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I was about to defend Tokyopop, but…
I couldn’t even check my e-mail today without tripping over the announcement:
and Anime News Network reprinted the original press release:
Tokyopop spilts into two: Tokyopop Inc. for publishing, and Tokyopop Media for “new media,” digital applications, & a to-be-hoped-for-but-still-unrealized comics-to-film business. Both companies will be part of the Tokyopop Group (incorporated in Japan).
Typically a reorganization and spin-off is done to isolate risk, maximize business potential of individual units, and present clear options to investors for business segments that, while related, depart radically from a firm’s core business. AT&T from ‘95-’97 springs immediately to mind (even over the breakup of the Bells, which was ordered by the courts) as the AT&T-NCR-Lucent division was done voluntarily — and presumably was purely a business decision.
So it’s just business, not the end of the world.
As Tokyopop isn’t a publicly traded company (and doesn’t have to play these investor games if they don’t want to), I have to wonder why bother with a reorganisation at all, unless of course one expects a part of the business to tank, tank hard, and tank soon.
On the Plus Side:
1) Tokyopop still has their Tokyo office. In fact, the parent Tokyopop company is incorporated in Japan, and when they flirted with an IPO in 2005 one interesting twist was that the company’s listing would be on the Japanese stock exchange, rather than Nasdaq or NYSE.
Being in Japan is a Big Plus. Corporate relations in Japan are still about personal relationships and personal guarantees …I think. My impression (as an American otaku who has learned everything he knows about Japan, for good or ill, from years of exposure to anime and manga) is that there is no way to do business in Japan unless you are willing to go out and drink beer and sake until your customers & partners feel comfortable with you as a person.
Given this ‘fact’, my lack of employment in the industry (Hello?! a natural affinity, 90 kilos of mass, and a tolerance 20 years in the making — combined with an enthusiasm for the material, a modicum of business sense and a fair ear for languages? If you need an otaku who can drink your Japanese counterparts under the table in the name of securing licensing deals, I’m Your Man.) remains a mystery.
2) Tokyopop still has their investors, foreign and domestic. Actually, the number of Japanese investors can certainly be taken as a good sign.
3) Tokyopop still has the distribution deal and co-publishing agreement with HarperCollins. The initial reporting and press releases didn’t quote a time frame, so one must assume that it was for several years, and possibly an agreement that would continue indefinitely so long as it is convenient to both parties.
Negatives:
Mike Kiley commented, “There has never been a time better for a graphic novel based creative studio such as ours. Over the past three years, we have produced more than 25,000 pages of original comics/manga material, making us the North American leader in production outside of Marvel and DC.
…unless you mean ‘produced’ in the Hollywood-movie-sense (which is also wrong, actually) then you are missing the point. (and I’ve drilled Marvel on this same point: you can publish comics and reap the benefits, or not. But even if comic-derived-benefits are super sweet, remember, the derivatives are not your core business.) Then again, Mike has been tapped to helm the new ‘Hollywood’ division of T’pop, so perhaps his word choice is prescient.
BUT, and once again,
It’s not ‘material’, it’s not a ‘property’ or ‘title’. It’s a damn book. You sell books. Books aren’t sexy, they aren’t web 2.0 or ’social networking’ or ‘participatory content’ — yeah, the kids like the manga, but that doesn’t make it Facebook or MySpace or LiveJournal.
This is an error that Tokyopop has made in the past and perpetuated, now that I think of it, from 1999 up until the present day.
It’s not about the web (unless we’re talking webcomics) — It’s very early days yet in the 21st century and right now, it is still all about Ink and Paper. If you forget that the point is to put ink-on-paper into customer’s hands (for $10 a pop) then I can’t help you. Shuffle the deck chairs as much as you want, your ship is still sinking.
##
This may be an insurmountable negative, actually.
I started this article as a defence of Tokyopop, and let me stress I certainly don’t wish them ill but I also can’t save them from their own stupidity. Give me 8 paragraphs to explain:
Publishing is boring. Book sales are boring. But while boring, the production and sale of books — like farming and widget manufacture — is all about delivering needed and wanted commodities to a hungry market. And done right, it’ll pay the bills.
Film and media deals are ’sexy’, but manga shouldn’t be a sexy business. (the product can be sexy, yes please & thank you, but the business itself –not so much.) It’s a simple formula: Print books. Get them into stores. Take my $10 multiple times a week, every week, every month, in a very boring but sustainable business cycle.
One hopes that Tokyopop Inc. (the new publishing-only division) now divested of it’s gold-rush, lottery-ticket-buying, “billions are just around the corner” media division will buckle down and get to the boring (but customer-satisfying) business of printing and selling the damn books.
