While gadget lovers and two groups of video companies are engrossed over the competition between the high-definition Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats, there's little enthusiasm for either format in the rest of the real world - at least to Matt Greenfield, co-founder of ADV Films. "There's not much of a market right now - the two formats are killing each other," Greenfield said on Middle Tennessee's final day. Anime shows may not benefit from the high-definition formats because series are mastered in standard definition, and the main interest in the new formats may be as a way to use the higher disc capacities to stuff more standard definition video on a single disc, he said. That would ease one of the real-world frustrations of video retailers and producers, that even the largest stores have limited shelf space for anime. That limited space makes anime importers pay extra attention to what will sell to a general audience instead of just to hard-core fans, and Greenfield said the emphasis is turning toward sci-fi and action shows, much the same kind of series that led the first wave of anime series to the U.S. in the 1980's and 1990's. ADV's recent Guyver series is "selling like crazy," he said, while the wave of shojo series aimed at young women didn't sell as well. Those factors came together at the Tokyo International Anime Fair, the big trade show held in March that Greenfield attended. He said the trend there was toward "...shows with a lot of mecha, because that's what seems to be selling in the international market. We saw more great shows this year than in the last couple of years combined."

Much of anime companies' sales and marketing strategy is forced by the way they get licenses to anime series, Greenfield said. You could compare it to leasing a car as opposed to buying a car; since anime importers get the rights to a series for a limited amount of time, rather than owning the rights in perpetuity, it's like leasing the rights to a show. That explains why some older series come off the market or change hands, such as the case where the rights to much of the Slayers universe switched from Software Sculptors to Funimation. Many of the decisions of which U.S. company gets a series have been made well in advance because U.S. money has been used to make a show and the American financier has the first shot at the U.S. rights, Greenfield said. ADV and its Japanese partners have invested in more than 30 series. However, if another company likes an ADV-financed show and is willing to pay enough for the rights, that company likely will get the rights and ADV will consider the sale a way to get a better return on its investment, he said. Not all of ADV's decisions are that hard-nosed; Greenfield admitted that the company's leaders are still anime fans at heart, and they'll sometimes pick up a series just because of the way it looks instead of on its sales potential. As for Neon Genesis Evangelion: the planned ADV 10th anniversary release was delayed when the creators decided to re-cut and re-animate the originals into four movies, and the planned feature film is still pending, waiting for the right director. Greenfield said the live-action Evangelion feature could be produced for $100 million, inexpensive by 21st-century standards and a fraction of the cost expected for the big-budget Transformers movie.