AnimEigo Spotlights Anime News Network in Eps. 21 of The Anime Business
Los Angeles, CA - Anime distributor AnimEigo and parent company MediaOCD have released the latest episode of The Anime Business on YouTube featuring an in-depth interview with the some of the essential editorial staff of Anime News Network (ANN), the world's premier anime/manga editorial website.
The interview is conducted by MediaOCD / AnimEigo President Justin Sevakis, who founded Anime News Network in 1998, and features the site's longtime CEO and Publisher Chris Macdonald, Editor Emeritus Bamboo Dong, and the current Executive Editor Lynzee Loveridge.
The Anime Business Episode 21: Anime News Network is available on the official AnimEigo YouTube Channel.
The trio recalls their early experiences with anime and being enthralled by legendary shows like Evangelion, Fushigi Yugi, Sailor Moon, and Perfect Blue. Anime News Network's founding sprouted from this passion and paralleled the wider global growth and evolution of Japanese pop culture and the internet. What began as a hobby grew into a professional endeavor that has endured for nearly 30 years and generates more than 36 million page views annually.
From the beginning, ANN was aimed at a burgeoning legion of ardent fans enthralled by anime and manga and eager for accurate news and insightful, informed editorial, interviews and reviews in English, and it soon became a trusted online destination for these readers.
Macdonald describes ANN as the “Variety of anime,” comparing the site to the legendary Hollywood trade, and while the site has evolved and widened its editorial scope and professional staff, it remains committed to a “for fans, by fans” point of view. The interview is filled with anecdotes of triumphs and treasured moments, as well as a few missteps and mishaps, which happened across the site's storied history.
As the popularity of anime and manga exploded throughout the 2000s, ANN became the leading online destination for news, reviews and commentary. Millions read articles and columns by Bamboo Dong, Lynzee Loveridge and Justin Sevakis, and Macdonald also hired a staff of professional editors and journalists that shared their passions. He charts the development of ANN from a purely fan-driven site to one that still maintains high journalistic standards and longstanding relationships with scores of U.S. distributors and publishers as well as Japanese studios, creators and licensors. Lynzee Loveridge offers insights into how news and interviews are developed and how the site works with its wide network of global sources to regularly secure scoops and post the latest developments in anime and manga.
Macdonald and Dong also recall controversies that ANN has faced over the years. From fan backlash over occasional unfavorable reviews and editorial to pushback from U.S. and Japanese companies that frowned on news that didn't always put them in a favorable light, the site always remained true to its convictions and would never be PR puppet for profit driven corporations.
Macdonald also discusses the decision to sell a majority stake of ANN to the Japanese media company Kadokawa in 2022 and explains how the sale provided financial security for the site with a largely hands-off relationship that allows him to continue to lead its original editorial mission.
The Anime Business is a first-of-its-kind series featuring a wide range of entrepreneurs and visionaries that helped to pioneer and shape the North American anime and manga industries. It is produced and hosted by industry veteran and MediaOCD founder and AnimEigo CEO Justin Sevakis. Episodes 1-17 of The Anime Business and bonus clips are also now available to stream on the AnimeEigo YouTube channel. All episodes of The Anime Business are available in English. Japanese subtitles are also available via a special grant from the Kleckner Foundation.
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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