But one fears that all the time, effort, and abilities of the top corporate staff will instead be diverted to the pursuit of Hollywood dreams — forgetting that the family business was built on books, and that books are still your best bet. Per answers.com, Tokyopop only had 90 employees before the layoff: they just purged 40% of their staff — and they just split the staff two ways. What, exactly, is their new focus going to be, and how can they focus on anything with the scant personnel that are left?
Answers.com also lists Tokyopop’s 2007 sales at only $10.9M. Sales of $11M is nothing to sneeze at; that’s (rough numbers, at list price) somewhere between 800k to an even million units, not considering the stub business of DVD.
Strike that. Tokyopop had done some DVD releases circa 2004 (Initial D, Great Teacher Onizuka, Marmalade Boy, Real Bout High School) but FUNimation took over those licenses (preserving the Bang Zoom dubs, thankfully, though repackaging the DVDs) (and Real Bout High School dropped through the cracks and off the face of the planet, and while Marmalade Boy is listed in a Funimation press release I still can’t buy it.)
$11M is still 11 million, and yet… it seems small.
In fact, the failure of their DVD business is a lesson that Tokyopop didn’t learn. If you couldn’t license and sell anime DVDs during the decade, now passed (alas) when fans were snapping up anime titles, regardless of actual quality or merit, like they were about to go out of style (smart move on our part in retrospect, actually) then no matter how many Death Notes and Narutos show up (…both property of Viz — VIZ — and both spectacular exceptions at that; what are you people thinking?) that doesn’t mean anything. Zip. Zilch. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns and all that. And if you think Iron Man and Batman are your business models, hey, pass the splif — that’s some good shit you’re smoking.
I wish Tokyopop well. Maybe they know something I don’t
But I’d like to personally recommend that they get back to the boring business of publishing books as soon as possible.
Posted by Matt Blind on June 3rd, 2008
under snark, publishing news.
Comments
Pingback from Tokyopop Reorganizes » Comics Worth Reading
Time: June 4, 2008, 6:44 am
[…] Matt Blind at ComicSnob has an excellent analysis from a business perspective. Typically a reorganization and spin-off is done to isolate risk, maximize business potential of individual units, and present clear options to investors for business segments that, while related, depart radically from a firm’s core business. […]
Pingback from MangaBlog » Blog Archive » One Robofish, Two Robofish…
Time: June 4, 2008, 7:19 am
[…] Everyone is still reacting to yesterday’s news that Tokyopop is splitting in two, one unit for books, the other for all other media. That part actually makes sense, but the word that they will be cutting the number of releases in half, and laying off 39 employees (out of 90-100, so that’s a big bite), gave many people pause. Christopher Butcher parses the whole thing extremely well at Comics212, looking at several possible scenarios for the rest of this year and critiquing some of the critics. (Chris reads the ANN forums so you don’t have to!) Matt Blind has some interesting analysis of the business side at Comicsnob. At Shuchaku-East, Chloe hopes the pruning of their list will come more in the form of not picking up new titles than dropping established ones mid-series. At Manga Xanadu, Lori Henderson thinks the split is a good move for Tokyopop, as the digital stuff has been distracting from the books. I’m inclined to agree. Tokyopop suffers from an extreme lack of focus—they toss out a lot of ideas, some good, some bad, and then don’t follow up. I also agree with Lori that more focus on the global titles is not a bad thing, if they pick strong books and give them the support they need. As Johanna Draper Carlson observes, Says Stuart Levy, CEO, “Few releases will allow for less cannibalization at retail.” Which seems to imply that they think people aren’t buying TP book 1 because they’re buying TP book 2. I don’t think that’s right, based on my own experience: instead of buying TP book 1, I buy a Viz or a Del Rey or an Aurora (when it comes to josei) title. […]
Comment from Xenos
Time: June 4, 2008, 3:59 pm
Amen. You’re preaching to the choir here. I’m glad to hear other people trying to remind TokyoPop that they’re a publisher first and not a Hollywood studio. I’m also glad to hear someone remembers their abysmal venture into anime DVDs.
I do disagree on one thing. Books can be sexy. Though maybe it’s me being a bookworm and my thing for the saucy librarian look.
Comment from Matt Blind
Time: June 4, 2008, 7:30 pm
From where I am sitting right now I can see 8 R.O.D. manga, the OVA disc and the 7 DVDs of ROD the TV in their attractive art box sitting mockingly on the shelf as if they have something to say to me about books being Exciting.
I love books; I work 40 hours a week in a bookstore and then (you’ll think I’m nuts) go to other bookstores on my days and evenings off.
I call the business boring, and in the past I have logged many hours in a back room, either taking books out of boxes or putting them back in for returns, so I know more than a little of the slog and drudge. Anyone who has curled up with a good book knows books are exciting. The business of selling books — not so much.
Still, it is a solid respectable business, worthy of respect and indeed, I have a great deal of respect for authors, editors, and publishers.
