Former Tokyopop Editor Tim Beedle Speaks About Experience

Former Tokyopop Editor Tim Beedle has given a first-hand account to AnimeVice on his experience working for Tokyopop until its last days. The account begins with the company’s rise to prominence and subsequent success with licensing titles such as Fruits Basket until the turning point which saw the publisher turn into the ultimately failed multimedia conglomerate. Below an excerpt from the account:

I joined TOKYOPOP right after it had experienced some of its biggest growth. Chobits, Mars, Love Hina, Samurai Deeper Kyo, Pet Shop of Horrors and Battle Royale had either just completed their publication or were in the midst of their release. TP had just announced that they had licensed Fruits Basket, and fans were positively elated. What I remember about my first two years was a real sense of optimism. The company was growing. Manga was exploding. Things were good. The biggest controversy TP had at the time concerned their translations, and it was good controversy to have. Yes, hiring Keith Giffen to completely rewrite Battle Royale infuriated the purists, but it got us reviews in major publications like Entertainment Weekly and Playboy, and helped us sell a great deal of copies in the direct market to comic book readers who previously never would have looked twice at a manga tankoubon. Licensing seemed to be going well, largely because there were still popular titles that had yet to be licensed.

I think it was this last point that really started the avalanche for TOKYOPOP. Sometime around 2005 or so, licensing really became more of a challenge. All of the highly demanded and anticipated titles in Japan had been licensed, and manga publishers were forced to switch from licensing titles with known demand to attempting to determine which titles currently being released in Japan might break out and become the next big thing. Combine that with far more players in the field (in addition to VIZ and Dark Horse, we now had Del Rey, Yen Press, CMX and Go! Comi) and exclusivity deals being signed by the biggest manga publishers in Japan, and all of a sudden this growing industry and company had hit a very real ceiling. TOKYOPOP had to figure out ways to supplement their bottom line and continue growing. One was to try licensing more titles from Korea, a strategy that seemed to meet with largely middling results.

Currently, Tokyopop is comprised of a European licensing/publishing division based in Germany, a multimedia production division and has recently confirmed via Facebook that its previous Japanese licenses have reverted to their original rights holders, allowing for the possibility of license rescues by other publishers.