Manga Entertainment

Interview with Jerome

Manga Entertainment is a licensor and distributor of Japanese animation in the United States and United Kingdom. The company was founded in London in 1992, and began to operate in the US in 1994. It is now headquartered in Chicago, with offices in London, Los Angeles and Tokyo.The company's principal business is the sale of anime movies and TV series on DVD, but Manga Entertainment have also released some of their titles in cinemas. Ghost in the Shell, Perfect Blue and Ninja Scroll have all had a theatrical release. Despite their name, the company does not sell manga.

- What does Manga do?

J: Manga is one of the biggest distributors of Japanese anime in the UK. We started distributing in 1992 on VHS format but now we mainly sell DVD's. Our first UK release was "Akira". It was originally acquired by World Cinema, who was owned by Island Records Group. The company first saw Akira at the 1987 Hong Kong Film Festival. It was acquired as an art-house flick and was released under the newly formed Manga label.

Now we will acquire a license from the Japanese production company to make our own DVD version. An example of this is Naruto. We received the master tapes in NTSC and we have to convert them to PAL format.

Because of the timing changes between NTSC and PAL, we have to re-do the English subtitling. Sometimes, it can be a long process as we may also have to synchronize the dubbed sound version to the master tapes.

- What was the initial feedback like from the UK audience?

J: It was a seminal movie that blew people away. It really announced anime into the UK market. Other English speaking countries like the USA and Australia were more sophisticated as they have had greater exposure to Japanese anime over the years. They had grown up watching Simba, The White Lion, Atom, Tetsujin 28go and Gacha Man.

For the UK market, it really showed that there was more to animation than just Disney films and that an adult market did exist. The situation now is very different, you can find classic films from top animation company Studio Ghibli in local supermarkets, HMV and Virgin stores. The Manga label has developed it's image over time and it is great to see people walking into a store and picking up a DVD just because it had our Manga logo on it's cover.

- Do you also distribute Japanese comic books?

J: Sadly, no. We don't distribute comic books because it seemed difficult for the original owners of Manga to go into both the publishing and VHS markets. Now you have some American companies who have used the business model of top Japanese companies like Shonen Jump and Viz Media. They can deliver a whole package of comic books, DVD's, TV rights and other merchandise all under one roof. Although we can't do this, we do have the opportunity to be creative as we make our own DVD menus. With big releases like Ghost In The Shell: S.A.C and Naruto, we will make our own special features section with never seen before footage.

By doing this, we try to encourage the local audience to wait for the UK release instead of buying the American import version.

- Have you done any original production work?

J: Yes, Kaoru Mfaume (Managing Director) of Manga deals with the acquisition and production side. He is shown various story-boards, animatics and character designs and can decide to invest in a particular project and secure distribution rights.　A good collaboration we have just co-produced with Production I.G. is an animation called Dead Leaves.

- What are your plans for 2007?

J: We will be celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Akira next year so we will be setting up some screening events and hopefully release a new version of the film on DVD. We have new releases for the final installment of Naruto, Season 1. , Vol.7 of S.A.C 2nd Gig, a Robotech (Macross) box-set and Vol.3 of Otogi Zoshi.

Website : http://www.manga.com/

Written by Selph