Kodansha in the US confirmed
07/1/08
ICv@ reports a Japanese report that confirms all those rumors about Kodansha entering the US market.
Japan’s highly respected Nikkei financial news service is reporting that Kodansha has set up a U.S. subsidiary “to publish and sell translations of its Japanese manga” in the U.S. starting in September. The reason for the move, according to Nikkei, is “to boost its earnings in America, where its income has been limited to royalties received from U.S. firms.
Kodansha setting up shop in the US does not invalidate the news that they are not immediately pulling licenses from US publishers, such as Del Rey, who have an existing relationship with the Japanese publishing giant. Kodansha has a huge number of properties to pick from, so there’s lot of stuff to go round, at least at first.
However, this could be related to the news that Dark Horse’s license to publish Akira seems to be in some question.
Developing.


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