Back on January 14th I shot off an email to Elisa Tung over at Aurora Publishing inquiring about their holiday sale and to see if they had planned on continuing the sale (they are). I received no response back until January 27th, which was from a different party at Aurora, a Mikako Ogata who from what my research tells me is Aurora's General Manager. She informed me Elisa was no longer with Aurora but gave no reason why. Something about the email made me think it was initially coming from their Japan office so I started to wonder about their US office. I decided to do some investigating and tried to call their phone and fax number as listed on their website only to find out both have been disconnected. I then shot off an email back to Mikako and she informed me that the office was not closed but that they "can’t really publish new titles for a while due to the very severe economy". She went on to say if they do publish a new title they "will announce it on [their] websites as well as [their] newletter". Now if you remember correctly, their December newsletter stating the following:

Sorry Guys! Nothing yet! But there will be something soon! Shhh! It's gonna be "Kinky But Kind!" >.> Don't tell anyone I told you…

Their recently sent January newsletter had no updates, which leads me to believe we won't be seeing Kinky But Kind any time soon.

To add to my speculation, it has now been announced that they are having a liquidation sale in Los Angeles with prices at nearly 90% off retail. For more details, check out Deb Aoki's writeup over at About.com: Manga that has all the details and a recap of Deux's sales over the last year.

On the other hand, Deux's website was updated to advertise the Valentine's Day sale of their sister imprint, LuvLuv but they also gave this Deux title update:

Don’t forget that we’re still running our special Aurora & Deux sales (see our "Holiday Deals" below). For our special Deux sale, Mister Mistress Volume 2 is completely sold out. But, Maid in Heaven is now back in stock!!

While discussing this whole situation with Deb Aoki she made a good point by questioning why they would do a reprint on Maid in Heaven. If they were truly liquidating and closing up shop, why spend money on an out of print title?

So what does this all mean? Was Elisa laid-off in preparation of shutting down the office or did she simply leave the company? Are the phones disconnected as a way to save money during these lean times or is this just another step towards shutting down the office altogether? Is this major sale with slashed prices a way to liquidate their remaining stock to offset their losses or just a way to build up some capital to keep publishing? Honestly, I don't know. All I do know is what Aurora tells me and that is what we all already know, they aren't publishing right now and by the looks of it, they won't be for awhile.

What can we do to help? They're still holding their holiday sale and you're not going to find prices much cheaper than these unless you can make it to the sale in L.A. My suggestion is to purchase whatever you don't already have and hope for the best. Worst case, you walk away with some cheap yaoi before it goes out of print and best case we infuse them with enough capital that they are able to hold on to publish again in the future.

What are your thoughts? Discussion is encouraged here on the site so please comment, even if it's just your well wishes.

~Jennifer LeBlanc