 When Bandai
America, the video arm of the U.S. subsidiary of the huge Bandai corporation
in Japan, decided to go into the anime business in America, they started
online. The Animevillage.com web site was launched in the summer of 1998,
just after Anime Expo. At Animazement, Nobu Yamamoto (left) and Jerry Chu
of Bandai America said they will branch out from online sales to retail
sales. Tapes of series such as Sabre Marionette and Gundam will be
sold at video outlets like Blockbuster, Suncoast and Sam Goody. Those major
retail chains have led the rush toward making anime a part of the American
mainstream scene. |
 The Animevillage.com
web site will remain and will be revised. "Now we're trying to make it
look like a space station," Yamamoto said. To attract more people to the
web site, Bandai hopes to have new features such as on-line chats with
anime creators from Japan. There's also talk of a Animevillage.com costume
contest that would offer Anime Expo trips as prizes. |
 Bandai is
a big company, Yamamato said, and the Animevillage.com division has to
compete and cooperate with other divisions. They receive support from the
game division and from Japanese anime subsidiaries such as Sunrise, but
they also have to bid on American video rights to Bandai anime series.
Yamamoto acknowledged the early problems Animevillage.com had with shipments
and said they're still looking to improve that part of the business. |
 If you had
visited Richard Kekahuna at the Animevillage.com booth at Animazement,
you would have found a collection of anime series VHS tapes for sale. Yamamoto
said he hopes to get some DVD licenses for existing series so that they
can sell them online. Also in their future plans are Gundam Master Grade
models of the Gundam 0083 and Gundam Wing mecha, and Witchblade models
of Escaflowne mecha and characters. |
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