The execs who can only think of licensed toys, movie deals, and kids’ afternoon tv shows? They don’t share our love of books and respect for creators. I’m not saying no one in publishing should be in it for the money — we’re all in it for the money — but the book itself is also due at least as much reverence as the almighty dollar.
Comment from Lea Hernandez
Time: June 5, 2008, 1:26 am
If you hear about two jobs, send me the other one. I can help a company make their books look good, teach people how to proofread, and slap anyone who says “progressive” right the eff upside their head.
And no one gets to wear yellow-lensed sunglasses. Jesus on a pogo stick.
I heard five years ago that TP had gotten a Japanese company to invest in them. I wonder if that is why the IPO would’ve been on the Japanese stock market? It fits.
Comment from Glenn Kardy
Time: June 5, 2008, 1:50 am
I can honestly say that I’ve never been out drinking with my three best-selling manga-ka.
Of course, there’s been many a missed deadline when they’ve driven me to drink alone!
Comment from Matt Blind
Time: June 5, 2008, 2:45 am
For good or for ill, everything I know I’ve learned from anime and manga.
If I have the wrong impression, my only defence is that this is the impression they gave me.
Comment from mochiazn
Time: June 5, 2008, 2:51 am
To clarify, and hopefully not to put certain former Tokyopop employees at risk, but it was probably a good thing the IPO never happened since the japanese companies were not happy with the result of Tokyopop’s translation and reprinting of their manga here in the US. It wasn’t even a reprint job, it really was like a sweat shop doing knock offs of mangas from Japan. In some cases, especially during the early days, they were scanning not for clean files, digital files, or even good hard copies of the pages, but from published books already printed on newsprint. And the gall of it all, was the decision to reprint then here in the US on cheap newsprint quality stock paper, from bad scan and quark jobs, then turning around and putting a $9.99 price tag! If manga fans knew how butchered the books were and how ghetto it was, things might be different for Tokyopop today.
Pingback from Blog@Newsarama » Blog Archive » Still more on Tokyopop
Time: June 5, 2008, 9:05 am
[…] Matt Blind: As Tokyopop isn’t a publicly traded company (and doesn’t have to play these investor games if they don’t want to), I have to wonder why bother with a reorganisation at all, unless of course one expects a part of the business to tank, tank hard, and tank soon. […]
Comment from Simon Jones
Time: June 5, 2008, 11:08 am
” In some cases, especially during the early days, they were scanning not for clean files, digital files, or even good hard copies of the pages, but from published books already printed on newsprint.”
Is that really Tokyopop’s fault, or Japanese publishers not being quick to share press-quality manuscript? I’ve heard this spun both ways…
Pingback from ZEITGEIST / More On Tokyopop Re-Structuring
Time: June 5, 2008, 6:18 pm
[…] More On Tokyopop Re-Structuring * a solid, general links round-up can be found here. * Heidi MacDonald names some names that may be among the departed. If true, the presence of people on the list heading just-announced programs seems to indicate something other than strategic pruning planned out well in advance and more like a heave and shudder kind of move. * I enjoyed the analysis here. * the interesting rumor that spins out of this comments section and continues over into Chris Butcher’s is some sort of Kodansha announcement of their own imprint and their desire to end a lot of licensing arrangements? This would be major news if someone not named after a dark lord of the madness at the center of the universe could confirm. […]
Comment from Lea Hernandez
Time: June 5, 2008, 7:06 pm
I’ve worked for the two best translation and retouch studios in the U.S.; Studio Proteus and Studio Cutie. I sure as hell noticed how lousy the books were, and it was galling, the crowing over “authentic manga.” Such a huge lie.
Part of what’s skunking TP now are the kids that bought that authentic shit are now six and seven years older. They’re high school age and college age. The bullshit no longer dazzles.
Of course, comics press also bought that shit. I have no idea why.
Pingback from Journalista - the news weblog of The Comics Journal » Blog Archive » June 4, 2008: Brian Braddock does not like Mondays
Time: June 14, 2008, 12:51 am
[…] For sensible commentary on Tokyopop’s possible motives and business strategy, here’s Christopher Butcher (this one’s the must-read), Matt Blind and Simon Jones. […]
Pingback from Otakunvirka » Tokyopopin joutsenlaulu
Time: June 17, 2008, 6:11 pm
[…] Pahat kielet puhuvat, että selittelyistä huolimatta jakaantuminen kahdeksi yhtiöksi on varotoimenpide horisontissa häämöttävän uusmediakuplan puhkeamisen varalta - Tokyopop on investoinut netti- ja kännykkämangoihinsa, flash-animaatioihinsa ja luoja ties mihin suurimman osan ajastaan ja rahoistaan viimeisen parin vuoden ajan, eivätkä ne selvästikään ole kantaneet hedelmää. Kyse olisi siis kansituolien uudelleenjärjestelystä siltä varalta, että osa liiketoiminnasta uppoaa pian - amputaatiosta kuolion takia. […]
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