Anime Invasion

It's... Profitmón! "Anyone can build up a huge library. It's what ADV does with it that's interesting. Ledford aims his shows at small groups, knowing that if he can keep costs down—licensing properties on the cheap, basing his operation in low-cost Houston, using non-union actors to do voice-overs in his own studio—he does not need boffo box office to make money. (His average per-title margin: 25%.) As long as the otaku are nice and frenzied, the formula works. So Ledford makes sure voice actors and execs in his companies make a big presence at the fan shows. He's also adept at creating useful controversies... The day that Apple unveiled the video iPod, Oarr was on the phone with the company, trying to figure out how to get ADV's library onto the iTunes Music Store.

This is open-source TV programming. "Fansubbers," as they're called, can spend more than a dozen hours collectively just to get a half-hour show ready for English speakers. The process is as orderly as an ant farm, with each fansubber having a specialized task... Typically the fansubbers organize themselves in teams to make the process move more smoothly. All this is done for free.

art of the reason is that the fansubbers police themselves with a zero-tolerance policy that would impress Eliot Spitzer. The first rule of fansub club: Don't trade fansubs once a U.S. company licenses a show. So when ADV announces a new acquisition, Gerard Krijgsman, the founder of AnimeSuki.com—the largest database of BitTorrent anime shows—immediately yanks the show from his site based in the Netherlands.

Last July, Taylor flew to San Diego to attend Comic-Con, the once dorky gathering of comic and sci-fi fans. The convention now pulls in more than 100,000 attendees. Taylor took a proposed producer of the Evangelion film out to lunch to see if he couldn't jump-start production, now that the project has raised about half of the $100 million to $120 million Ledford estimates he needs to make this movie right. Before they could sit down, a fan recognized Taylor and asked him not about anything he's actually done, but about Evangelion. Taylor turned to the producer and said, "This is why we have to do this movie."

"Everybody here in some capacity loves anime very passionately, or they love manga," says Ledford. "We've got businesspeople here who could care less—every company does—but you go to some of these big, mega-conglomerate media companies, and they go, 'Oh, anime is making lots of money.' But then they get into it and they don't do it right because they're not connected to the fans."" Before I say anything, this article title is horrible and trite. And get on with Eva movie right now! That's top on every otaku's head and I hope to see it before I turn 40! And Mr. Cameron, don't fuck up Battle Angel Alita. Transformer with Mr. Bay? Decepticons better blow shit up.