PR: Kodansha USA and Random House Announce New Manga Partnership

By now, you’ve heard the news about Kodansha’s new venture with Random House: Kodansha USA will be publishing manga here in the US “with strong support from Random House Publisher Services (RHPS), Random House’s third-party distribution division.” The key provisions of the new arrangement are as follows:

• Kodansha USA will be releasing works directly into the American market; Del Rey Manga will no longer license Kodansha properties.
• Kodansha USA will assume responsibility for manga originally licensed to Del Rey (e.g. xxxHolic, Negima!). The decision to continue these series will be made on a title-by-title basis.
• Dallas Middaugh, the Associate Publisher for Del Rey Manga, will be part of this new venture, working for RHPS.

I can’t say I’m surprised by the news. As I’ve noted here and elsewhere, Del Rey’s strongest sellers in 2009 were adaptations of Cartoon Network shows, outperforming perennial sellers such as Negima! and Shugo Chara. There were other signs that change was afoot at Del Rey: the company hadn’t made any major licensing announcements for a while (no, I don’t count Fairy Navigator Runa or Codebreakers as significant acquisitions), nor were they releasing as many volumes of manga as they had just two or three years ago.

From a strategic standpoint, the new partnership with Random House makes good sense. Kodansha will save money and exert greater control over the finished product by releasing it directly to the US market, rather than farming out that responsibility to a licensee; at the same time, Kodansha will have an experienced American partner to assist with editing, packaging, marketing, and distribution. That second point is especially important. As Christopher Butcher notes at Comics212, Kodansha USA made a less-than-stellar impression on retailers and fans in 2009 when it charged $24.99 for flipped, censored editions of AKIRA and Ghost in the Shell that were printed on flimsy paper. By bringing Dallas Middaugh aboard, Kodansha benefits from his knowledge of the American market: what sells, what doesn’t, and what fans expect to see when they pay $10, $12, or $25 for a single volume of manga.

What Kodansha hasn’t done is engage readers in a dialogue about its plans. Yes, senior management spoke to Publishers’ Weekly about the forthcoming partnership, but Kodansha has yet to create a proper website (the embedded link within the press release points to a non-existent page) or meet with journalists and fans face-to-face. (Kodansha’s New York Comic-Con panel, originally scheduled for 10:45 AM on October 10th, simply disappeared from the Events calendar with no notice.) I understand that Kodansha employees are reluctant to speak before the company has determined what and when it will publish, but in refusing to reach out to fans at all, they’re allowing fan and journalist speculation to take the place of productive discussion about the company’s plans. Let’s hope they get cracking on a new website soon.

The full text of the press release is below. Hat tips to Deb Aoki, Melinda Beasi, and Tom Spurgeon, all of whom broke the news this morning via Twitter and their respective websites.

Continue reading »

PR: Naruto Turns Ten!

Mark your calendars, Naruto fans: the boy ninja celebrates his eleventh — or is it his twelfth? — birthday on October 10th. The series debuted in Shonen Jump in 1999; going by traditional East Asian practices for determining age, however, that would make Naruto at least twelve, if you consider 1999 to be his “birth” year, or fourteen, if you view 1997 — the year he first appeared in a short story by Masashi Kishimoto — as his true DOB. However old the flame-haired ninja will be, VIZ will be releasing new Naruto merchandise and sponsoring a variety of promotional events to celebrate the occasion, including a giveaway in conjunction with New York Comic-Con. I’m a little sorry I won’t be in Times Square to see the cosplaying ninjas on October 8th, though a Naruto-themed contest sounds like a swell challenge for the new season of The Apprentice. Details below.

Continue reading »

Review Redux: Cat-Eyed Boy, Vols. 1-2

Kazuo Umezu’s writing defies easy categorization. His horror stories unfold in an almost haphazard fashion, seldom offering Western readers the kind of inevitable showdown between supernatural menace and righteous avenger that’s de rigeur in grindhouse flicks. In a less charitable mood, I might suggest that Umezu was simply making it up as he went along, adding whatever Grand Guignol flourishes tickled his fancy; in a more critically responsible frame of mind, I’d argue that Umezu uses non-sequitors, heightened realism, and Freudian imagery to create a hallucinatory atmosphere that thumbs its nose at logic or teleology.

Continue reading »

Friday Procrastination Aids, 10/1/10

The panel and programming schedule for New York Comic-Con is now live! If you’ll be at the show on Sunday, October 10, please come see the Good Comics for Kids panel at 10:45 AM in room 1A22. Our team of experts — including Brigid Alverson, Robin Brenner, Esther Keller, Scott Robins, Eva Volin, and me — will be discussing how to build a good graphic novel collection for younger readers, exploring issues of interest to librarians (e.g. collection policies) as well as issues of wider concern to parents and teachers (e.g. age ratings).

This week’s giveaway is a Crazy Shojo Sampler that includes volumes one and two of Natsumi Itsuki’s Demon Sacred and volume one of Kaori Yuki’s Grand Guignol Orchestra. If you’d like to win the set, leave a comment telling me the name of your favorite shojo title with supernatural elements. The deadline to enter is Monday, October 4th at 11:59 PM (EST); one winner will be chosen by lottery. Please note that you must be at least 18 and living in the US to enter the drawing. I’ll announce the winner in my Tuesday Shipping News column.

Links after the cut.

Continue reading »

The Shipping News, 9/29/10

First things first: the winner of last week’s Friday Procrastination Aids drawing is Aaron, who’ll be receiving a copy of Apollo’s Song, Part One (Vertical, Inc.). Aaron’s favorite banned book is Charles Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil, a work so controversial that French officials prosecuted Baudelaire in 1857 for “insulting public decency,” censoring six poems and fining him 300 francs; the banned verses were not officially restored to the French edition until 1949, when French courts reversed the original obscenity ruling. (You can find more information about the various editions by clicking here.) Other contestants named Blankets, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, His Dark Materials, and Noam Chomsky’s Counter-Revolutionary Violence as their favorite banned books — clearly, I’m blessed with an erudite audience! A hearty thanks to everyone who participated in the drawing; I enjoyed the comments as much as I relished the opportunity to give away manga. Look for a new contest — and a new conversation topic! — this Friday.

Continue reading »