While I was in New York City yesterday covering the Gothic Lolita and Maid Day at Kinokuniya (post to follow), I got a chance to corner Ali Kokmen of Del Rey Manga and ask him about the whole rumor of Kodansha coming into the U.S. manga market.

After a bit of a laugh at it, Ali told me that it was totally false. He was at BEA, and heard nothing of Kodansha's move, and when the rumor hit that Kodansha was coming in, Del Rey had someone in Japan setting up new Kodansha licenses for 2009 and 2010. So, that would seem to be a rumor that got busted.

Unless of course, I'm going to be proven wrong, and just need to "wait and see." The biggest indication towards this whole rumor being true, in my mind, was the massive pullback of Tokyopop's titles. But, that's just to keep themselves from losing more money through cannibalization.