YAOI NEWS: TOKYOPOP Addresses Licensing

TOKYOPOP has finally made a statement regarding the status of their existing licenses. Here is the statement as posted on their Facebook account:

Dear fans,

It's been a while since we've commented on the status of all the titles that are left unfinished or unpublished. Just so you know, we're still reading all of your comments and want to explain a few things:

Our general absence on Facebook hasn't gone unnoticed, but it's mainly due to the fact that we were looking for answers to all of your questions too! Shutting down a publishing company like TOKYOPOP isn't exactly pulling a plug out of a wall, so please understand that it might take a little bit longer than usual before we get to your questions.

-Secondly, we're very grateful that even in these hard times, our fans still stand behind us. Of course, there are some rants here and there … but we can't blame you for being emotional; so are we. It means a lot to us to still receive fan mail on a daily base and read all of your comments here in Facebook. It's good to know that even when TOKYOPOP is gone, the community will still remain.

-Thirdly, the unfinished/unpublished titles. What is going to happen to them? To be honest: it's out of our hands now. The licenses belong to the original Japanese creators, so it's up to them what to do with the series. They might pull the plug on some series, or find another publishing company to complete their series. The best thing that you can do is keep supporting the original creators, hoping that they'll here your cries like we did so many years ago.

If you have any questions, we will try to answer as many of them as possible. We're here, we're listening and we're answering …

With love,

TOKYOPOP ♥

There have been a lot of questions about what will happen to our favorite boys' love titles. The first question that needed to be answered was what the status of the existing licenses were at time time of TOKYOPOP's closing. Now that that question has been answered, the next question would be who could possibly pick up said titles and would they? Of course, everyone has immediately thought of Digital Manga but let me say that I've personally had discussions about this with TWO publishers, both showing interest in saving some of these licenses. For right now, who they are will need to remain a mystery.

Let's just hope they can pull through and rescue some of these amazing titles.

Thanks to Deb Aoki from manga.about.com for pointing this out on Twitter last night.

~Jennifer LeBlanc

3 Comments

Jb May 25, 2011 at 6:36 PM

Here’s hoping that Togainu no Chi, Vassalord, Saiyuki, Junjo Romantica, Gorgeous Carat (Esperansa), and Martin & John get saved.

[Reply to this comment]
Kee June 1, 2011 at 7:10 PM

As well as Love Pistols!

[Reply to this comment]
serena June 23, 2011 at 9:57 PM

play save
Junjou Romantica
Sekaiichi Hatsukoi
i was really happy to hear that sekaiichi hatsukoi was going to be release in north America but than that happiness faint when i hear that tokyopop was shunting down and i also love junjou romantica with all my heart my mom even give me 300 dollars just to buy all the junjou romantica dvds and accessories she also give me a little extra so i could be able to buy sekaiichi hatsukoi first volume when it came out but now am just heart broken please please please nakamura shungiku sensei and publishers please save this two anime save them please am begging save them ill even buy all of the dvds and accessories that comes with it just please save them so my heart won’t be so broken please nakamura shungiku sensei save junjou romantica and sekaiichi hatsukoi they really are beautiful anime please save them so that way i won’t be so depressed

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