Only a few years after starting up Tokyopop with licensed titles from
Japan, founder Stu Levy floated the idea to bookstores of publishing
manga in the original, right-to-left format.
"And
they said, 'You're out of your fricking minds to even think about it,'"
says Levy, CEO and creative chief of the Los Angeles-based company.
But
when Tokyopop began publishing right-to-left manga in books with
uniform size, design, branding and pricing, the reorders came flooding
in. "We ran out of stock really quick," says Levy, who recalls
thinking: "My God, maybe it's working!"
And it has worked, as
manga has turned into a particularly bright spot for the book industry,
with dozens of publishers now following Tokyopop's lead in content,
format and price.
Tokyopop's origins can be traced back to 1989
when Levy, a self-described geeky kid who preferred Dungeons &
Dragons and videogames to comicbooks, made his first visit to Japan. "I
fell in love with that culture and how multimedia it was, how
futuristic it was," he says."Having one building be the trendiest club
in the world and then the next building, literally right next door, is
a tiny little temple."
Immersing himself in Japanese culture,
Levy launched an interactive company called Japan Online before
discovering manga and its role at the heart of Japanese culture. "I was
like, 'Oh, wow! This is the origin to everything,'" he says.
Seeing
manga publishing as a way to build a catalog of content to take into
the digital realm, Levy founded Mixx in 1997 and soon changed its name
to Tokyopop.
In the early days, Levy says, getting manga licenses
from Japan was easy; it was getting manga into stores that was
difficult. While some comicbook publishers had tried manga in specialty
shops, Levy says that market was too much of a niche to be the
company's sole outlet. "I was always thinking about the malls," he says.
Waldenbooks
was the first to bite. The market then grew steadily, but it took the
introduction of right-to-left manga for the category to really take off.
In
bringing manga to America, Tokyopop has adapted its dominant role in
Japanese pop culture into the "manga lifestyle." Defined by Levy as "an
appreciation for things that are from that East-West connection,"
the
manga lifestyle has evolved from traditional anime fans to a wide array
of people the company reaches out to through original manga, animation
and fan-created content on its website and MySpace page as well as cell
phones.
"You have some people that are really serious about manga
as literature; other people that are really into the look and style,
the visual element of it; you have people that like something that's
different; and then you have people who are appreciating the
storytelling and the risk-taking aspects of manga as an entertainment
form," says Levy, who spearheaded original manga format comics by
Western artists in 2003 and co-created the company's signature
character, Princess Ai, with rocker Courtney Love.
The next step
for Levy is by far his most ambitious: He looks to take his company
into the film and television realm, with the ultimate aim of turning
Tokyopop into a global brand, comparable to Marvel or Disney.
For
Levy, it's a do-or-die proposition. "Either we truly make it and we're
a worldwide brand, or we won't be here," Levy says. "And if we fail,
well, we'll all start looking for jobs."
© Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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