Established in July 2008,[1] Kodansha USA publishes books relating to Japan, Japanese culture, and manga, the latter under the Kodansha Comics imprint. Their launching titles were the re-prints of Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell and Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira manga, previously published by Dark Horse Comics.[2] On October 4, 2010, it was announced that manga publisher Del Rey Manga would be shut down. Kodansha Comics then started publishing in earnest, picking up many old Del Rey Manga titles, with Random House serving as the distributor.[3][4]