Tokyopop

**Tokyopop** (styled **TOKYOPOP**; formerly known as **Mixx Entertainment**) is an American distributor, licensor and publisher of anime, manga, manhwa and Western manga-style works. The German publishing division produces German translations of licensed Japanese properties and original English-language manga, as well as original German-language manga. Tokyopop's US publishing division publishes works in English. Tokyopop has its US headquarters near LAX in Los Angeles, California. Its parent company's offices are in Tokyo, Japan and its sister company's offices is in Hamburg, Germany.

## History

### Early history

Tokyopop was founded in 1997 by Stuart J. Levy. In the late 1990s, the company's headquarters were in Los Angeles.

While the company was known as Mixx Entertainment, it sold *MixxZine*, a manga magazine where popular serials like *Sailor Moon* were published weekly. *Mixxzine* later became *Tokyopop* before it was discontinued. Capitalizing on the popularity of *Sailor Moon,* Mixx also created the magazine, *Smile*, a magazine that was half girls’ magazine, and half shōjo manga anthology, and also continued the *Sailor Moon* story after being discontinued in *Mixxzine*.

Cultural anthropologist Rachel Thorn praised Stu Levy for opening up an untapped market for animation with the publication of *Sailor Moon* and other. Before *Sailor Moon*, the belief among entertainment executives was that "girls don't watch cartoons."  Due to *Sailor Moon’s* immense popularity, Tokyopop discontinued the serial from its magazines, and released it separately as its first manga graphic novel. They engineered prominent book distribution via retail stores, standardized book trim size, created a basic industry-wide rating system, and developed the first-ever retail manga displays and introduced the world of graphic novels to an audience of teenage girls. Also, together with Diamond, Tokyopop offered retailers free spinner rack displays for Tokyopop manga, thereby increasing the visibility of the medium in bookstores.

Tokyopop also licensed and distributed Japanese anime. In 1996, Mixx Entertainment acquired the rights to the anime biopic of Japanese poet Kenji Miyazawa, and Stu Levy produced and directed the English version of the anime film, entitled “Spring and Chaos.” The film was directed and scripted by Shoji Kawamori, who created Super Dimensional Fortress Macross and The Vision of Escaflowne. Taste of Cinema ranked “Spring and Chaos” thirteenth in its list of Top “25 Weird Animated Movies That Are Worth Your Time.” From 2000 to 2004, Tokyopop released multiple film and television projects such as *Street Fury*, which Stu Levy created, *GTO* (English version for Showtime TV), *Rave Master* (English version for Cartoon Network's Toonami), and *Reign: The Conqueror* (English version for Cartoon Network's Adult Swim.) Tokyopop also released English version DVDs for: *Initial D*, *Marmalade Boy*, *Saint Tail*, *Samurai Girl: Real Bout High School*, *Vampire Princess Miyu*, *Brigadoon*, *FMW*, *High School Ghostbusters.*

### "100% Authentic Manga"

In 2002, Tokyopop launched its line of "100% Authentic Manga", which was printed in the original Japanese right-to-left format and included the original Japanese printed sound effects.

In Japan, all published manga is written to read from right to left, but when an English translation was published in the U.S., however, the common practice was to use computer-reversed or mirror images that allowed the books to read from left to right. As a result, this distorted the artwork. Tokyopop's decision to use the original right-to-left format allowed the artwork to keep its original form and also enabled Tokyopop to release most graphic novel series on a frequency three-to-six times faster than the then current industry standard. Tokyopop volumes hit the shelves monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly versus the six months or longer typical of competitors. It also allowed Tokyopop to sell books for an industry-leading price point of $9.99 per book, at a time when most competitors charged $12.99 to $16.99 per book.

Tokyopop was the first U.S. publisher to adopt such a sweeping policy. While some Japanese manga artists had required that the English versions of their manga be published from right to left, Tokyopop was the first American publisher to unilaterally announce that it would maintain the original format for all of its future manga titles.

An "authentic manga" how-to guide was included in each graphic novel to keep readers from accidentally reading the final page first, and the authentic manga also featured special packaging.

