Trek Through a Different Lens
Tokyopop Manga (2006–2009)
Tokyopop bridged the four-year gap between WildStorm and IDW with four manga anthology volumes published between 2006 and 2009. Three focused on TOS and one on TNG. Each is an anthology — multiple short stories per volume, drawn by different international creators, each approaching Trek through the conventions of Japanese comics rather than American ones.
The results are genuinely interesting rather than uniformly good. Manga and Trek have different visual grammars, and the varying degrees to which individual creators successfully reconcile those grammars is part of what makes the volumes worth reading. Unlike every other publisher in this guide, the Tokyopop volumes were collected from the outset — no individual issues, no back-issue market. All four volumes are findable today.
The launch volume. Multiple short stories establishing the format. Mixed results, strongest as an introduction to what the series is attempting.
Second TOS anthology. The creative range continues — some stories push what can be done with Trek visually, others are more conventional in execution.
Third and final TOS volume. The strongest individual stories in the TOS run appear here.
The sole TNG entry and the last volume published. The Picard-era cast in manga form — a different enough creative combination to be worth seeing once.
All four volumes are out of print following Tokyopop’s closure but findable through secondary market sellers. This is the easiest era to acquire physically given the collected-from-launch format.
Shinsei Shinsei (TOS Vol. 1) is the logical starting point. If the anthology approach and manga format work for you, the other TOS volumes follow naturally. The TNG volume can be read independently at any point.
You’re interested in how Trek translates into genuinely different creative traditions, or you want to read every era of Trek comics without gaps. The Tokyopop volumes are an odd corner of Trek publishing history — brief, unlike anything else, and easy enough to acquire that there’s no practical reason to skip them.
Review coming.