Breaking: Kodansha to set up US manga publishing arm.

Cthulhu and secret moles everywhere, I salute you.

ICv2, quoting Nikkei, reports that Kodansha will be setting up a manga publishing arm in the US.

Everyone’s going to sheepishly say “yeah, I thought it made sense from the beginning” or “I heard those rumors too, I knew something was going on!”  And they won’t mention the Great Ancient One.  But I won’t forget that it was you, Cthulhu and your mystery best friend, who sowed the rumor and stuck to your guns.  I am converted, master.  Command me, your humble servant in your quest to scare the living daylights out of every domestic US manga publisher.  All hail the tentacled one.

Ahem… the English version of Nikkei apparently requires a subscription that I’m too cheap to fork over, but a quick search on the Japanese website turns up this brief article which mentions the words ”KodanshaUSA,” “New York,” “September,” and “$2,000,000.00 capital“ in the same paragraph.  Tremble in fear, mortals!

Matt Blind, among the earliest and staunchest skeptics when the rumor originally broke (heretic!), could not contain his astonishment at the September launch date over at his new blog, Rocket Bomber.  Christopher Butcher, who did a lot of detective work, discusses which publisher(s) he feels has already been hurt by Kodansha’s ambition, and which will be left unscathed.  Anime News Network notes Kodansha’s biggest titles and current relationships.  Gia Manry is stuck waiting by her phone.  Manga editor Jake Forbes thinks the shakeout in the US manga market will be minimal, since the ShoShuVizPro conglomerate collectively is a far bigger player, with more manga titles than anyone.

Well, sure, if you ignore the charred remains of lesser manga pubs and imprints.

Edit: Now that the secret is out, Del Rey’s Dallas Middaugh assures their relationship with Kodansha is unchanged, and licenses have not been pulled from the company.

Edit 2: A Geek by Any Other Name asks burning questions not addressed (and likely unable to be addressed) by Del Rey.  Plus, MangaBlog is host to an interesting conversation on what may motivate Kodansha to at least keep their relationship with Del Rey robust.