing on the companys wellbeing, in the time i was there i was brought on to help pitch existing IP as potential tv shows to amazon, netflix, etc in the hopes of making some profit off the things that TP had already obtained the licenses to (including one of the comics mentioned in this video). but during that time midway, stu suddenly tried to shift focus onto making a like.... fantasy chess themed... video game... comic? to the point where the guy *I* worked under, who was essentially a manager and talent connections guy, got kind of snippy for him giving me work that wasn't related to the reason i was supposed to be there. also, when i applied for the internship I was told there would be compensation for the work, which I assumed meant at least covering the cost of getting to the job or just. Something. anything. but no, it was just for access to the company's photoshop license, which I already had (as an artist). so while I worked there during the day, every day, I also had to work a job and do freelance work while taking night classes. It was a good lesson to ask more questions at the very least.

[@Harukurochan]

I *literally* just made some popcorn before I saw this in my subscriptions. This is gonna be good. 🍿

[@kainsenpai7172]

For me, Tokyo Pop was THE manga publisher during my very late teens and early 20s. I had so many of their series, which some I still have today. +Anima, Samurai Girl Real Bout High School, Magic Knight Rayearth (the re-release with the silver and gold spines)and Saiyuki are still some of my favorites. Unfortunately, I doubt we'll see some of their older series make a return. Some did under another publisher later on. Others, I think, will just never re-release in the US. Since Tokyopop's return, I've picked up Laughing Under the Clouds and The Fox & Little Tanuki. Edit: Fixed some placement spots. And I remember Del Ray manga. When I think of them, I think of Negima, Mermaid Melody, xxxHolic and Tsubasa.

[@ricetanooki8655]

Manga in the US is such a weird phenomenon to me. Like, I don't know, in spanish is pretty easy to find shojo mangas translated. There are editorials focused entirely on shojos. Series like Yona have special edition with each new volume and they sold out almost inmediatly. Tokyopop and a lot of trends that happened in the 2000's are alien to me hahaha.

[@alexlovessamoyeds]

Post-2008 crisis, American manga companies played it ultra ultra safe with Shojo up until recently with mostly modern romances, and even then they don’t promote Shojo on social media or at pop-up shops, cons and exhibits, and occasionally stick non-Shojo romance with Shojo labels annoyingly. They need to get their marketing together tbh.

[@agirlsrambles]

RIP Tokyopop, you deserved better 💔

[@neotheopocketpens3560]

It’s still around.

[@mmem4264]

It came back 😂

[@gaerekxenos]

It still practically died back then. Radio silence for a number of years. Tons of things cut. Yeah, it is still around now, but more like it was revived from a grave with how barebones everything was when it did come back. It had almost nothing, and basically all of the titles it did have were pretty obscure

[@cups305]

Oh my god. I was in fact looking away to do laundry, that scared the heck out of me 😂

[@ColleensMangaRecs]

I know my audience hahaha

[@SecretIdentityStudio]

They picked up so many licenses that some of their translations were hilariously bad. Anyone remember their print of Tokyo Mew Mew? Characters getting misgendered by accident, speech bubbles getting switched around, object and attack names changing every time they were brought up, and speech patterns being smoothed out until everyone, from the rich priss to the yandere stalker to the hyper little Chinese girl, all started talking like valley girls. And sadly enough, that was perfection compared to their print of Sailor Moon.

[@ColleensMangaRecs]

damn, I did see people talking about their TL quality while looking into this but it was mostly just about the fact that names were changed to sound more English like changing Usagi to Bunny and so on

[@annoyance4135]

@@ColleensMangaRecs they changed a lot of things in fruits basket like genders of characters or tohru's personality (all mentions of grief, depression, self doubt removed to make her more "likeable", which also influenced the anime going on at the time)

[@JeffreyPiatt]

​@@ColleensMangaRecsthey apparently had separate people localizating the dialog and narrative text leading to one using the DIC name guide and another direct translating

[@minhkimnguyen8140]

I seconded that. My favourite manga, Kaitou Saint Tail, get so many translation errors that it is sometimes feel like an entirely different story in English compare to the original Japanese. It get so bad that one of the main plot point of the manga (spoiler alert) that Asuka Jr. refuse Meimi rescue in chapter 24 as it amount to her destroying herself for him is written out of the story in the translation, despite the author put EMPHASIS MARKS on those dialogues that ultimately being removed.

[@OtakuD50]

In Mahoromatic, they translated the same character as Mash, Masshu, and Matthew.

[@EllieDelightful]

I watch every Tokyopop related video that comes across my feed and wait in silence to see America's Greatest Otaku mentioned. I was one of the contestants on the first episode and it was such a mess of a production. I honestly idolized Levy for his involvement in US Manga culture but that was short lived after I met him.

