Tokyopop has announced an agreement with the Japanese publisher Gentosha under which Tokyopop will provide sublicensing agency services for Gentosha’s manga around the world (except for Asia, France and Italy).  The companies have also agreed to pursue co-development ideas in the digital, film, and merchandising realms.

While Gentosha is not one of the bigger manga publishers in Japan (it published about 100 volumes of manga in 2005), it does have a number of excellent titles including Gravitation, Lament of the Lambs, Arm of Kannon, and Category Freaks.  For the fiscal year ending March 31st, 2008 sales of the Comics Division of Gentosha amounted to approximately $17.3 million (down from $20.6 million for the previous year).

In addition to providing surefire access to a number of manga titles, the deal will also present Tokyopop with a significant addition to the library of properties that the publisher can potentially develop into feature films, TV series, or Web shows.