The history of anime in the United States began in 1961, when Magic Boy and The White Snake Enchantress, both produced by Toei Animation, became the first two anime films to receive documented releases in the country. Anime has since found success with a growing audience in the region, with Astro Boy often being noted as the first anime to receive widespread syndication, especially in the United States. Although a handful titles were translated before 1970, such as Speed Racer and Eight Man anime wouldn't regrow into popularity in the US until the 1990s, commonly referred to as the "anime boom," is credited with much of anime's enduring relevance to popular culture outside Japan.
Funimation was an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. Launched in 2016, the service was one of the leading distributors of anime and other foreign entertainment properties in North America. It streamed popular series, such as Dragon Ball, One Piece, YuYu Hakusho, My Hero Academia, Attack on Titan, Fairy Tail, Black Clover, Fruits Basket, Assassination Classroom and Tokyo Ghoul among many others. The service and its parent company were acquired by Sony, who ran the service through Sony Pictures Entertainment from 2017 to 2019 and then through SPE and Sony Music Entertainment Japan's Aniplex from 2019 to its closure in 2024. In 2021, Sony acquired Crunchyroll.
Pokémon, abbreviated from the Japanese title of Pocket Monsters, and currently branded in English as Pokémon the Series, is a Japanese anime television series, part of The Pokémon Company's Pokémon media franchise, which premiered on TV Tokyo in April 1997.
4Kids Entertainment, Inc. was an American licensing company. The company was previously also a film and television production company that produced English-dubbed Japanese anime through its subsidiary 4Kids Productions between 1992 and 2012; it specialized in the acquisition, production and licensing of children's entertainment around the United States. The first anime that 4Kids Productions dubbed was the first eight seasons of Pokémon that originally began airing in first run syndication, and then it later moved to exclusively air on Kids' WB! in the United States. The company is most well-known for its range of television licenses, which has included the multibillion-dollar Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! Japanese anime franchises. They also ran two program blocks: Toonzai on The CW, and 4Kids TV on Fox, both aimed at children. The 4KidsTV block ended on December 27, 2008, while its Toonzai block ended on August 18, 2012, which was replaced by Saban's Vortexx, which in itself was succeeded by the One Magnificent Morning block by Litton Entertainment in 2014.
Lisa Ortiz is an American voice actress and voice director. She is best known for her roles in English anime adaptations, such as Lina Inverse in Slayers and Amy Rose in Sonic X. She voiced the latter character in the mainline and spin-off Sonic the Hedgehog video games from 2005 to 2010. She has served as the voice director for the English dub of the Pokémon anime since 2016, in addition to performing various roles since the first season. In 2021, she reprised Tao Jun in the Netflix anime Shaman King. She also voices Serenity Wheeler in Yu-Gi-Oh duel monsters and Mindy in Yu-Gi-Oh GX.
OLM, Inc.,, is a Japanese animation and film studio headquartered in Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan, founded on October 3, 1990, by former Studio Gallop and OB Planning employees. They are best known for producing the Pokémon and Berserk anime series.
Unforseen Productions, Inc., doing business as Bang Zoom! Entertainment is an American audio post-production studio with its headquarters in Burbank, California, in Greater Los Angeles. Founded in 1993, it has worked on anime, video games, television series, feature films, and original animation projects.
Sprite Animation Studios is an American computer animation studio founded in 2002 by former members of Square USA led by Motonori "Moto" Sakakibara, co-director of Square Pictures and Columbia Pictures’ feature film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. The studio specializes in the design and creation of 3D computer animation for film and television productions, video games, and commercial advertising, and its short productions have screened at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, the SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater, the Ottawa International Animation Festival, and other venues.
Studiopolis, Inc. is an American post-production studio located in Studio City, Los Angeles. It specializes in voiceover recording and dubbing for cartoon, anime, and video game projects. They were formerly known as Screenmusic Studios and then Studio E Productions until 2005. The studio is owned by Jamie Simone. It has another studio located in Burbank, California.
Crunchyroll is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Sony Group Corporation. The service primarily distributes films and television series produced by East Asian media, including Japanese anime, and is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with a Japanese branch located in Shibuya, Tokyo.
Ordet Co., Ltd. is a Japanese animation studio, founded in 2007 by ex-Kyoto Animation director Yutaka Yamamoto and other staff. The company's name, "Ordet," means "the word" in Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian. The company initially served as a subcontractor before producing their first fully solo work, an OVA episode of Black Rock Shooter, which aired in the spring of 2010. This was followed up with an 8-episode series that aired on noitamina from February 2, 2012, to March 22, 2012. In 2011, with studios Sanzigen and Trigger, Ordet joined the Ultra Super Pictures joint holding company.
SXION 23 LLC, doing business as Section23 Films, is an American multimedia distributor based in Houston, Texas specializing in releasing anime and Japanese films. Established in 2009, Section23 is one of five successors to ADV Films; alongside Sentai Filmworks, Switchblade Pictures, Maiden Japan, and AEsir Holdings. The company is named after a Texas tax code.
Aniplex of America, or Aniplex USA, is an anime distributor based in Santa Monica, California that serves as the American distribution enterprise of Aniplex, an entertainment company owned by Sony Music Entertainment Japan, where its goal is to reinforce the parent company's licensing business in the North American market. They operate the English language version of the Aniplex+ store, and from 2013 to 2017 operated a streaming service called Aniplex Channel through their website. The company most of the time only directly releases its titles in the Americas, however, some of its titles have been released in other territories by other distributors, such as Anime Limited, MVM Films, Siren Visual and corporate siblings Crunchyroll UK and Ireland and Crunchyroll Store Australia.
Violet Evergarden is a Japanese light novel series written by Kana Akatsuki and illustrated by Akiko Takase. It was published by Kyoto Animation under their KA Esuma Bunko imprint, from December 2015 to March 2020. The story follows Violet Evergarden, a young ex-soldier who becomes an Auto Memory Doll tasked with writing letters that can connect people.
Twin Engine Inc. is a Japanese anime production company established in October 2014 by former Fuji TV's Noitamina Executive Editor Kōji Yamamoto.
Studio Colorido Co., Ltd. is a Japanese animation studio subsidiary of Twin Engine.
A Whisker Away is a 2020 Japanese animated romantic fantasy film produced by Studio Colorido, Toho Animation, and Twin Engine. Directed by Junichi Sato and Tomotaka Shibayama, with the latter being his directorial debut, the film was released on June 18, 2020, on Netflix in Japanese. The film stars Mirai Shida, Natsuki Hanae, Minako Kotobuki, Susumu Chiba, Ayako Kawasumi, Sayaka Ohara, Daisuke Namikawa, Hiroaki Ogi, and Koichi Yamadera.
Violet Evergarden: The Movie is a 2020 Japanese animated film based on Violet Evergarden light novel series by Kana Akatsuki and a sequel to the 2018 anime television series adaptation. Produced by Kyoto Animation and distributed by Shochiku, the film is directed by Taichi Ishidate from a script written by Reiko Yoshida, and stars Yui Ishikawa and Daisuke Namikawa who reprise their roles from the series. In the film, Violet Evergarden continues in her search for the meaning of the final words left by Gilbert Bougainvillea when she receives a request to write a letter from a boy named Yuris.
