ICv2 got a chance to chat up former TOKYOPOP-er, current TOKYOPOP Media-er Mike Kiley regarding Tpop’s restructuring, including some information on its cutbacks in output. Reading through it, there isn’t a ton of new information, mostly generalities and even a few evasions. But we do glean that…

- About 80 scheduled 2008 releases will not happen this year. (”I would guess the total releases for ‘08 will go down to the very low 400s–a diminution of about 80 titles.”)
- The new company, TOKYOPOP Media, will handle the TOKYOPOP.com website– hopefully they’ll make it better.
- They have been in touch with their artists on a group level and are planning to contact them individually in the near future.

And finally…

We’re Tokyopop. We do ridiculous things and reinvent ourselves all the time. That’s who we are.

Well, who’m I to argue with that?

Back when everyone was ranting and raving at TOKYOPOP I noted my suspicions that T-pop was having trouble making ends meet with much of its OEL, and judging by their press release, I may not have been too far off the mark: TOKYOPOP is going through a “progressive” (or at least agressive) reorganization, forming a new company called TOKYOPOP Media LLC for its comics-to-film and new media works, while TOKYOPOP Inc. will continue handling the manga and other graphic novels.

The news isn’t all good (or at least positive-sounding): T-pop plans to lay off 39 people, although it hasn’t stated who or from what departments. They also intend to scale back their output somewhat.

Some of the language of the press release, though, actually tells me they’re going to focus MORE on their own original works:

Pointing to prominent successes in online video (www.youtube.com/tokyopoptv and www.myspace.com/tokyopop) and mobile, both Levy and Kiley are optimistic about the future. Levy added “Our goal is for TOKYOPOP Media to become one of the go-to production entities in Hollywood by building global entertainment franchises across media platforms.”

I can’t help but think that TOKYOPOP is no longer getting the top-tier licenses it used to– the last announcement they had that made me go “OH!” was Manga Sutra –and that’s the reason for its dedicated focus on creating its own original works, which it can license into merchandise and films and whatnot as it pleases. But if I may say this without summoning the ghost of manga vs comics debates past, it seems like many of their most popular global titles are decidedly more western than manga-ish– the Warcraft books, I Luv Halloween, adaptations of The Warriors and whatnot…

Which is not to diminish them, by the way. It just seems that T-pop is developing into less of a manga publisher and more of a western comics publisher, and even Levy says that their output has been behind only Marvel and D.C. in quantity in the last few years.

I’m debating shipping out an e-mail to my contact at TOKYOPOP, but I expect they’re a bit busy right now, and probably wouldn’t have an answer for whether the scaling back was going to be more in licensed works or in original works.