[@ColleensMangaRecs]

😭😭😭

[@DieAlteistwiederda]

This is an incredibly interesting story to me as a German because here Sailor Moon was first aired in 1994 when I was 2 years old and it was wildly popular from the beginning. We also had a Sailor Moon magazine over here and everything. Our German Tokyopop is also still doing well for itself and instead of less companies who license manga we get more right now quite regularly. So instead of the market shrinking it's growing steadily and you can clearly see that at conventions. Sailor Moon was also by far not the first anime we had that was popular just the first that really hit it big and it just hasn't stopped since then pretty much. So when I say I have pretty much watched anime since birth I'm not lying even though I'm 32 and that wouldn't have happened in the US probably. We also had two more general manga magazines over here for a while one for shonen and one for shojo and the shojo one lived a decade longer than the shonen one. Girls and women were always the target audience here that brought in the money.

[@m3llytan]

This video's comments section has been so educational and fascinating when it comes to the history of anime/manga in Germany. Thank you for sharing!

[@valeriemcdonald440]

The tv show was actually a hit in Canada back then, too. I think it just didn't get a good timeslot on TV in the US.

[@DieAlteistwiederda]

​@@m3llytanI think we are all here because we also have a Tokyopop but ours has such a different story. The manga market in Europe is very different in general and has been thriving for years when the one in the US has been stagnant and struggling.

[@Meretneith]

@@DieAlteistwiederda But is it really struggling? It feels like US manga publishers anounce 10 new licences every week. Or are they counting in that readers from non english speaking countries also buy their books? But maybe it's too much. In comparison I'm currently pretty content with the development of the German Market and the amount of new licences every month.

[@ruininomiya7785]

it's so funny you're mentioning the shoujo magazine lasting longer because if wikipedia is right the shounen one (banzai, that focused mostly on jump titles) indirectly was stopping bc shueisha started a closer relationship with tokyopop germany, making them pull the licenses for the magazine from carlsen. the shoujo magazine daisuki wasn't affected as it was publishing series from hana to yume and lala which are from a different publishing house.

[@polyx_]

Ok so... I vividly remember the introduction of Tokyopop in Germany, although I was like 13 at the time, and precisely because I remember holding a copy of Princess AI in my hands and reading Courtney Love on the cover... like... what. Also my first ever BL (little Butterfly by Hinako Takanaga) was my first Tokyopop manga I think. Tokyopop Germany never had the same issues TP USA did. They started off with Manga and Manwha, even had some domestically produced titles (but not the unethical way TP USA did them as far as I know). They even used to have some DVDs, I'm pretty sure, don't know what happened to that though. Then they had novels with manga illustrations, I think I have 2 with illustrations from Hinako Takanaga, pretty cool if you ask me. They have a whole different sub section for light-novels now. When they started operating, one of the (let's call him) founding fathers of manga in Germany as we know it today, Joachim Kaps, who was previously working at Carlsen Manga (the biggest market share holder in Germany to this day), changed sides and helped getting TP Germany started. I think people in Japan knew him, and he managed to pull some crazy licences like Bleach and Death Note (the later TP milks to THIS DAY and we still are getting new editions; we had 5 different editions (I checked!) and we are currently getting the "diamond edition" or something... apparently still sells like crazy). TP was at some point in time the biggest market share holder in Germany, as far as I know. They used to have a bigger shonen segment, but I'd say they are mostly known atm for their bl and shojo - they offer all kinds of titles though. We even got Don't Call it Mystery, Bless and Anne of Green Gables from the 90s recently! Now Kaps has yet again started (at) a new publishing house that's called Altraverse (back in 2017), pretty wild if you think about it. This year, TP broadened their merchandise segment which was pretty weird. They started selling stuff from franchises that didn't belong to Tokyopop, tho it seems it's more connected to the animes of them than the manga. For example, they started selling stuff from One piece and Naruto, the manga licences are at Carlsen Manga though. Overall TP Germany never had the reputation TP USA had and I don't think anything close to the fishy stuff that happened in the USA happened here in Germany. The only think that's bothersome is that they need to work on their reprint politics. They got better tbh, ngl, but there are still some titles that have been oop for too long. Tell me why I have to pay 130€ for Kimi Ni Todoke vol. 23 on ebay? TP still has the licence. Also, they announced some years ago that they are working an a print on demand option (such a cool idea) but that evaporated into thin air. Never forgot about it though because... come on, how cool would that have been. They said it would probably be more expensive than a regular volume, but I would gladly pay it. On another note: I wonder (and worry) what would happen, if Kodansha suddenly decided they wanted to branch out to the german market as well. The market is pretty saturated at this point, but if they decide to do it I hope they don't pull existing licences to republish them under their name.

