Tokyopop, styled TOKYOPOP, and formerly known as Mixx Entertainment, is an American distributor, licensor, and publisher of anime, manga, manhwa, and Western manga-style works. The German publishing division produces German translations of licensed Japanese properties and original English-language manga, as well as original German-language manga. TOKYOPOP's defunct US publishing division previously published works in English and Japanese. TOKYOPOP had its US headquarters in the Variety Building in Los Angeles, California, and branches in the United Kingdom and Germany.

History

Early History

TOKYOPOP was originally founded in 1997 by Stuart J. Levy. In the late 1990s, the company's headquarters were located in Los Angeles.

While the company was known as Mixx Entertainment, it sold MixxZine, a manga magazine where popular serials like Sailor Moon were published weekly. Mixxzine later became Tokyopop before it was discontinued.^[11] Capitalizing on the popularity of Sailor Moon, Mixx also created the magazine, Smile, a magazine that was half girls’ magazine, and half shōjo manga anthology, and also continued the Sailor Moon story after being discontinued in Mixxzine.

Tokyopop magazine, originally named MixxZine, was a manga anthology published in North America by Tokyopop.

MixxZine at the start published five manga series, two of which were shōjo (geared towards young or teenaged girls) and two of which were seinen (geared towards adolescent boys/men):

As the seinen and shōjo content were hard to reconcile due to the vast difference in audiences, and as Mixx wanted to refocus the magazine towards high school and university/college-aged readers, Sailor Moon was taken out of the anthology and moved to Smile, which focused more on shōjo titles.

When MixxZine was renamed Tokyopop in July 1999, the focus changed towards more information on Asian culture, along with manga and articles on J-pop, video games, and anime. The magazine was offered for free, and only a few manga titles were published in the magazine, rotating through the following titles: