Kodansha/Del Rey Tidbit #967,201
Man, this image is gonna come in handy a LOT.
David Welsh has a nice primer up on the recent Kodansha/Del Rey Manga newschunk, and I noticed this little bit:
As for other sources of licenses, ([April]) Flores noted, “[Del Rey has] licensed titles from other companies — one example would be The Phoenix Wright Official Casebook manga coming out in October, which we licensed from Capcom.”
Um, the ([]) was to denote that it was me putting them in; the regular brackets were Welsh. Anyway, is this a hint that Del Rey will look into licensing more titles from other companies, or just a reminder that it’s a possibility? There are, after all, many publishers that aren’t Shueisha, Shogakukan, or Kodansha: Yen Press is shaping up to do very well with a number of titles they acquired from Square Enix, for example.
Tags: del-rey-manga, kodansha
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:01 pm
But Gyuaken Saiban was published in Young Magazine, which is published by Kodansha. I don’t think it’s that hard to see how they got the Capcom license through Kodansha.
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Dallas has noted at previous cons that they CAN go to other companies for licenses, they just haven’t as they had a ton of Kodansha to work with. So they’re not bound exclusively, I believe.
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Sean… They definitely are not tied to Kodansha. The Train Man novel was not from Kodansha. And I believe the Koga Scrolls novel was from Kadokawa (at least initially). But yeah, as far as manga is concerned they haven’t gone away from Kodansha despite often saying they would eventually.
And didn’t a Del Rey rep say at AnimeNext that they had a hard time with Phoenix Wright because of having to go through Kodansha and Capcom. That extra layer delayed the manga release, or something like that.
And actually the number of Pubs left while still numerous by American standards are not so many if you follow this formula…
I’ll denote partnerships/ownerships with a *
Shoujo Pubs…
Shueisha - Viz*
Shogakukan - Viz*
Hakusensha - Viz* (as Hakusensha is a Shoujo Beat partner) + CMX almost the entire CMX shoujo line up is from here
Kodansha - KoUSA*
Shinshokan - DMP*
Ohzora - Aurora*
Akita Shoten - Go Comi
Asahi Sonorama - Aurora
Kadokawa - TP??
Houbunsha - Yen
Poplar - XXX2??
Tousuisha - ??
Libre - ??
Ichijinsha - ??
MediaWorks - ??
Shounen
Shueisha - Viz*
Shogakukan - Viz*
Kodansha - KoUSA*
MagGarden - TP*??
JIVE - Broccoli*, Aurora
Kadokawa - TP??, CMX, Dark Horse. ADV??
SquareEnix - Yen
Media Works - Seven Seas, DrMaster, Broccoli, Infinity??, ADV??
Media Factory - XXX??, DrMaster
Futabasha - DrMaster, Seven Seas
Fujimi Shobo - CMX, ADV??
FLEX - CMX*
Akita Shoten - Media Blasters
Tokuma Shoten - ??
Coamix - ??
Seinen
Sho/Shu - Viz*
Kodansha - KoUSA*
SquEnix - Yen
Media Works - DrMaster, Seven Seas, Infinity??
enterbrain! - CMX
Kadokawa - Dark Horse
Koike Shoin - Dark Horse
Futabasha - Dark Horse
Gentosha - TP*??
Akita Shoten ??
MediaFactory - XXX??
Wani Books - ??, ??
Hakusensha - ??
Shonen Gahosha - ??
LEED - ??
NichBungei - ??
TakeShobo - ??
Ichijinsha - ??
Killtime - ??
JigyoNihonsha - ??
I won’t even go into Josei because… We are a long way from that. Though the BL sector would be interesting given how three pubs are tied with DMP.
So yeah Del Rey has options, but it is now going to have get into a very competitive licensing business. And the shoujo sector in particular is very very tight. Shounen is tough because there is so much competition for the mid-majors. And the smaller licensors don’t have the media tie-ins they like. Seinen is wide open but as DH knows seinen is risky business.
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:35 am
I really wonder what their first rollout of titles will be. Most of Kodansha’s big name recognition shonen is already out here. Maybe Over Drive (their Tour De France manga) or Bari Bari Densetsu from the 80s (another racing manga, which was made into the video game Gunboy).
Shoujo has a bit more potential, as there’s one thing Kodansha could do to immediately get the fans on their side - re-released, proper Japanese names, uncut Sailor Moon. Hopefully the new remastering done in Japan recently.
Seinen is risky business but is indeed wide open, as you noted. We’ve seen so much from Afternoon, I’d love for some more Morning or Evening titles to get a shot. Planetes and Gon were big ‘blogger’ hits over here, if not big actual hits. :) Ooooh, Moyashimon manga?
But really, if they want to show up Viz and its Naruto sales, the first question is immediately obvious: what can they release that can also get a big anime release on television?