Follow-up on Kodansha/Del Rey
So! I just got off the phone with Kodansha’s office in Tokyo– specifically with Tomoko Suga, a senior foreign rights manager for the company.
Unfortunately she couldn’t give me very many details on the company’s plans in terms of titles, genre, or dates– basically they’ve set up the company name and that’s about it so far. She DID tell me that there are going to be no immediate or direct changes to Kodansha’s deal with Del Rey Manga. This is slightly different from simply saying that Kodansha wasn’t pulling any licenses, as it means that presumably Del Rey Manga will be able to continue to license Kodansha titles (as most people have been speculating).
Chris Butcher has a little more to note: Dark Horse has lost their Akira license, and Tpop’s Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad license is also in question (though in Tpop’s case it’s hard to know if it was cancelled by Tpop or Kodansha).
Butcher also suggests that Kodansha may hope to rely on Del Rey’s (and parent company Random House’s) lengthy presence in the U.S. market to further their own sales and distribution aims, which is entirely within the realm of possibility.
With any luck there’ll be more to tell by the time I see the Del Rey folks at San Diego Comic Con!
Tags: del-rey-manga, kodansha
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:45 am
[...] Manry actually talked to someone at Kodansha, senior foreign rights manager Tomoko Suga, and this is what she got: [...]
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:11 am
Any guesses on the details with Dark Horse losing their license? Methinks it’s just because they’ve had that one for a while and their window has ended.
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:49 am
@jpmeyer: That’d be my guess– I mean, the fourth volume came out in September 2001. (http://www.darkhorse.com/reviews/previews.php?theid=40-372)
It looks like they had plans to reprint Akira (http://comics212.net/2008/06/17/one-more-step-down-the-road-for-the-kodansha-rumour/), and the original whisperer of the Kodansha rumors, Cthulhu, mentioned that at least one publisher had to cancel a printing job in a hurry.
So, my guess is that Dark Horse was hoping to get a reprinting in before the contract expired, and Kodansha pulled the license a bit early.
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:33 pm
[...] we will continue to publish all of our manga. Kodansha has not pulled any licenses back from us.”Writer Gia Manry spoke to Kodansha’s senior foreign rights manager Tomoko Suga, who confirmed “that there are going [...]