Johanna Draper Carlson notes that you can’t buy Kozue Amano’s ARIA #4 any more, even though it just came out in December.
Aria Book 4 came out at the beginning of December. I had some credit with a mail-order retailer, so I asked them to send it to me, along with several other graphic novels, at the beginning of January. I just got the shipment, but Aria 4 wasn’t in it. It seems that it’s sold out from Diamond.
Now, these folks are good, so I’m assuming that since they didn’t mention “we’ll try again later” that that word was final. For comparison, Amazon lists it as shipping “within 11 to 13 days”, not a good sign. (The longer a period they list, the less chance you’ll ever be able to get the book.) Borders and Books-a-Million says 2-4 weeks. Barnes & Noble simply says “not available”.
ARIA is a very well reviewed title that even made PWCW’s Critic’s Poll finalists list. We were even thinking of grabbing a copy but now that doesn’t look so likely.
Now Carlson has updated her blog with news that Tpop has cancelled a bunch of titles, including ARIA #5:
DEC084265 ARIA GN VOL 05 4
DEC084271 CAUSE OF MY TEACHER GN 4
JAN094444 DEMON FLOWERS GN VOL 05 4
JAN094443 DEMON SACRED GN VOL 01 4
SEP084286 DOT HACK SIGN MANGA NOVEL SPECIAL ED 4
JAN094447 ELEMENTAL GELADE GN VOL 11 4
DEC084256 GET BACKERS INFINITY FORTRESS GN VOL 03 4
JAN094449 INITIAL D GN VOL 34 4
JAN094445 JYU OH SEI GN VOL 03 4
JAN094448 KING OF HELL GN VOL 23 4
JAN094455 LOVE HURTS AISHIATTERU FUTARI GN 4
DEC084261 SPEED GRAPHER MANGA GN VOL 03 4
DEC084269 TACTICS GN VOL 08 4
JAN094436 THIS UGLY YET BEAUTIFUL WORLD VOL 01 4
JAN094450 TSUKUYOMI MOON PHASE GN VOL 13 4
JAN094441 VB ROSE GN VOL 06 4
Argh. That’s a real shame; ARIA is one of my favorite manga series and I think may even be the only book left from TokyoPop that I was still reading (since they’ve cancelled all the others I liked as well, it seems). Such a good, good series, too.
Oh no! Not V. B. Rose! It’s one of my favorite titles!
Darn it! ARIA is a great series indeed!
There was some confusion about this series that may have hurt its sales. It was originally published by another company, which I think went out of business after releasing 2 or 3 volumes. Eventually Tokyopop brought it out again, and also released the 2-volume prequel series, AQUA.
It took me and my kids a long time to figure out which volumes we had already bought from the old press, and which volumes we still needed to get in the new version. We were really confused about whether the new volumes reprinted the same material as the old ones, or in what order, and so on. So we didn’t pre-order the books the way we definitely would have if we had been sure of what the contents would be.
I don’t know how many other readers were in a similar position, maybe not too many, but that’s my story, anyway.
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