It all started when I went looking for Aria vol 4.

I live in a small Asian country, so I’m used to getting English manga releases late. But when Tokyopop’s Aria vol 4 still hadn’t appeared in local bookstores in March, 4 months after its release, I decided to order it from the local Borders. It took two months to arrive.

I then started wondering about Aria vol 5, which has a release date of March 10. The Borders bookseller had advised me that it was better not to place an order just yet. Searching around the Internet I was only able to find one interesting used-book entry on Amazon (I have sent an inquiry to the bookseller – will update when I receive a reply). Another well-known SF&F bookseller in the UK lists it in stock, but according to a British friend, after placing the order they received a message that the book was not actually in stock, in the sense that they neither have it on hand nor any idea when they will have it. Oh, that wacky British humor!

So I did what I should have done in the first place – went to the official TP site. It turned out that vol 5 isn’t even listed on the product page. Ohhhh-kayyyy. Looking further afield I found this useful post on Mangablog that has some actual input from the TP marketing director/associate publisher, though no cheering news for those waiting for Aria 5, or any of the other series placed on TP’s list of indefinitely delayed titles.

Aria vol 4 is reportedly now in its third printing – it seems that TP underestimated demand based on the sales of vol 1-3, which had previously been published by ADV Manga. While I was waiting the two months for my copy to arrive at Borders, I would periodically see vol4 appear and disappear within a week at Kinokuniya (I had to steadfastly resist the urge to buy it there, because the local Borders has a non-refundable deposit policy for special orders – and the deposit in this case was 90% of the book price) – so clearly, even this far away, there is a demand for this title.

It remains to be seen if Aria vol 5 will ever see the light of day – although a comment from the copy editor to the Mangablog post implies that it is ready for print. While it’s still to early to say Arrivederci to Aria just yet, the English version is, apparently, grounded for the foreseeable future.

Myself, I’m off to brush up my Japanese so I can at least read the original editions…