AnimEigo is an American entertainment company that licenses and distributes anime, samurai films and Japanese cinema. The company was founded in 1988 in Ithaca, New York by Robert Woodhead and Roe R. Adams, III. It is now based in Wilmington, North Carolina, and run by Natsumi Ueki, Robert's wife. Their first release, Metal Skin Panic Madox 01, was also the first anime to be commercially released exclusively to home video in the US which was not bound by the content restrictions of American broadcast TV or film. The company has released such titles as Urusei Yatsura, Oh My Goddess!, Vampire Princess Miyu, Gainax's industry/fandom sendup Otaku no Video, the original Bubblegum Crisis OVA series, and Kimagure Orange Road. They have also expanded into Japanese films that are live-action rather than animated; these are mostly classic "Jidaigeki" (samurai films) such as Zatoichi, Lone Wolf and Cub and the influential edited/dubbed version of Lone Wolf and Cub, Shogun Assassin (which AnimEigo completely reconstructed), but they also include other films such A New Love in Tokyo, a film about Japanese call girls. Their completed release of Urusei Yatsura is one of the longest releases of an anime series in the US market ever, with over 50 volumes in all. Most of their English dubs were recorded at Coastal Studios in Wilmington, NC.
The company is well known for the quality of its translation and subtitles, and pioneered such techniques as multi-color subtitles, overlapping dialogue, and supertitles that explain important cultural, linguistic and historical tidbits. Alert viewers will often find subtle references to pop culture and current events hidden in the subtitles when they match what the characters are actually saying. Sometimes the references are blatant; in episode 18 of Super Dimension Fortress Macross, the dying Roy Fokker not only repeats the famous words of Mr. Spock from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan -- "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few..." but adds Captain Kirk's reply -- "or the one". AnimEigo also includes comprehensive cultural and linguistic "liner notes" with their releases.
AnimEigo also licensed two Lupin III films: Lupin III: The Fuma Conspiracy and Lupin III: Legend of the Gold of Babylon. Because of legal issues surrounding the Lupin name (which was used by author Monkey Punch without permission from the estate of Maurice Leblanc), the titles were released as Rupan III (which is the romaji pronunciation of Lupin). Even after the Lupin name passed into public domain in the 1990s, AnimEigo continued to distribute the films as Rupan III. The North American distribution rights to both films were taken over by Discotek Media in 2006.
AnimEigo was one of the original companies in the U.S. dedicated to licensing anime, after Streamline, and are considered pioneers in the industry, and helped give anime a noticeable following in the US along with Streamline, Central Park Media, U.S. Renditions, Pioneer Entertainment, and ADV Films. They are the last remaining "original" anime licensing company still in business, however, they have been letting more and more of their anime licenses expire without licensing any new titles in years, leaving some to speculate that AnimEigo is dropping out of the US anime industry.
Their name is a portmanteau of "anime" and "eigo" (英語), the Japanese word for the English language. The UK affiliate was called Anime Projects, releasing many of AnimEigo's titles on the other side of the Atlantic.
Read more about AnimEigo: Anime Titles, Samurai Films, Other Japanese Cinema, Discontinued Anime Titles, Other Discontinued Films