by Elisabeth@TFAW

Big news for manga fans: Kodansha, Japanese publisher of many popular manga titles, will not renew its licenses with Tokyopop. This means any manga series in progress will not be completed, and there will be no reprints of any current volumes.

Brigid Alverson from MangaBlog posted Tokyopop's official press here, but here's an excerpt:

The Japanese publisher Kodansha, from whom TOKYOPOP has licensed many terrific series over the years — Chobits, Love Hina, Samurai Deeper Kyo, Rave Master, Initial D, Kindaichi, Life, GetBackers, and Love Attack, to name a few — has decided to let all existing contracts with TOKYOPOP expire on all manga series that they have licensed to us. As a result, Kodansha will not renew any licenses with TOKYOPOP for any new manga volumes. What does this mean? TOKYOPOP will not be allowed to complete the publication of any series that is currently in progress; in addition, TOKYOPOP will not be allowed to reprint titles after the current inventory has been sold out, so once these series are sold out at retail, they will not be available for consumers to purchase. The reasons for Kodansha's decision were not communicated to TOKYOPOP.

Brigid also noted that Kodansha also opted not to renew its licenses with Tokyopop Germany last year.

What do you all think of this latest development? Are you disappointed that so many manga series will be stopped in their tracks? Do you still read Tokyopop, or have you moved on to Dark Horse's CLAMP or other manga publishers?