Heidi McDonald over at The Beat has the news that Tokyopop is shutting down its US operations, as of May 31st. However, the German office will stay open to handle publishing rights, and the film division will continue.

Apparently the news wasn’t entirely unexpected, because in back February, a last round of lay-offs had reduced the company to a mere 6 employees.

Here’s Tokyopop’s statement announcing the closure:

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

Head over to The Beat for more on this story. I have to admit that I am so out of touch with Manga that I don’t even know what titles the company was putting out. Still it’s a sad day when another publisher of graphic fiction closes its doors. There’s seems to be quite a bit of downsizing going on in the industry lately, what with Dark Horse’s recent lay offs and DC’s massive “restructuring”. Hopefully we won’t see too much more of it!

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