[@leftdreamer6881]

They were also gonna make an anime of their original German manga “Goldfisch” by Nana Yaa but then it was unceremoniously canned (tbh at that time a lot of their own IP‘s got suddenly rushed to the end) and most of those mangaka moved to Altraverse instead and they’re flourishing there)

[@TJTheEmperor]

Never forget DJ Milky

[@vandreadsims01]

Don't forget about how much manhwa Tokyo Pop brought over.

[@brycevo]

There's a part of me that misses it similar to 4Kids. It's just nostalgia, but it's still sad to me

[@untunedguitar45]

Which is ironic as TokyoPop was starting to become just like 4Kids itself towards the end of its existence

[@benjaminrosa1418]

It's incredible how the majority of events of Tokyopop were simultaneously replicated by GLénat in Spain, which was the biggest manga publisher in Spain until the 2008 crisis, and went with strange ventures like making manga mande by spanish authoers. It's like history tends to repeat itself.

[@lenamasou8066]

This was simultaneously tho. So it's more like "two idiots with the same thought"

[@gaerekxenos]

Manga made by authors outside of Japan wasn't too terrible of a move. A bit strange, yes, but we did have some decent stories from the move so I honestly can't say it was all too terrible. I did enjoy Dramacon from Tokyopop. Unfortunately, the writer's subsequent series that was with Tokyopop kinda also fizzled along with Tokyopop =/ kinda wonder where she went... guess I should look that up now since I did notice her old website stopped updating last I checked ages ago

[@peterxyz3541]

“Tech Bros” is the derogatory term we used for Musk and Zuc and others with ego who stepped on the lower workers

[@galehound]

10:43 oh my God there it is, the version of Cardcaptor Sakura I owned... The glue was so bad on these little books, I still have mine and every page turned was a 50% chance of the page just falling out lol

[@wrestlerdude6955]

*remembers when cartoon network tried live action. proceeds to scream in pillow*

[@carinameyer4156]

I'm German and I was very confused when started the video. Tokyopop is pretty much still one of the biggest publishers here in Germany. They still have Arina Tabemura and other household names.

[@ThennaryNak]

As someone that got into anime/manga in the mid-90s this was a fun stroll down memory lane. I know it had been a frustration for manga readers back then that companies would flip pages, as it meant there was no way some series would ever be licensed. So the unflipped manga was a big thing. Also Sailor Moon had one other published form under Mixx. Back in the 90s to help get manga into comic book stores companies would sometimes publish single chapters as if they were a single issue of an American comic book series. I’m not sure if Mixx published any of their other series this way but I know Sailor Moon was. In fact I still have an issue with the Mixx logo on it.

[@ColleensMangaRecs]

Ah damn, I did know they also had the single issue format but forgot to add that in when talking about all the ways you'd have to buy SM back then.

[@ThennaryNak]

@@ColleensMangaRecs Sailor Moon was what got me into anime/manga, so I can’t forget how many times I had to buy and re-buy the series over the decades even if I wanted to 😂😢

[@JeffreyPiatt]

​@@ColleensMangaRecsviz did the same I have seen at 2nd and Charles the American comic standerd printings of single chapters of comics like the Gundam Wing comic and Tenchi muyo comic

[@60508]

so depressing, to think of just how awesome early Tokyopop was, le sigh. Great video!

[@pxenos5938]

Wow. That's a blast from the past. Reminds me of ranting about Levy's shenanigans in the old days on anime forums back before Tokyopop closed down in the US.

[@delicatelike1374]

I’m gonna be forever bitter about how they screwed over so many creators in the us with their “you own 50% of your own work we own the other 50% it won’t screw you over I promise.” I think the worst part when they left is how many people seemed to not make anything after Tokyo pop left the states.

[@CvntXDracula]

Great video Colleen! I gotta give it to Tokyopop, it did get me into manga in the early 2000s! 💖 Someone already linked it but Hazel's video on America's Greatest Otaku is so good!!

[@keiririn]

nice to know that there’s someone else who immediately thinks of ashley tisdale whenever someone says “he said she said” 😌 but another great manga publisher deep dive! i have a huge soft spot for tokyo pop bc my first intro to manga was reading tokyo mew mew and peach fuzz with my brother at the library, and i remember a couple years ago being excited seeing new tokyopop manga back in bookstores, but i had no idea the ceo was so messy and greedy! we really lost out on great shoujo manga bc this guy was so self-absorbed in his own fame

[@redsilversnake]

It really was something else to see shelves dominated by Tokyopop releases at one time only for all that to be just gone later. Seven Seas and Kodansha US seem to have generally filled the hole TP and Del Rey left when they folded, but it is a shame that's coincided with a steep drop in interest for shoujosei. Also, just as an aside, it's kinda weird to hear you use Cardcaptors rather than Cardcaptor Sakura - I've been under the impression no one called it the former anymore.

