The Animatsu Entertainment interview

Written by A. H. on 24 Feb 2015

After so many years of covering the UK industry nothing should surprise us any more, yet 2014 still managed to catch us by surprise - first, with the departure of both Jerome Mazandarani and Andrew Hewson from Manga Entertainment, and then again with their announcement of a new venture in the form of Animatsu Entertainment.

Now that this new company is not only up and running but also gearing up for its first home video releases, we caught up with both Jerome and Andrew as they kindly took some time out of their busy schedules to be bombarded with questions by us. What does Animatsu Entertainment have planned, and what does it mean for the broader UK anime industry? Read on to find out!

UK Anime: First of all, many thanks for taking some time to answer our questions, and congratulations on successfully starting the new company!

Andrew Hewson: Thanks, most appreciated!

Jerome Mazandarani: Thank you.

UK Anime: What brought about the decision to start Animatsu Entertainment?

Andrew Hewson: A drunken night in Vegas! Ha, just kidding. We both felt like we’d been at Manga for long enough and the time was right to leave. In addition, meeting our now-investors who shared the same vision as us and wanted to help bring it into fruition played a big part. Right place, right time, right people!

Jerome Mazandarani: I had been there for a decade and thought that maybe it would be a good time to leave and try my own thing.

UK Anime: Did you have any concerns as to whether there's room for four major anime distributors in the UK?

Jerome Mazandarani: My history and relationship with Manga means that we have been able to work in partnership with them on physical distribution, sales and marketing. So! I wouldn’t necessarily argue that there are four separate labels competing in the UK. With Animatsu and Manga, you pretty much have one super-indie anime label.

Andrew Hewson: Not really, there is plenty of good content to go around so long as people don’t get too greedy. Healthy competition is always good!

UK Anime: What goals and targets have you set yourself for Animatsu in its first year?

Andrew Hewson: To be the best label we can be by delivering high quality products that fans will be proud to own! You have to remember that Jerome and I are both geeks ourselves - we love cinema, comic books, collectible toys, good Thai food, long walks on the beach... sorry, I digress.  Seriously though, we know what excites us about TV and movies, and so we use that to help get into the mindset of an anime fan to figure out what they desire in a release. You could say we are the Derren Brown of the anime world! We’d also like to explore the digital world more; it is an exciting and extremely essential space to be in full of fantastic opportunities.

Jerome Mazandarani: To acquire and release as many great new anime series as possible as well as try to pick up a few evergreen titles. We are also interested in seeing what opportunities there are for us to continue working with straight-to-digital studios like Rooster Teeth, the guys who produced Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist, Halo Forward Unto Dawn and Channel Flip (Ashen And The Quest For The Game Child). We want to establish Animatsu as a Digital Entertainment brand that is particularly successful at marketing to the fan-market.

UK Anime: The departure of both of you from Manga Entertainment after a decade of service was a shock for most UK fans - was it a difficult decision to leave after so long driving that distributor forward, and were there any particular reasons why you both felt that now was the time to move on?

Andrew Hewson: It was sad saying goodbye but at the end of the day we definitely made the right decision. There were a few different reasons as to why, but mainly because we had this great opportunity put in front of us and even though we knew it would a challenge we would be stupid to turn it down.

Jerome Mazandarani: We were presented with an offer that was too good to ignore. It felt like the right time.

UK Anime: Despite your departure from the company, you've now announced that Animatsu Entertainment has entered into a sales and marketing partnership with Manga Entertainment - was that plan always on the cards, or is it simply something that came about organically once you'd started up Animatsu?

Jerome Mazandarani: Some recent developments at Anchor Bay/Manga allowed us to quickly enter into discussions with them to secure their sales and distribution services.

Andrew Hewson: It’s a good fit. It’s not entirely what we expected, but it does put us in a very powerful position within the UK distribution business.

UK Anime: Can you go into any more detail as to exactly what services Manga Entertainment will undertake for Animatsu? Will they be authoring your releases for example, or simply handling sales and distribution of finished stock?

Andrew Hewson: Customers will discover that we will be using multiple solutions for producing DVD and Blu-ray for the UK. For example, Gatchaman Crowds is a straight reproduction of Hanabee’s Australian release. If we can’t source a PAL DVD replication master from overseas then we will either author to PAL ourselves or simply release the NTSC version for DVD. We will be working with Siren Visual, Hanabee and Madman in Australia as well as with Sentai and FUNimation in the US.

Jerome Mazandarani: You have to understand that when Manga has authored its own discs in the UK it has worked with some of the leading British authoring houses. It’s my understanding that some of their releases have displeased certain fans because of choices made on Manga’s behalf regarding chapter selection points and subtitling. All of Manga’s releases have passed technical QC, but it’s the “fanboy QC” that is not being addressed. Sadly none of the Soho-based authoring houses are manned by anime enthusiasts or anime experts. That is a weakness on our side, which we have addressed and will action. Wherever possible and in order to keep costs down we will be looking to reproduce existing Blu-ray and DVD replication masters. This is what MVM and Anime Limited have been doing for a long time.

UK Anime: Conversely, and given your experience with the company, do you have any input into the direction of Manga Entertainment as part of this deal - will you have any say on acquisitions or release strategies, or will you just be dealing with the marketing aspect of their business?

Jerome Mazandarani: Yes. We will have a lot of input.