Kadokawa to merge 9 subsidiaries into 1 company

[WTK]

via ANN

Kadokawa to Merge 9 Subsidiaries Into 1 Company
posted on 2013-03-28 03:55 EDT

Includes Kadokawa Shoten, ASCII Media Works, Media Factory, Enterbrain, Fujimi Shobo

Kadokawa Group Holdings, the parent company of several major manga and light novel publishers, announced on Thursday that it will absorb and consolidate nine of its subsidiaries on October 1. The merging subsidiaries are Kadokawa Shoten, ASCII Media Works, Kadokawa Magazines, Media Factory, Enterbrain, Chukei Publishing, Fujimi Shobo, Kadokawa Gakugei Shuppan, and Kadokawa Production. These subsidiaries will be combined into one company, simply named "Kadokawa."

Kadokawa Shoten publishes many manga series and magazines, including Monthly Newtype, Monthly Shōnen Ace, Young Ace, Monthly Asuka, Newtype Ace, Asuka Ciel, Monthly COMPTIQ, Monthly Comp Ace and Kerokero Ace. Its light novel imprints include Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko and Kadokawa Beans Bunko.

ASCII Media Works prints many publications in the Dengeki family, including Dengeki PlayStation, Dengeki G's Magazine, Monthly Comic Dengeki Daioh, and Dengeki Hobby Magazine. Its novel imprints include Dengeki Bunko and Media Works Bunko.

Media Factory publishes Comic Flapper, Monthly Comic Alive, Monthly Comic Gene, and other manga magazines. It also publishes light novels under the MF Bunko J imprint. Enterbrain is best known for its Famitsu magazine, but is also publishes Tech Gian, Comic Beam, B's Log, Arcadia, and light novels under the Famitsu Bunko imprint.

Fujimi Shobo publishes Dragon Magazine, Monthly Dragon Age, Dragon Age Pure, and light novels under the Fujimi Fantasia Bunko imprint. Chukei Publishing Company is best known outside Japan for publishing learning guides that use anime and manga as teaching tools.

The strategic change is subject to approval at the regular shareholders meeting on June 22. The company explained that the new structure will improve profitability, strengthen the Kadokawa brand, and develop new business opportunities. The subsidiaries' names will still be retained as brand companies, except for Kadokawa Production. Kadokawa Group Holdings already merged ASCII and Media Works to form ASCII Media Works in 2007.

Source: ITmedia News via 0takomu

[hpulley4]

Wow, didn't realize how much of my money was already really going to one head company... quite the media house. How does this compare to others?

[something]

Originally Posted by hpulley4

Wow, didn't realize how much of my money was already really going to one head company... quite the media house. How does this compare to others?

I don't have a link to it now but I remember seeing a graph a year or two ago when they acquired media Factory that put them at near-monopoly status. They control something like, what, 60% of the market? And an even larger percentage of male-targeted light novels. It's pretty insane.

[Damius]

Yeah... they are huge. I wonder how their competitors will react to this.

[ToAruOni]

Talked a bit about this with ultimatemegax earlier, but I really do hope this is a means to streamline their side of accounting and such, and nothing more.

Consolidations/mergers have historically not been a good sign in Western manga affairs, and when you consider that the vast majority of Seven Seas licenses are ASCII Media Works/Media Factory series, and the kind of luck Seven Seas has had lately...well, call me a tad pessimistic on this news.

Nevertheless, I hope I'm wrong. Seven Seas, Vertical and Yen Press all hold titles from these subsidiaries, and I truly hope this doesn't effect anything on our side.

[Hououin91]

I'm also worried. From the titles I'm buying this could affect Haganai from Seven Seas and HenNeko from DMP. Both Media Factory.

But this is worse than having a couple of series incomplete, this could mean the end of SS at least, which would be terrible as they are the most otaku directed publisher in the US...

Yen press has really good relations with Kodokawa so I see no harm in this from them, vertical also has some... but ss has none has they stated sometimes on their site/forum.

[AKX20000]

Wasn't this in the R2 forum before?

Any reason for the move?

[WTK]

Originally Posted by AKX20000

Wasn't this in the R2 forum before?

Any reason for the move?

I asked something to move it. I guess I wasn't thinking clearly this morning (thinking it was both home video front and publishing) when I posted the thread. This news piece is about the publishing side.

[AKX20000]

oh

cool Media Blaster's ridiculous whatever you call those brief video things that show which companies were involved with the product gets to stay


certainly a dumb thing to be happy about, but it's too much of a guilty pleasure of mine