stulevy

There are many but here's a crazy one:

Back around 2005 or so, we brought Fujisawa-sensei (GTO creator) to San Diego Comicon.

It was Saturday night, so I wanted to take him down to Tijuana for some partying. We brought his editor, an international person from Kodansha, and himself, along with a few of us TP crew. Well, we had an awesome time, drinking, partying, generally having fun and getting crazy. At the end of the night, around 3 AM, we headed to the border and Fujisawa-san realized he didn't have his duffel bag. He left it at a bar! We went back looking for it, but of course it was gone. And the worst part? His passport was inside!

So, we spent the next 5 hours on the streets of Mexico, waiting for the US border crossing admin offices to open. Then it finally did and we had to wait in line for hours. When we got there, they said he had to fly to Mexico City to get a waiver from the Japan embassy. Well, he was scheduled to do signings that day! Luckily, we talked them out of it, and they granted temporary permission to cross. Whew, we barely made it to the signings.

I'll never forget that night!!

In early 2011, our #1 company Borders went bankrupted and liquidated. They owed us close to $1 MM and didn't pay a dime. Further, with Borders gone, we overnight lost 1/3 of our sales on all titles (since they were 1/3 of our market). Our company operated with very tight profit margins, so we were unable to sustain the impact of that double-whammy and needed to close down our LA publishing office, in order to pay our creditors.

Overall, I believe the disruption of book publishing is similar to what already happened in music and what is happening in film. Barnes & Noble will most likely not last for too many years either, and almost all books will either be purchased at boutique shops that are managed via the passion of the owner, or Amazon. It's certainly not the direction I wanted for the American market, but it's a societal trend that is unstoppable - technology disrupts all industries and takes no prisoners.

Hope this answers your question - thank you for asking!

Hi, and thanks for supporting! Your collection sounds amazing!

So, here are some answers:

(1) in the beginning, it was me in my tiny apartment in Japan, reading manga and going with what I enjoyed the most (assuming the companies would license them to me). As the company grew, it turned into a committee, with editors making recommendations, and licensing people negotiating deals. I couldn't sit around reading manga anymore with a legit business excuse :-(

(2) I think when we started to brand TOKYOPOP with consistent covers across our titles, a uniform format, in-store displays, and other marketing approaches that had not been done yet in books - that really helped a lot. Oh, and of course amazing manga!

(3) I believe the future is digital. Certainly, paper will always have its fans, since for those of us (especially of a certain age) who grew up with it, nothing will replace it. But for the younger generation, the convenience, immediacy and organic nature of digital is key.

I hope this answers your questions - and best of luck to you! Ganbatte!!

We provide POD (Print-on-Demand) copies of the books we have rights to (via RightStuf.com) and will continue to do so as long as there is demand. We are also considering working closer with Amazon.

Print is still a preference for many people - but the retail book distribution system is challenging nowadays. Comic book shop owners are doing an incredible job - and hopefully they will consider manga too.

Oh, wow, that would be AMAZING, wouldn't it? You're tempting me :-)