Junker Woland

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Kodansha – Welcome to America


Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated....assuming there were any, which there weren’t. Regardless, getting back into the swing of things right before the major summer conventions hit, here’s a bit of important news concerning the U.S. manga industry.

Via ICv2 by way of Nikkei Net, looks like rumors were true that manga publishing giant Kodansha was planning to open a U.S. subsidiary in order to handle the localization of their various properties.

Such a move may well make sense for Kodansha, although businesses the likes of Del Rey and Dark Horse who’ve both mined the company’s titles could possibly find themselves with an increasing dearth of viable manga to license for future release.

With both AnimeExpo and the San Diego Comic Con right around the corner, hopefully we’ll soon learn in greater detail exactly how Kodansha plans to proceed with this venture.

Personally, part of me is eager to have a major manga force like Kondasha bring its extensive catalog to the States, but there’s always the concern their lack of experience with our market will see them making rather odd choices when it comes to releases, while their direct presence also has the secondary effect of blocking other companies from harvesting their tastier properties.

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