### Rising Stars of Manga

Tokyopop launched their Global Manga publishing program in 2003 via the introduction of its "Rising Stars of Manga" talent competition. The competition called for American manga artists to submit 15-25 page English-language stories of any genre. The top 10 entries, as judged by Tokyopop editors, received cash prizes (between $500 - $2500) and were published in an anthology of the winning works. The grand prize winners were also given the chance to pitch full-length manga projects to Tokyopop for a chance to become professional manga-ka.

Tokyopop launched its first "Rising Stars of Manga" contest on August 15, 2002 and ended it on December 16, 2002, with more than five hundred American artists submitting their 15–25 page, English-language stories.

The 5th Rising Stars of Manga competition added the People's Choice award, where the top-20 finalists had their entire entries judged by the fans on the Tokyopop website. “We are really pleased to open up the Rising Stars judging to the fans," commented Tokyopop editor Rob Valois. "Since so many people have been vocal on the message boards and at industry conventions, we’re offering them all a chance to shape the future of manga. I’m personally excited to see how the fans’ favorite will compare to our own."

Tokyopop held eight Rising Stars of Manga competitions between 2002 and 2008, as well as one in the UK in 2005.

Several *Rising Stars of Manga* winners went on to publish full-length graphic novels with Tokyopop, including Josh Elder with *Mail Order Ninja*, M. Alice LeGrow with *Bizenghast*, Mike Schwark and Ron Kaulfersch with *Van Von Hunter,* Lindsay Cibos and Jared Hodges with *Peach Fuzz,* Wes Abbot with *Dogby Walks Alone*, Felipe Smith with *MBQ,* Nathan Maurer with *Atomic King Daidogan,*.[*citation needed*]

### Rise of Tokyopop

Tokyopop became one of the biggest manga publishers outside Japan, and as such, was attributed with popularizing manga in the United States. By 2004, it boasted the largest market share of manga sales in the U.S., reaching as high as 50% of manga exports to the United States, according to Nissei Weekly.

Tokyopop was also instrumental in the introduction of manhwa to western audiences. Brad Brooks and Tim Pilcher, authors of *The Essential Guide to World Comics. London*, said that Tokyopop "published many Korean artists' work, possibly without Western fans even realizing the strips don't come from Japan. Series like *King of Hell* by Kim Jae-hwan and Ra In-soo, and the Gothic vampire tale *Model* by Lee So-young are both Korean, but could easily be mistaken for manga." In 2005, Tokyopop began a new, free publication called *Manga* (originally *Takuhai*) to feature their latest releases.

In March 2006, Tokyopop and HarperCollins Publishers announced a co-publishing agreement in which the sale and distribution rights of some Tokyopop manga and books, under this co-publishing license, would be transferred to HarperCollins in mid-June 2006. The agreement enabled Tokyopop to produce original English-language (OEL) manga adaptations of HarperCollins' books. Meg Cabot's books were the first to be adapted into the manga format, along with the *Warriors* series by Erin Hunter. The first line of Tokyopop-HarperCollins OEL manga was released in 2007 with the goal of publishing up to 24 titles each year.

Tokyopop has released several series based on American games, films, and characters, such as *Warcraft*, the *Kingdom Hearts* video game series, and Jim Henson films. They released the first volume of a series based on the *Hellgate: London* video game in April 2008.

Tokyopop also helped to pioneer the Cine-Manga format, a blend of cinematic properties and sequential art that uses imagery from movies and television series. Levy secured licenses to publish Cine-Manga with major entertainment brands including Disney, Nickelodeon, DreamWorks, Paramount, Universal, and the NBA.

## Company Structure

### Naver Corporation (social media & digital services)

* Band (closed-type social network service)
* DeviantArt
* Cafe and Blog (user-generated content (UGC) platforms)
* Clova (virtual assistant)
* Knowledge iN (Q&A webpage service)
* Naver (search engine)
	+ Junior Naver "Juniver" (childrens' search engine)
* Naver Dictionary (
* Naver NOW. (South Korean streaming service)
* Naver Pay (mobile payment service)
* Naver TV (web broadcast network)
* Papago (AI-based mobile translator)
* V Live (global live-streaming platform)
* Webtoon (online comic service)
* Whale (web browser)
* Wix ()

### TOKYOPOP Manga (publishing division)

* Blu Manga
* Cine-Manga
* TOKYOPOP