Many thanks to Ephidel for pointing this out

I hadn’t put this publisher on my 2009 list for several reasons. Firstly every time I thought I was buying Tanoshimi stuff I was buying the American version (Del Rey), and secondly, I considered them dead over a year ago.

According to UKAN (UK Anime Network), Tanoshimi will no longer be releasing new titles for the UK market, but will continue to support existing titles.

"Due to challenging market conditions we have made the difficult decision not to acquire any further titles for the Tanoshimi list. We remain committed to the manga titles that we have already published and will continue to reprint them."

(point of note: I have not received any official notice on this, nor have I received a reply to my emails. However like Ephidel I see no reason to doubt it’s validity)

That said, Tanoshimi, while a fairly decent publisher, weren’t exactly consistent in the way they handled things. Titles were so late in being released it was pretty much pointless releasing anything. For example the last xXxHolic was volume 9, 3 volumes behind the US release of volume 12.

However for me they’ve been dead for a long time, the last update of their website was back in 2007 of all things. And lets face it, Tanoshimi never made any effort regarding their website, it wasn’t even masked properly, just redirected. The catalogue was a mess to navigate, and forget about finding a title you’re after, it’s pure pot luck.

Same with their releases, while they claim they’ll carry on reprinting older volumes, this has never really been true. Early volumes of Air Gear, and mid range volumes of xXxHolic have been out of print for months, and the vast majority of places claiming to have them in stock are really selling the US imports.

TBH I don’t think Tanoshimi’s death will have any impact on the manga market in the UK, since like Tokyopop, most places are already importing the original Del Rey releases, since they’re more reliable.

(Just checked my xXxHolic collection, only one of them is Tanoshimi, volume two, my Air Gear Collection has no Tanoshimi releases)