---
author: einar
comments: true
date: 2007-12-16 22:26:34+00:00
layout: post
slug: publishing-idiocy
title: Publishing idiocy
wordpress_id: 355
categories:
- Anime
tags:
- Anime
- anime license
- novels
- tokyopop
---

When Tokyopop announced _Slayers, Kino no Tabi _and _Scrapped Princess _my interest was piqued: even more when I read about _Seikai no Monsho_. After getting what was available (three volumes of _Scrapped Princess_, the whole _Seikai no Monsho_ trilogy and the single volume of _Kino no Tabi_) I waited for the rest.<!-- more -->

Unfortunately, looking at the information that are going around in the net, looks like no one of these sagas will ever continue. Again, Tokyopop does the job of the average USA anime publisher (I'm looking at you too, Viz: where's the rest of _Corrector Yui_?), that is starting series yet cancelling them at the first sign of trouble sales-wise.

Could it be that the novels were mis-targeted? As far as I could tell from reading _Scrapped Princess_, they were aimed at a different target than people who had watched the anime (great planning, indeed). _Kino no Tabi_ was subject to a heinous treatment, with the chapter order rearranged for some unknown reason (this is not an anime, folks -  it's a **book**, for heaven's sake). And what's worse, from reading around it almost feels like it was the publisher's intent to get away with a limited number of volumes out of the complete series (I also heard that translation quality was rather low, but I need confirmation).

I wish that publishers would stop treating such works as trash they can dispose of at will, especially if it is the only way to read them in a language different than Japanese: in my country there has been an attempt (_Lodoss War_ from Kappa Edizioni) but frankly, I could not tell if I had forgotten Italian or  if the books were filled with even elementary mistakes.

I guess that learning Japanese is the only way to get out from such misguided marketing and publishing efforts...
