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Jerome Mazandarani Leaves Manga Entertainment

Jerome Mazandarani has announced on his LinkedIn accounts that he has left Manga Entertainment to set up his own company, Animatsu (logo below). Mazandarani had been Manga Entertainment's Director of Marketing and Acquisitions since 2004, overseeing such licences as Naruto, Death Note, Bleach, Dragonball Z and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.

Andrew Hewson, Manga Entertainment's product manager, is also moving to Animatsu. Both Hewson and Mazandarni frequently represented Manga at convention panels and on the company's podcasts.

UK Anime News reports that Animatsu was registered as a London company on September 11. On Mazandarani's LinkedIn profile, he is identified as the Chief Operating Officer of the new company.

Animatsu is described on the LinkedIn page as a 'content acquisition, publishing and production business with a keen eye on fan-focused entertainment brands across anime, videogames, YouTube and social media.' In particular, Animatsu will help such brands though 'community building and grass-roots driven marketing activity,' especially at fan conventions in Britain and Europe. MCM Comic Con is 'essential to any entertainment brand seeking audience approval and its own dedicated community of fans.'

Mazandarni was recently quoted in a retrospective article in the anime magazine Neo, looking back at his decade in the UK anime industry. "It's fair to say that after ten years of working at Manga I am still as cynical and bitter as always. But! I do love my job... I am very proud of all the kids that come and say hi to me at the Manga booth during Comic Con, who blog, tweet and V-log about their hobbies and passion for anime and manga and who don't care what the dickheads they go to school with call them because they like 'weird Japanese cartoons.' I'm one of those kids too and I salute you."