Aaron Bynum, the chief news editor of Animation Insider, saw the news on Tokyopop's TV advertising for its manga titles (see 'Tokyopop Plans TV Ads for Manga') and sent us this commment:
It doesn't surprise me one bit that Tokyopop has decided to turn to television commercials in order to advance public awareness of the increasingly popular distribution of manga titles in the west. Since the mid to late nineties Tokyopop has been the leading distributor of Japanese and Korean comics in North America, and only recently there are other companies trying to muscle in on the appreciating business.
Competitors range from Central Park Media to Cocoro Books to Dark Horse to Del Rey more recently. But, as I see it, the most significant opposition to Tokyopop's apparently 'authentic' line of manga titles is the Japanese animation circulation juggernaut ADV Films. After more than a decade of licensing titles both uniquely innovative and legendary in their own right, ADV just last year embarked upon the journey to become the leading distributor of manga alongside the counterpart of anime, with their industry branch: ADV Manga. Although getting off to a slow start last year it is fairly obvious that this veteran company is in for the long run, as is understood simply from observing the number of titles they release monthly. The number of releases-of new titles -- each month from ADV Manga has been steadily increasing for about five months now, an interesting note that I believe can oftentimes be overlooked due to the irony of the large and conscientious company having to break into another aspect of an industry it already dominates so thoroughly.
I see the ads on television from Tokyopop as an attempt to reaffirm its hold and grasp on today's (and tomorrow's) manga market. Keep in mind; this will be a month or two before ADV's 'Anime Network' goes live on cable television, a channel certainly inclined to air advertisements and trailers for various ADV Manga titles. To compete with some rather easily foreseeable opposition in the television ad market on top of traditional sales, Tokyopop has in my opinion decided to get a jump-start on their rivals in a battle that still has yet to be fought by many companies.
The opinions expressed in this Talk Back article are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.