[@ColleensMangaRecs]

I've seen people mad at me that I still call it Cardcaptors lol But it's hard for me to drop that because its how I've always known it as. I was introduced to it through the dubbed anime and never really watched the JPN version so it's just kinda stuck that way forever.

[@OtakuDaiKun]

100% authentic... looks at Initial D.

[@Partylegs666]

Tokyopop was so messy but some of their older pics are now the crown jewels of my collection... Hard to find CLAMP, my full Kodocha set, all the Erica Sakurazawa Feel Young one shots they put out - real good stuff. At least they print my favourite BL now I guess?

[@TheDubbedCasual]

What a great video. It's so unfortunate but interesting watching people who have it all doing everything possible to ruin it

[@sambeawesome]

Omg this video has so much nostalgia in it and so many memories I had long thought forgotten xD Wow. Cheers for the blast from the past. And rip to book stores in malls, huge loss. I literally stopped going to our mall after our Waldenbooks closed down.

[@kaguya6900]

I agree with most of your takes on Stu. Even in the '90s some of his ideas were kind of crap. There was a point in Mixxzine when they printed two manga pages per page of magazine, and you really needed a magnifying glass to read the magazine. The idea that no one had ever published unflipped manga before TokyoPop did it is wrong. In the '90s, Viz was running DragonBall Z unflipped and they ran Evangelion both ways (unflipped version and a flipped version). Also the reason to run flipped manga was not because they didn't think that people couldn't handle it, but because booksellers, especially comic-book shops (which was the main market in the '90s) weren't ordering flipped manga. I heard from an industry person that prior to TokyoPop's big release of the first set of unflipped manga, Evangelion sold six flipped versions for every unflipped version. Those numbers reversed after TokyoPop put out its "authentic" brand. I don't know any details, but Kodansha pulling its titles from TokyoPop was more than just reclaiming their titles so they could publish those titles themselves. There was a real beef with TokyoPop that was apparently Japanese-industry-wide. Nobody but a few extremely minor publishers were willing to work with TokyoPop in any capacity, and even some TokyoPop employees were treated with suspicion by the Japanese industry even though they had nothing to do with whatever the problem was. (I heard that from an ex-TokyoPop employee.)

[@bikkit8]

I was genuinely doing laundry when you said to stop and it really freaked me out for a second

[@loopholelola]

It’s so weird seeing younger manga fans have a good opinion of TokyoPop when I remember the volumes disappearing halfway and never getting the ending to like DNAngel. I’ve read some of their newer titles but I do it through the library cause I cant imagine giving them my money in any form again

[@kristenlea696]

Fruits Basket was the first manga I ever read. My dad was a teacher, and I remember being 8 and seeing a copy left in his classroom by a student. Despite it being "backwards" (and a volume in the middle of the series) I read it all the way through and was hooked. I remember checking out as much manga as I could from my public library growing up. I admit some if the stuff was a little "older" for me but I didn't care. I was the dork in 5th grade that put "mangaka" as my future career in class and having to explain to everyone what that even was. Though, I think I started reading manga when Tokyopop was winding down so I never knew the background issues.

[@Sen-droit]

As a german fan I have never heard of this man. I only remember Tokyopop volumes for being more expensive and thinner than other publishers, so I rarely bought them.

[@MrEmpireBuilder0000]

This is fascinating! Thank you for this extensive look into Tokyopop. I was in the American Manga scene back then working with a smaller rival publisher. And the moves of Tokyopop, Viz And Dark Horse were always discussed at our meetings back then. It's fascinating having to relive that history from a fresh point of view. So thanks aplenty!

[@alexlovessamoyeds]

Honestly, sometimes I get shocked by the sheer number of manga publishers trying to get into the game back then outside of the big ones that still exist. CMX, Studio Ironcat, ComicsOne, Aurora, Go! Comi, ADV, Del Rey (which still exists but doesn’t do manga), Media Blasters, Broccoli Books, and Bandai are the ones whose names I’ve been able to discover so far. I wonder how many other publishers were trying to get into the game before the 2008 recession hit? What titles were lost to time because they didn’t have the media attention and longevity the bigger publishers had?

[@kogababe]

Tokyopop also had their own social media/forum site too--in which Stu was automatically in your friend and would comment on your stuff (weird)---(also myspace clone)

[@TankHardcheese]

Wait wait wait waaaaiiiiit hol' up. Courtney Love? As in Hole's Courtney Love? Kurt Cobain's widow Courtney Love? **She** wrote a manga? Whaaat thaaa fuuuuck?

