Disclaimer: This post will only contain the publishers I know about, so it’s far from complete, and I’m not trying to pass it off as complete. Also these views are just my own personal views, no one else’s. I’ll update this list as I experience new companies.

Tokyopop

Initially I had Tokyopop as my all time favourite publisher, but recent events have totally soured me on them. They were originally called Mixx, and were renowned for lack of respect for both the manga they published, and their customers. In 2005 they became Tokyopop and have since tried very hard to get away from the Mixx stigma they created. Mostly they succeeded, becoming well known for doing the reverse of Mixx. Respecting both the manga and listening to their customers. As a result they were among the first to stop flipping and colouring manga (or Americanising it as I call it.). They further increased their reputation by licensing a large number of popular manga, and expanding to include manwah and light novels.

Sadly, they still have a habit of lying to their customers, trying to pass off manwah as manga. (For those that don’t know, manwah are the Korean version of manga. Unlike original Japanese manga manwah are read left to right.)

For me this wasn’t a huge thing, a bit of nit pick, but I could live with it. The problem I have stems from the recent attitude of the staff on the Tokyopop forums. Rather than being helpful I’ve found them the reverse, and frankly quite insulting. They freely admit that they don’t care about the UK market, and have no intention of fixing their UK website which is full of mistakes and out and out lies on releases and availability. (I’ll be doing a separate post on this shortly.)

I would love to say I’d boycott them, but the fact is to many of my favourite manga are being released by them. >.< What’s really annoying is that they know this, which is why they refuse to fix things, they see no reason to.

Both of their website’s (the UK and US ones) are full of bugs and inconsistencies. While its true they’re in beta development, they’re clearly going for a gadget and gimmick site, over usability and functionality. Also, only a small fraction of their catalogue is legally released in the UK, the rest of their releases comes through the so called Gray Market (Covered in a future post.)

Viz Media

For me, I’ve mixed views on Viz. The vast majority of my manga from them is shoujo, and it’s awesome. However I’ve had a few releases from their other departments (mostly shounen) and it’s been awful.

However, their shoujo department is topnotch, not perfect by a long way, but one of the better ones!!

The translators and editors for Shoujo really seem to care for their work, and make every effort to put out the best result they can. This effort is clearly shown, in works like Fushigi Yuugi and Ayashi no Ceres.

However they have been marred by their lack of respect to several shounen releases. The largest of these is the ongoing debate with Inuyasha. It’s the only manga still being published flipped, and is full of inconsistencies and errors. One of the largest Inuyasha fan communities had finally gotten through to them after sending a letter signed by the community et al. However these were later curtailed by a different member of the Viz staff because the community went to the editors directly rather than through them. And was reported as saying that they’d use all of their power to stop any changes.

Sadly it’s people like that that ruin the companies reputation. Thankfully she doesn’t seem to be involved in the shoujo department.

However it’s not only Inuyasha that’s had problems, both Naruto and Bleach (the so called flagship publications) have been marred by rewrites and inconsistencies aswell. Both of which have been picked up on by the fans that have followed the series from it’s pre-license days.

No Viz release is legally available in the UK at this time, they plan to start officially releasing a few titles in 2008. However all Viz releases currently available come through the Gray Market

Titan Books

I only have a few releases from these guys, so my thoughts are only on those. Titan Books is the UK distributor for DC, Marvel, Dark Horse and IDW Publishing. The few Manga releases I have from them have been pretty good. For example the re-release of the Ah My Goddess series has been handled really well. Their releases have consistently come in high quality binding and with a lot of care.

The only down side is they’re renowned for upping the charge on the manga they release. For example a manga that would cost £4.99-£5.99 from any other company, you can expect to pay between £6.50 to £7.99

Tanoshimi

The UK arm of Del Rey, again I’ve only a few releases from them and I don’t have any complaints with them. They’ve handled the few releases I have very well, keeping honorifics and some releases are un Americanised (eg. they leave the names the right way around.)

Like Titan Books their releases have always had a decent consistency in their paper and cover quality.

Sadly their website is their weak point, while it looks simple and clean on the surface it has a lot of bugs, especially in finding releases. The search function doesn’t work properly, and catalogue doesn’t have any semblance of structure to it. So you have to guess which page the release your after is on.

Which is surprising considering who their parent company is. Both Tanoshimi and Del Rey are part of the Random House Group, one of the largest book publishers there is.

Also, sadly, again only a small percentage of the Del Rey releases are available legally in the UK. The rest comes in through the Gray Market.

Seven Seas

These are the spineless wimps of the manga publishers. They licensed three of the most controversial manga there is: Kashimasi, Strawberry Panic (both manga and Light Novel), and Kodomo no Jikan. Strawberry Panic is a yuri (dealing in lesbian love) manga, however after licensing it Seven Seas got cold feet over releasing it it due to it’s graphic nature, and held back releasing it. They finally released volume one of the manga in December 2007, however for some reason no supplier seems to have copies of it yet.

Kodomo no Jikan was pulled from the line up and they refused to publish it because of pressure from christian groups. KnJ is a story about a kid that sets her eyes on her teacher, and while the manga does contain a lot of suggestive art, nothing actually happens. Having read all the currently available scanlated and raw manga, I don’t see why they can’t release the manga. Also the page they claim is the reason for pulling it was laughable, since a lot of other manga out there is a lot more suggestive.

The release date for the Strawberry Panic light novels keeps getting pushed back, and odds are it’ll never be released.

As with Viz none of their releases are legally available in the UK, and have to be bought through the Gray Market.

Blue

Blue specialise in yaoi manga (gay love), the quality of their release ranges from okay to great, but with a lack of consistency. (I’m referring to paper quality here)

Like Viz none of their releases are legally available in the UK and have to be bought on the Gray Market.