Cultural anthropologist Rachel Thorn praised Stu Levy for opening up an untapped market for animation with the publication of Sailor Moon and other.

"[5] Due to Sailor Moon's immense popularity, Tokyopop discontinued the serial from its magazines, and released it separately as its first manga graphic novel.

[7] Taste of Cinema ranked "Spring and Chaos" thirteenth in its list of Top "25 Weird Animated Movies That Are Worth Your Time.

Tokyopop launched its first "Rising Stars of Manga" contest on August 15, 2002, and ended it on December 16, 2002,[13] with more than five hundred American artists submitting their 15–25 page, English-language stories.

[14] The 5th Rising Stars of Manga competition added the People's Choice award, where the top-20 finalists had their entire entries judged by the fans on the Tokyopop website.

[16] Several Rising Stars of Manga winners went on to publish full-length graphic novels with Tokyopop, including Josh Elder with Mail Order Ninja, M. Alice LeGrow with Bizenghast, Mike Schwark and Ron Kaulfersch with Van Von Hunter, Lindsay Cibos and Jared Hodges with Peach Fuzz, Wes Abbot with Dogby Walks Alone, Felipe Smith with MBQ, and Nathan Maurer with Atomic King Daidogan.

London, said that Tokyopop "published many Korean artists' work, possibly without Western fans even realizing the strips don't come from Japan.

Series like King of Hell by Kim Jae-hwan and Ra In-soo, and the Gothic vampire tale Model by Lee So-young are both Korean, but could easily be mistaken for manga.

Tokyopop secured newspaper distribution in the form of Sunday comics, featuring its titles Princess Ai, Mail Order Ninja, Peach Fuzz, and Van Von Hunter.

[21] Tokyopop entered a licensing arrangement with Kaplan, a leading provider of educational and training services in 2007,[22] to help students study vocabulary words in preparation for the SATs.

[27] TOKYOPOP pioneered the Cine-Manga format, which took popular animated and live-action series and films and turned them into colored print editions.

As well as franchises such as Star Wars, Akira, Lizzie McGuire, Card Captor Sakura, Kim Possible, Family Guy, Hannah Montana, amongst many others.

[34] In December 2008, citing "dramatically low sales" in the publishing industry as a whole, Tokyopop, Inc., laid off eight more employees, including three editors, and noted that the company would have to rearrange some of its upcoming publication schedules.

[36][37] Samurai Deeper Kyo was relicensed by competitor Del Rey Manga, a division of Random House, which published the remaining volumes of the series.

Parker's departure left only three remaining executives: the founder and CEO, Stuart Levy; Publisher, Mike Kiley; and Vice President of Inventory, Victor Chin.

On March 1, Tokyopop continued to lay off workers, removing many high-profile employees such as long-time manga editors Lilian Diaz-Przyhyl and Troy Lewter.

[41] In October 2011, Tokyopop's official Twitter account released a message stating that its "ultimate goal is to start publishing manga again.

But by embracing ebook and print-on-demand technologies, we believe we can move forward and continue to produce some amazing manga as well as bring you Asian Pop Culture in many forms.

The short film garnered over a million views in its first month, and led to an IndieGoGo campaign to finance a full animated series.

In 2015, at Anime Expo and San Diego Comic-Con, Tokyopop announced that it would be relaunching its publishing operations in North America in 2016 and hinted that its first major licensor would be Disney.

[50] Tokyopop's "Nightmare Before Christmas: Zero's Journey" was nominated for two 2018 Diamond GEM awards in the categories "2018 Best All Ages Series" and "2018 Licensed TP or HC of the Year".

[51][52] In 2021, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store restaurants agreed to sell specific Tokyopop Manga by offering Disney's The Nightmare Before Christmas adaptation by Jun Asuka in its North American in-store gift shops.

[53][54] Tokyopop's European entity is located in Hamburg, Germany and publishes both print and digital titles across a range of content and formats.

Vampire Princess Miyu was released on DVD by MVM Entertainment and the Toonami television channel aired the first half of Rave Master in early 2005.

Tokyopop partnered with IDW International in February 2018 to license its original intellectual property (IP) and manga in overseas markets.

[64] Fans critical of possible mishandling of the Initial D property voiced concerns regarding "editorial changes" in the language localization of the manga and anime.

[65][66] In a letter sent to Anime News Network, Tokyopop responded to the criticisms, noting that they felt the edits were necessary because they were marketing the series to a younger target audience than it was originally designed for in Japan.

In an interview by Anime News Network, Tokyopop staff stated they also felt that the series would reach a larger audience if it had a broader American appeal.

[65] The company alleviated some of the concerns by noting that the anime series would receive an "unedited, subtitled, Japanese language" DVD release.

[69] Tokyopop has licensed several Disney manga titles and series in the US, including Nightmare Before Christmas, Descendants, Kilala Princess and Donald Duck Visits Japan.