Danica Davidson
December 30, 2024 
AnimEigo, one of the original anime distributors in America, was bought by MediaOCD in early 2024. Justin Sevakis, the CEO of MediaOCD, publicly shared some of what’s going on with the company since buying it.
Sevakis explained, “It’s a long history, but ever since the DVD crash in 2007 or so, AnimEigo has been mostly one-off projects funded via Kickstarter every year or two. With that level of output, it simply wasn’t a sustainable business on its own. I’ve spent most of 2024 trying to get us up to one release a month, getting us back on people’s radars, rebranding, and modernizing.
“We don’t want to cut any corners,” Sevakis commented about his work. “We also still do a lot for Discotek, so there’s going to be a lot of overlap, but every boutique publisher is going to be, to some extent, a reflection of the owners’ tastes. Since we also do all production in-house, we’re in a position to take slightly bigger risks on titles that Discotek might not. We’re also going to be concentrating a lot more on the marketing of individual titles, partially because the big “household name” level anime is largely already taken and out of our price range for now, but also because finding buried treasure is part of our DNA.”
He reminisced on how much has changed since the distributor opened its doors in the 80s. “When AnimEigo started, there were no uncut, subtitled, or even faithfully dubbed anime available, period,” he noted. “Even VHS fansubs weren’t really a thing yet.”
He also had some musings on the state of Western companies getting in on anime creation. “[O]utside funding for anime has been a real double edged sword. Sometimes it’s given birth to some great stuff, but mostly we’ve gotten a lot of half-hearted adaptations of Western IP that nobody really wants. . . I’m just as concerned about the green-lighting process, and how they decide what new shows to invest in. Those decisions lead to a lot of “safe” titles being made that end up being pretty bland.”
Recently released or forthcoming titles from AnimEigo include Megazone 23, Time of Eve, Riding Bean, Bubblegum Crash, and Otaku no Video.
Source: Forbes
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Danica Davidson is the author of the bestselling Manga Art for Beginners with artist Melanie Westin, plus its sequel, Manga Art for Everyone, and the first-of-its-kind manga chalk book Chalk Art Manga, both illustrated by professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.
