A series of news stories on the Net that evidently spread from a post on the Comic Worth Reading Website indicating that sixteen Tokyopop titles including Aria, Elemental Gelade, and This Ugly But Beautiful World had been canceled because the volumes appeared on a Diamond Comic Distributors’ Cancellation List are incorrect.  Tokyopop’s Marco Pavia explained to ICv2 that the publisher had just delayed the titles as part of its restructuring plan (see “Tokyopop Splits into 2 Companies”).  The titles listed on the Diamond list were not among the ones that Tokyopop decided to cancel when cutting its output for 2009 by nearly 50%, but the specific volumes in these series on the list have been delayed from the months in which they were originally supposed to ship in order to smooth out the flow of Tokyopop titles through the first portion of 2009.  Pavia explained “When we move a title out of a particular month, Diamond prefers to "cancel" a book in their system and re-solicit when the time comes.”  For example Aria Vol.5, which had originally been scheduled for December, will now be released on March 10th.

The report on Comics Worth Reading stemmed from a earlier post about the unavailability of Aria Vol.4.  Tokyopop’s Pavia explained to ICv2 that orders for that volume came in much higher than expected and created an immediate sellout from the publisher.  Pavia said that the timing of a second printing of Aria 4 would depend on demand, but that Tokyopop was definitely planning to release subsequent volumes in the series.  The Right Stuf/Noizumi Entertainment released Aria: The Animation Season 1 in September of 2008 and Season 2 this week.