AnimEigo Announces Episode 5 of the Ongoing Documentary Series – The Anime Business
entrepreneur and Manga Entertainment founder Andy Frain
Los Angeles, CA - Anime distributor AnimEigo and parent company MediaOCD have
announced the debut of Episode 5 of The Anime Business, a first-of-its-kind documentary series
featuring interviews with a variety of pioneers of the Western anime industry. The latest episode
features an insightful interview with Andy Frain, the founder of Manga Video/Manga
Entertainment who was a visionary entrepreneur who played a pivotal role in popularizing anime
in the UK and later North America throughout the 1990s.
Episode 5 is available now on the official AnimEigo YouTube channel at:
https://www.youtube.com/@AnimEigo/videos
Frain recounts the early days of the savviest anime publisher in UK history and founding Manga
Video / Manga Entertainment with the legendary British record producer and Island Records
owner, Chris Blackwell. The company's popularity in the UK exploded following the release of
Akira and it expanded into North America and Australia in 1993. A pivotal moment arrived when
Frain became a co-executive producer for Ghost in the Shell, which was the first-ever
Japanese-Western anime co-production. As Manga Video / Manga Entertainment gained
traction throughout Europe and in the U.S., it became known for bestselling home media
releases such as Macross Plus and Ninja Scroll.
The Anime Business is an ongoing series featuring a wide range of entrepreneurs and
visionaries that helped to pioneer and shape the North American anime industry. It is produced
and hosted by industry veteran and MediaOCD founder and AnimEigo CEO Justin Sevakis.
All episodes of The Anime Business will be available in English. Japanese subtitles will also be
available via a special grant from the Kleckner Foundation. Additional episodes and interviews
are in production now. AnimEigo and MediaOCD invite fans that would like to help support and
crowdfund future episodes of The Anime Business to donate
at: https://www.mediaocd.com/plans-pricing
Episodes 1-4 of The Anime Business are also now available to stream on the AnimEigo
YouTube channel. Episode 1 features the first half of the interview with John O'Donnell. Episode 2 features an interview with Robert Napton, the former Director of Marketing and Producer of
US Renditions and Managing Editor at Bandai Entertainment. Episode 3 features Pater Tatara,
an entrepreneur who launched Anime NYC and helped to build the annual event into North
America's second biggest anime convention. Episode 4 features Part 2 of the extensive
interview with John O'Donnell.
Justin Sevakis was the original founder of Anime News Network in 1998, and he contributed
many of the site's most popular columns for many years, in addition to co-hosting ANNCast, the
#1 anime podcast worldwide, from 2009-2015. Sevakis was the first in-house video and subtitle
editor at Central Park Media, a prominent 2000s era anime distributor, and worked on Grave of
the Fireflies, Project A-ko and many other bestselling releases. With his current company,
MediaOCD, he has produced more than 1,600 Blu-ray discs for North American market and
pioneered restoration efforts for classic anime including Project A-ko, Digimon Adventure, Street
Fighter II: The Animated Movie, and the forthcoming Macross II. He acquired anime distributor
AnimEigo in 2024.
About AnimEigo:
AnimEigo is a division of MediaOCD and was founded in 1989 As One the first distributors to
focus on anime and an array of acclaimed Japanese live-action films in the United States and
Canada. Over the last 35 years, AnimEigo consistently broadened the market for Japanese
content by cultivating audiences for new genres of film.
Renowned for high quality translations, subtitles, and dubbing, AnimEigo has released a wide
variety of classic anime titles. For more information, please visit: MediaOCD.com.
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