Yen Press, the Hachette imprint launched by Kurt Hassler and Rich Johnson, has been getting a lot of press lately as they’ve started to announce their plans for the coming year. Now, Brigid reports that Hachette has bought the French publisher PIKA, which has published French editions of XXXholic and Card Captor Sakura, among other things.
Chloe over at Shuchaku East has some thoughts on the purchase:
I’ve got a lot more love for Pika than most American pubs; they feature a slightly smaller format than Amerian volumes, with a softcover-slip on cover presentation on certain titles and a very portable feel to them. They don’t slap “100% AUTHENTIC” or “SHOJO BEAT!” labels all across the back and front, keeping the feel much more authentic by simply translating the text and and leaving product branding at a small emblem on the spine.
March 1st, 2007 at 10:53 am
An important thing the guys reporting it in english seem to have overlooked it that Pika was the very last big independent manga publisher in France. On the last couple of years, the bigger french publishers (some desperately needing to create and/or improve their own manga lines) entered on a buying frenzy that resulted on at least three manga publishers being bought out (entirely or partially) by big pulishers (Tonkam by Delcourt, SEEBD and Asuka By Soleil).
Pika was the third largest french manga publisher (the other two being Kana, a subsidiary of giant comics publisher Dargaud, and the manga division of Glénat), one of the few that still publish manga from the Big Three japanese publishers (Kodansha, Shueisha and Shogakukan, all currently very demanding of its international partners) and so a coveted prize.
All this is a bit like if Tokyopop and Viz were being bought out by Marvel and DC. Worrying, to say the least.
Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)