Tokyopop is Closing & an Update

The news came out last week, but I kept on forgetting to talk about it.

Tokyopop's US publishing company is closing as of the end of May. D:

Here's the message from Stu Levy:

For nearly 15 years, TOKYOPOP, led by Stu Levy, its founder, CEO and Chief Creative Officer, has pioneered the English-language manga movement and touched the hearts, minds and souls of enthusiasts worldwide.

Today, we are sad to inform our loyal community of manga fans, our passionate creators of manga content, our business and retail partners, and other stakeholders who have supported us through the years that as of May 31, 2011, TOKYOPOP is closing its Los Angeles-based North American publishing operations.

TOKYOPOP film and television projects and European operations, including the German publishing program, will not be affected by the Los Angeles office closure. In addition, TOKYOPOP will continue its global rights sales via its office in Hamburg, Germany.

I'm really sad to hear that Tokyopop's ending. Almost half of the manga that I buy are from Tokyopop. I don't know what's going to happen to all of the series they've serialized, but I hope that some other publishing companies will take some of them up. Seriously, Tokyopop has published an insane amount of series since its creation.

What sucks is that Tokyopop isn't the first manga company to shut down. It's just the first major publishing company to do it. Other now obsolete manga companies such as Broccoli [I can only think of that Broccoli at the moment] were relatively small, which was why they didn't have enough sales to stay support themselves and stay open.

But Tokyopop is ubiquitous when it comes to manga, and it's the major pioneer of the manga industry in the US. It's the main reason why manga is so integrated in the US today.

I just can't believe that it's shutting down. ):

On to other subjects... This weekend has been extremely peaceful compared to earlier this week. I was so stressed on Monday when I found out that I had a AP test, a quiz, and this insanely long homework assignment all on Thursday.

I didn't know how I would survive the week since the AP bio test I had was on stuff that could not understand and definitely could not learn within a few days. And my US History homework consisted of me flipping through my ginormous book and doing a page summary of every unit we've covered this year as a study guide for the EOCT we have next week; freaking endless. I had no idea how I'd find time to do all of that and try to understand my AP Bio textbook while babysitting every night.

Then, the best thing happened on Wednesday: I found out that my whole AP Bio class couldn't take the test on Thursday since we had to go to the lunchroom to fill out AP exam applications, my math quiz was moved to next week, and since my US History teacher wasn't going to be there on Thursday so it was due on Monday, and that we were going to have a convivium [party] in Latin to celebrate Rome's birthday also on Thursday.

It was the most peaceful Thursday I've had in forever. :D

And I've had an excellent weekend so far, too. Been busy reading for the majority of the weekend from books to original stories on Wattpad to blogs to my AP Bio guide.

Just finished reading The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson. Very awesome book. Review coming up within the next few days. I do want to say this, though: I want Joe Fontaine. Gah. He's the most sweet, infectiously joyful guy I've read so far.

Anyway, this next week is going to be excruiating since I have mock AP exams and the US History EOCT [history was never my strongest point] and other tests and quizes in between. Then, the next two weeks are the real AP exams, so I've really got to study for those.

Dunno if I'll have much time to blog, but I've got plenty of reviews and some other random stuff to post, so the blog won't be neglected. Plus, I'm going to be reading every chance that I get [not only books, though...], so I can make a dent in my TBR pile.

But I doubt that I'll be gone for too long since I can't seem to stop blogging about whatever catches my interest, so you can prolly expect short, random posts about whatever. Like this post, it was supposed to be pretty short, but I guess I had a lot to talk about after all, lol.

Oh yeah, if you haven't noticed, I've cleaned out some of my Movies to Watch list and added some links to some pages on the left side of the blog below my picture of Pon [or is it Zi? :\].

I wanted to keep track of all of the movies and stuff that I've read or watched this year. Plus, I wanted to have a list of all the books I've read this year with links to the reviews. IDK why. I just wanted to do it.

The TBR list took forever to type up. I only decided to do it since I was bored while babysitting, lol. It's freaking massive. I'm pretty sure the list had over 250 books. I decided to put all of the books that I had already read this year in it, too, since I plan on making a list yearly with an updated list every year where I take off all of the already read books the year before. Then I could compare the lists and see how much of a difference I made.

So, I watched Yunho and Changmin perform Rising Sun on Music Bank's 600 episode special today, and it made me miss DBSK like crazy. Don't get me wrong, I liked the duo's performance, especially since I haven't heard Rising Sun in forever and since it's one of my all time favorite songs by them and also because it's the song and music video that converted me into being their fan those few years ago, but it wasn't the same without all five members.

When it got to the part where Jae did his solo and when it was Micky's rap, I kept on expecting to hear their voices. Gah. This is making me nostalgic. I need to go watch their original music video. And maybe some old variety show with all of them in it. Like Star King or X-Men.

Anyway, here's Yunho's and Changmin's version of Rising Sun. They just keep looking hotter and hotter, lol. :D

This is the original music video for Rising Sun. The final factor that made me take an interest in DBSK during my freshmen year.

Every time I see recent pics of Jae, I'm instantly in awe of how handsomely perfect he looks. Found some pics of him at the airport, and he's looking pretty damn fine. XD

Also, I've finally watched Big Bang's Love Song and f(x)'s music video.

Neither music videos make much sense -- maybe because I don't know what they're saying, lol -- but they're both catchy in their own way.

Love the chorus in Love Song. :) I hate this love song~ I hate this love song~

This is f(x)'s comeback after what seems like forever since Amber hurt her leg, and I'm really liking their new album. The songs are catchy, although some of them are a little too cutesy for my liking. Eh, they'll prolly grow on me.

Haven't been keeping up with Kpop much ever since this year started; not entirely sure why, but I think it was because I didn't have much time for it, to go on allkpop and try to keep up with all of the celebrities and scandals (I mean, I can't even keep up with all of the craziness that happens in America, lol) and other random updates.

I've only been keeping up with Kpop music from ihoneyjoo since I need new music to listen to regularly. And I know about the latest songs from watching the weekly music shows that showcases the latest live performances of Kpop artists downloaded from kpopella.

I kind of miss not knowing what's been going on in the kpop world. I only keep up with DBSK because I follow some DBSK blogs that has up-to-date news on them. 

Anyway, I've got to go now. 

Later!

pointy.star