Princess Tutu is a Japanese anime television series created by Ikuko Itoh and directed by Junichi Sato and Shogo Koumoto. Inspired by ballet and fairy tales, particularly The Ugly Duckling and Swan Lake, its story follows a duck who is transformed into the mythical ballerina Princess Tutu in order to save the shattered heart of a storybook prince come to life.
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 and second 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. Additionally, anime's growth in popularity in the US during the 1990s, commonly referred to as the "anime boom," is credited with much of anime's enduring relevance to popular culture outside Japan.
A.D. Vision Holdings, Inc. was an American multimedia entertainment distributor headquartered in Houston, Texas, and founded in 1992 by video game fan John Ledford and anime fans Matt Greenfield and David Williams. The company specialized in home video production and distribution, theatrical film distribution, merchandising, original productions, magazine and comic book publishing. They also ran Anime Network, a television channel devoted to airing the company's titles. Some of their titles were Neon Genesis Evangelion, Super Dimension Fortress Macross, RahXephon, Full Metal Panic, Azumanga Daioh, Elfen Lied, Gantz, Red Garden, and Le Chevalier D'Eon.
Science Ninja Team Gatchaman is a Japanese animated franchise about a five-member superhero ninja team created by Tatsuo Yoshida and produced by Tatsunoko Productions. The original anime series, which debuted in 1972, was eponymously entitled Kagaku Ninja-tai Gatchaman and is best known in the English-speaking world as the adaptation entitled Battle of the Planets (1978). The series had additional English adaptations with G-Force: Guardians of Space (1986) and 2005 ADV Films uncut release. Tatsunoko also uses the official translation Science Commando Gatchaman in related products and media.
Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water is a Japanese anime television series created by NHK, Toho, and Korad, from a concept of Hayao Miyazaki, and directed by Hideaki Anno of Gainax. Inspired by the works of Jules Verne, particularly Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas and the exploits of Captain Nemo, the series follows young inventor Jean and former circus performer Nadia, who are led off to adventure by a secret in Nadia's pendant.
Matthew Brian Greenfield is an American producer, scriptwriter, director and voice actor. He produces English-language versions of Japanese anime, including Neon Genesis Evangelion, and was the co-founder of A.D. Vision.
John Robert Ledford II is an American entrepreneur and producer in the anime industry. He founded A.D. Vision, Anime Network, Newtype USA and Sentai Filmworks, and has been an executive producer for hundreds of anime titles including Halo Legends, Appleseed Alpha, Short Peace, Sailor Moon, Hello Kitty, and the dubbing of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Central Park Media Corporation, often abbreviated as CPM, was an American multimedia entertainment company based in New York City, New York and was headquartered in the 250 West 57th Street building in Midtown Manhattan. They were one of the first companies to be active in the distribution of East Asian cinema, television series, anime, manga, and manhwa titles in North America, notably helping to make hentai popular in the region. Over its history, the company licensed several popular titles, such as Slayers, Revolutionary Girl Utena, the Tokyo Babylon OVAs, Project A-ko, and Demon City Shinjuku.
Urban Vision Entertainment Inc. was an American-based production/distribution company created in Los Angeles, California formed in July 1996 by Mataichiro Yamamoto to help introduce the animation medium known as anime to the American mainstream.
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.
Gatchaman (ガッチャマン) is a three-part original video animation based on the anime series Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. It was released in Japan from 1994 to 1995. This version of Gatchaman is set in the year 2066, where the evil leader of the nation of Hontwall is threatening to take over the planet. Scientists from the International Science Organization are disappearing and only five teenage heroes, the Science Ninja team, can stop the disaster.
Sentai Filmworks, LLC is an American entertainment company. Located in Houston, the company specializes in the dubbing and distribution of Japanese animation and Asian cinema. Its post-production arm is Sentai Studios.
Sentai Studios is an American post-production studio of Sentai Filmworks located in Houston, Texas. It was founded as Industrial Smoke & Mirrors, the in-house studio of ADV Films. It was renamed ADV Studios in 2005 when it merged with ADV's secondary studio, the Austin-based Monster Island; and then in 2006, when ADV began offering its services to other companies, the studio was also called Amusement Park Media before it was sold off by A.D. Vision in 2008. It was then renamed Seraphim Digital and was renamed to its current name in 2014.
Shannon Emerick is an American voice actress who voices a number of English language localizations of Japanese anime shows with ADV Films, Seraphim Digital and Sentai Filmworks. She graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in Theater Studies and English. In anime, she is known as the voice of Charlotte Dunois from the Infinite Stratos series, Kei Kishimoto from Gantz and Riki Naoe from the Little Busters! series. Outside of voice acting, she is a stage actress in the Houston area. She won the Best Actress award from Houston Press for her theater work twice in 2006 and 2011, respectively.
Persona 4: The Animation is an anime television series based on Atlus' PlayStation 2 video game, Persona 4. The story revolves around Yu Narukami, a young teenager who moves to the town of Inaba, where a mysterious string of murders is taking place. Upon discovering a distorted TV World and acquiring a mysterious power known as "Persona", Yu and his friends decide to investigate the murders and save others from being killed.
Rozen Maiden is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Peach-Pit. It was serialized in Monthly Comic Birz between the September 2002 and July 2007 issues. The individual chapters were collected and released into eight tankōbon volumes by Gentosha. The eight volumes were localized to North America by Tokyopop between March 2003 and June 2007. The story follows Jun Sakurada, a middle school student who withdrew from society after suffering persecutions from his classmates. Following his withdrawal, he is chosen to become the master to a Rozen Maiden named Shinku. Rozen Maidens are seven sentient porcelain dolls who compete against each other to become a perfect doll dubbed as Alice.