[@Aluenvey]

Princess AI specifically, I think. I heard about recently myself. I had no idea that was the inspiration. That be like if someone did a manga about Gerard Ways girlfriend. ( I would read that though. )

[@annoyance4135]

yeah it also had character design illustration from ai yazawa (nana, paradise kiss, etc) it was strange.

[@ColleensMangaRecs]

It's a pretty crazy fun fact

[@Anjel1e]

Princess Ai. Love uhhh season 1. Only read part of season 2. They did a lot of cool promo and merch too.

[@annoyance4135]

@@Anjel1e wasn't it only 3 volumes?

[@a.m.7877]

Great video! I knew Tokyopop and Stu Levy had a bad rep among North American manga fans, but I never looked into why. Yikes. 😬 Still, like you said, Tokyopop is the reason I’m a manga fan today. I remember buying Smile magazine and the Sailor Moon Mixx graphic novels as a kid, and then of course I fell in love with Fruits Basket and other shojo manga in middle school. So I have to give Tokyopop kudos for that. I really like the manga they’re putting out nowadays too. They have a lot of great BL titles. I also never thought anyone would license Since I Could Die Tomorrow (a josei title about women in their 40s)-but they did it! Hope they keep up the good work.

[@MathiasAblazed]

My history with manga has been primarily with shonen, so this video taught me quite a bit about the publication of shoujo manga here in the west. Thank you, Colleen.

[@sterlinsilver]

I miss borders... They were always good to me...

[@IWannaBeAnArtistToo]

The manga themed punch cards were a favorite of mine

[@mellysandshrew]

Tokyopop is such a weird company for me, my very first manga was their publication of Clover which I still have, and Cardcaptor Sakura was one of the most important series to me growing up, but I also have a few unfinished series on my shelf from way back when from them and it's extremely frustrating. Heck, a short while back they grabbed the license to a manga that has an anime airing *RIGHT NOW* that they've dropped less than halfway through the volumes (Sengoku Youko) which probably shouldn't have come as a surprise, but is maddening nonetheless. I have a lot of respect for how they managed to give shoujo and josei (and manga in general, honestly) such a significant foothold so early on in the USA but. like. Stu Levy my beloathed, my number one animanga enemy. What a tool.

[@hikari482]

I very distinctly remember when tokyopop went under here in the states bc my local Barnes and noble had so much manga in the clearance section of the store. I really wish some of the light novels and manga that they translated would be brought back to the states again. I want to have newer physical copies of dragon knights, and I'd LOVE to reread the slayers light novels :/

[@IchigoMysty]

J-Novel Club license-rescued the Slayers light novels a few years ago so you can read them!

[@ChelseaFace_]

Yeah I remember the "good old days" of manga. I bought sooooo much Tokyopop back then. Happier now overall but still it was so fun.

[@anikaschulz4541]

Tokyopop was hustling there one day and I remember being angry because some manga changed mid-series and made my bookshelf look ugly haha and then all of a sudden Tokyopop vanished and I never ever heard anything about the guy

[@lel7841]

Does anyone else want somebody to FINALLY finish DN Angel in English? Idgaf whether it's physical/digital/both as long as it happens. I love this series so much bought the special Japanenese DX editions of the remaining volumes and hunted up all the scanlated chapters across the internet just so I could finish it. I read a chapter a month so i can stretch it out lol.

[@gaerekxenos]

I want it, even though I ended up dumping my physical manga collection at the library donation when I moved >=\

[@jdgx95]

yoo ive seen this topic covered a few times so i didn't think id learn anything new but this had way more info and trivia i didn't know than i thought

[@ColleensMangaRecs]

Glad I could provide even more info on this subject!!

[@RetroNekoArt]

German here, i did not even know the name of Tokyopop CEO until your video x,D so no most of us do not have anything against him ( but oh boy...that guy...)

[@del8892]

Thankfully, having grown up in the suburbs of LA in the '90s, I was able to get my hands on some Minx magazines that I still. Including a special hot pink covered one that was only sold at 96 SDCM to mark Naoko Takeuchi first appearance in the US. It felt so incredibly special to finally get manga translated after being introduced to Japanese pop culture via the few on air animes.

[@dragonflower17]

Gawd I miss Waldenbooks and Borders so much. I spent so much of my teen years in those store in the mall.

[@alexlovessamoyeds]

Going to Borders after school with my mom was my childhood. I still remember picking out CD audiobooks for us to listen to during car trips.

[@mmem4264]

I didn’t realize how instrumental Tokyopop was to the manga industry in America. I remember the flopped days and being so happy when they stopped all that. I remember being shocked when Tokyopop went out of business but in hindsight they did feel like they had stretched themselves too big. I’m still grateful to them for introducing me to two of my fav mangakas at the time, though I’m still bummed Demon Sacred and Demon Flowers will never be completed. Thankfully they were translated online but I wish I owned the physical copies. Wish I could buy the complete GTO series too. How that hasn’t been relicensed is insane! 😭 Never mind, just checked it’s digital. So yay but also boo give me the physical copies 😝

[@ColleensMangaRecs]

One interview I found had them saying they wanted to build Tokyopop into a bran like Disney or Marvel so like.... they reallllyyy wanted to be a big monopoly on manga

[@mmem4264]

@ 😩 what’s with companies always wanting to become a monopoly 😭

[@a.m.7877]

3:45 I was just a kid in the late ‘90s, but I did indeed have butterfly hair clips, a starving Tamagotchi (and a starving Nano Baby), and a Spice Girls poster on my bedroom wall. A+, no notes. 😂

[@ColleensMangaRecs]

This was the aesthetic my oldest sister had at the time (minus tamagotchi) so it was entirely based on her lol

[@bstarjam466]

"Dragon Knights" by Mineko Ohkami was my very manga from Tokyopop. However, I DID collect the Mix manga magazines when they first came out. So I guess, technically, Sailormoon was my first manga.

[@AnharuTwT]

As a german, I never heard about that guy. I was a big Tokyopop buyer since I was about 2012. I think I never thought about who was selling them haha

[@DieAlteistwiederda]

They're the same Tokyopop but of course under different leadership and ours over here has definitely struggled a bit less than the one in the US.

[@sinancemcetin4060]

Got burned by them recently with them releasing the first six volumes of Sengoku Youko and then stopping with eleven left.

[@BrackenTheKracken]

I remember someone from the company also saying they weren't publishing in the US anymore because americans preferred pirating manga over buying it. Which was hilarious to me because Fakku had successfully transitioned from a pirate site to a legit doujinshi site a year or so prior. They also started digital distribution, which probably helped people pirate it more. I was too young to know what was actually happening with the company, but I was pretty sure those statements were BS. Fun to learn what actually happened all these years later

[@ColleensMangaRecs]

Yeah, Stu is on record blaming the manga market dwindling on "stories being less interesting and pirating". Which is very much an oxymoron. Who would pirate so much manga if the stories were less interesting?? lol

[@Artfanbookfan25]

I will always love TOKYOPOP for helping me discover my favourite manga artists, CLAMP. Over the last year or two I've found TP editions of CLAMP's artbooks, still in excellent condition. Sadly there are some TP series I want to read, but they haven't gotten relicensed. 😢 These are: -DearS -Lament of the Lamb -Mahoromatic -Pita Ten

[@TheSapphirewave]

6:01 can we just hold on here? The surreal image of Sailor Moon and Parasytte together is something I'm not over yet.

[@GigiMurakami]

This fucking stamp 13:46 is, imo, the reason why me and so many other foreign mangaka struggle to be taken seriously in the US 😓

[@LowellLucasJr.]

So just to clarify, Sailor Moon was still popular in 1997 when Mixxzine debuted( its the reason why the title was picked up by Tokyo Pop because of its popularity!). At the time DIC wouldn't release more of its anime episodes ( only the 1st season and Doom Tree saga were released at the time) and fans were feverish to get more of its story which equals great sales. This even continued when Toonami would air " The Lost Episodes". Another note, Mixxzine published Ice Blade and certain little manga known as Parasyte, that would get extreme popularity til the 2014 anime series. Shockingly, while Tokyopop released the entire Rave Master and anime series on dvd( yeah they released anime too) bit as you mentioned, failed to finish releasing volumes of other manga series...such as Samurai Harem...😢

[@cristopherpardo]

Here in México we had a publisher named Vid, wich handle both american comic and manga. Depite, practically, having no competition in the industrie, they still found a way to bankrump themselves. After that fiasco, they changed the name of the company to Kamite and started over with better cuallity and alternative titles; but yet again, they sleep over their little resurgence and this time the european gigant, Panini, came to give them a hard time. In over 10 years Panini has been the king of manga in México and Kamite is always strugling to keep up float. It is kinda hearthbreaking see in each anime expo how the Panini stand is always at full with buyers, yet the Kamite one barelly has ONE at the time, to the point that its employees have time to play with their phones.

[@cerulean1003]

As someone who was too young to witness Tokyopop in its heyday (I don’t own anything from them aside from a random volume of a Warrior Cats adaptation they did) but is old enough to remember the fallout my view of them is more mixed. I totally appreciate the good they did for the industry, like introducing the right to left format, getting manga in big bookstores and licensing a lot of Shojo and Josei at rates even most modern publishers don’t. (Hell a lot of series they got would NEVER get a chance here nowadays!) But they were also greedy as hell, treated their translators and OEL creators like shit (if you wanna know more on that go watch Red Bards video) and were lead by a shitty boss who cared more about his personal interests than running a company. They really did get too big for their own head and just couldn’t recover after the recession. It really does suck so many of their licenses are stuck in limbo (I’m glad Seven Seas is doing nice re releases for stuff like Marmalade Boy and Pet Shop of Horrors, wish Kodansha would do the same for Mars….) and I hate that all the OEL creators now can’t get their IPs back. I’m also conflicted on their current revival, because while it is great they’re a strong publisher for queer manga and they’ve gotten some good Josei, they also seem to be back to some of their old tricks (iirc their translator pay is the 2nd lowest in the industry rn and as a big fan of this author I’m PISSED they’re dropping their release of Sengoko Youko (a series with an anime airing RIGHT NOW) after the 1st arc) which rubs me the wrong way. At least the US branch doesn’t have to directly deal with Levy anymore. Great video as always!!!

[@SuperrSonic]

Something that I think of every now and then is that Sunsoft tried to create a manga platform on the Wii in 2009 but they only released Princess Ai and Out of Galaxy Koshika. It never made it out of Japan, despite having English subtitles (yes, subtitled manga, aside from viewing the pages like a book you could set it to a movie-like format that goes panel by panel, applying screen shakes and other effects.) Princess Ai really stood out to me, maybe it was Courtney Love but the fact that it got such a high quality treatment for a Japan-only release is bizarre.

[@ellielozier]

I just wish the final volume of Chibi Vampire: The Novel and the Shyness Diaries would be picked up and published by TokyoPop or another publishing company.

[@bitowladon67]

They're still around but mostly seem to be doing shorter series like 1-2 volume BL, I'm still a bit bitter Gakuen Alice only got halfway translated though

[@alexlovessamoyeds]

Yeah, Disney manga and BL/GL manga make up the majority of their catalog, with some villainess isekai sprinkled in

[@BlueDragonArt]

OMG! Rg Veda is one of my FAVORITES! And I loved Petshop of Horrors! ... Low key tried to read Princess Ai since I was a Hole fan, buuuuuuut...it did not keep my attention XD Great video, as always.

[@JRGomez81]

I think this explains why I was never able to buy the final volumes of Kurohime and had to look for scans...

[@thefunnychiptuneman]

nice gaogaigar peak series

[@Arxane]

Kurohime wasn’t released by Tokyopop, it was released by Viz. The reason why the manga wasn’t fully released in the States was because it switched magazines midway through its run, from Shonen Jump Extra to Jump Square, and Viz elected not to renew the license for the remaining four volumes. My guess is that the manga wasn’t a big seller in the US and Viz used the magazine switch as an excuse to cancel the English release.

[@antibishonen]

Will you cover the Princess Ai collaboration? It definitely needs a separate discussion. (Yes folks, that's the actual title. It does sound like it's made from A. I., but it really wasn't.)

[@middle_pickup]

I know 2008 was a big deal for literally everything, but let's be real. Tokypop still would have managed to kiss themselves if the crash had never happened.

[@amandaalvarado8877]

OMG, I hope you do a deep dive on Mari Okazaki! Nobody ever reviews her manga! 😭😭 So underrated!

[@ColleensMangaRecs]

I did a review of & on my Tumblr but that's all so far

[@ethanblair7351]

10:40 Ouuuh I Like Saint Tail Retro Crush Rules

[@heynae2016]

13:46 lol, i got a Love Hina volume that was apart of that lineup

[@almostcheesecake]

How could anyone hate DJ Milky?

[@MrSai-mn8wz]

bro i so want kodansha to make GTO omnibuses so badly after they made the initial D ones you can't buy the original tokyopop singels without paying with one of your kidneys

[@SnowWolfAlpha]

Loved this video. I wonder if there'll ever be a video to the tune of: "Kodansha, enough with Sailor Moon already!" I've actually made a point to collect a lot of Tokyopop's old titles secondhand in the past few years as I love comparing translations of the same series as a lot of their titles have since been relicensed. People complain about the translation quality and they have a point in some cases (Sailor Moon, Initial D) but for the most part I find them fairly consistent. It's a shame. I feel so sorry for the people woking under Stu and hope they're alright.

[@ColleensMangaRecs]

Oh I'm definitely gonna get Kodansha's ass one of these days lmfao they've been testing my patience this year

[@JeffreyPiatt]

​​@@ColleensMangaRecsthey began as a textbook company Britannica republished their encyclopedia as their Japanese encyclopedia in English. The owner who moved them into fiction is known as Japanese Donald Trump and is insane he had them buy The studio behind Japan's brand B kayju Turtle Kamera. They also aquired Dwango Japan the Doom multiplayer servace who now owns Spike Chunsoft.

[@Fejrus887]

This video is very interesting from a german perspective since they never really went away here and are also part of my building blocks for my enjoyment of manga xD ever since they published the Zelda Mangas and even now with them releasing a single volume edition of Don't Call It Mystery. Otherwise like others already mentioned they do like to republish Death Note a few too many times, but otherwise license consistently some very heavy hitters like Bleach, Komi Cant Communicate, Wind Breaker or Black Clover. And they also just keep some bigger Shojo Titles like Yona Of The Dawn, Snow White With The Red Hair and they just announced Honey Lemon Soda. Only thing I'm really annoyed with them, is that they have a sections for all their demographics on their website, but the manga in there are just sometimes in the wrong place? Like Komi Cant Communicate is not a Josei guys xD

[@ruininomiya7785]

the death note re-releases seem like really bad representation so I'm glad you brought up other things as well 😭 it's just kinda unfair to paint it as if that's all they're doing, especially as they're one of the publishers that's really pushing shoujo titles with the shoco cards and other goodies & limited editions so they clearly got a lot more going on. and it's not like other publishers aren't doing that either. hell, carlsen is currently re-releasing their older shoujo titles in 2-in-1 editions in a whole lineup, egmont has had god knows how many sailor moon editions. something's gotta pay for the more risky titles 😭 I've really appreciated them as they had a lot of my favourite manga (akayona, honey & clover, bloody + mary for example) and always had some yuri going on as well. (not sure if i would count the BL because my god have we always had a lot of BL from almost all publishers) I'm definitely with you with the demographics. i think they're usually okay but once in a while they just make some odd choices there. especially for things that don't have a clear demographic due to not being in a magazine like link click? shounen? i guess? and what do you mean chiikawa is shoujo 😭

[@Fejrus887]

@ruininomiya7785 With you on all the stuff you mentioned :D ! I do am glad they are good chunk of Shojosei Manga being released by all the Publishers, especially Panini's focus on older Shojo with Mars being released in a 2in1 and now the Rose Of Versailes Kanzenban and Georgie recently announced. Only wish they promoted these more, so that they could gain equal amounts of popularity to the Shonen/Seinen Manga, but that is a general industry problem Dx which is probably why I am annoyed when they stumble there (also looking at Panini labelling the genre for Mars as "Shojo" aaaaaa, when something like Berserk gets Fantasy obviously) and especially when the social Media presence and con-panels favors Shonen/Seinen Manga sooo much more and invite KZbinr/Influencers that don't know what they are talking about Dx

[@maeganmonster]

Fruits basket was the first manga I read. A classmate showed it to me around 2010 maybe? It took me 5 years to collect all the manga, since it was out of print. I had to find them all at half price books, $5 at a time. At the height of the pandemic when people were making manga buying their hobby, I remember people on ebay trying to sell the final volume of fruits basket for $230. Since it was published so close to tokyopop's shutdown, there are less copies in circulation. Seeing those ebay prices when I got mine for $5 was insane. I think it's died down now. I'm glad yen press republished it, but it doesn't have as much of the 00s charm.

[@JhonNye96]

Stu Levy is like that top ten "anime" villans meme but unironically

[@eggsscott]

The fact that I was actually doing laundry when you said that 😅 I did look at the screen look at the screen though!!!

[@FRANCISCARUSOworld]

Sailor moon, Magic Knight Rayearth and Inuyasha are my top 3 favorite anime ❤

[@cmmas16]

Collen: "I need you to look me in the screen right now." Me: *Walking past my phone with a basket of dirty laundry, not stopping* Colleen: "Are you doing laundry right now? Come back. Right now." Me: ... Me: *Slowly walks backward to the phone*

[@waltscomicshop]

Thank you! We'll be gifting this video to our boss for Christmas 😊

[@nayelisanchezluna798]

I still need to find the complete collection of Fruits Basket from Tokyopop. I want it becuase that is the original version I read it years ago.

[@bluebaron6858]

Puppet master of his own disaster, interesting

[@waltscomicshop]

And by the way, beginning in 2025 Tokyopop US will be distributed by Penguin Random House, that will def. expand their reach to comic stores and book shops worldwide.

[@pronoydutta614]

I subscribed for the 'head up your ass' meter. Don't judge me.

[@NineLinesOfNineNines]

13:46 ❤ IMMORTAL RAIN SPOTTED😮