Weather Report Girl, one of a few titles released on the Right Stuf's Critical Mass label. Image courtesy of the Right Stuf. © 1994 O.B. Planning/Toho Co. Ltd.

The newest anime specialty producer/distributor, New York City's Media Blasters, actually began with its adult line, Kitty Media. President John Sirabella says, "Our first video was Rei-Lan: Orchid Emblem, on May 6, 1997, and we have released at least one Kitty Media title every month since then. I was already working in the anime field with the Software Sculptors line through Central Park Media, and I saw that there was a large Japanese adult animation source which was still relatively untapped for this country. The potential American market was very good, but the existing anime distributors were only putting out a few releases. They had solid general release catalogues, and they were nervous about the repercussions of getting into the adult market in a major way. So I started Kitty Media to be the best and biggest company in the adult anime market. Now that we have a solid backlist of over a dozen titles, we are expanding Media Blasters beyond the Kitty Media label. Our first AnimeWorks label release, which carries a "Kid Safe = For Audiences of All Ages!" logo, was Ninku the Movie in March. We are also starting a couple of live-action labels, Kaiju Productions for monster movies in the Godzilla and Rodan vein, and Tokyo Shock for the Japanese equivalent of the Hong Kong action thrillers. It has been the success of Kitty Media that is making this growth possible."

Anime Does Not Equal Pornography
A.D. Vision, Central Park Media and Media Blasters are all happy with the adult market, but they are not as pleased with the public's perception of it as synonymous with pornography. Sirabella says that, "There are varying degrees of adult," some of which do not involve eroticism at all. "One of our new Kitty Media releases, Dark Cat, is definitely not for children. It is a shocking horror film with intense violence, but no sexual situations."

Two CPM staffers are more perturbed by the public's dismissal of all anime as pornography. Valerio Rossi says, "Frankly, we are considerably disturbed by what seems to be a growing trend to consider anime as nothing but sex and brutal violence. That is a complete distortion of CPM's catalogue. Our Anime 18 titles, as popular as they are, account for only about 10% of our anime releases; between 5% and 10%. CPM releases almost a half-dozen anime videos a month among four different labels. There are two or three U.S. Manga Corps releases and one or two Software Sculptors releases every month. Those are popular action-adventure, horror or comedy titles. The U.S. Manga Corps anime is more mainstream and the Software Sculptors titles are more "alternate" or artistic. Our main Central Park Media label, which is our general label for mostly non-Japanese videos such as live-action documentaries, only includes an anime release every two or three months. Those are usually adaptations of Japanese literary works, such as Grave of the Fireflies and the Animated Classics of Japanese Literature series. Our Anime 18 titles average only one a month or six weeks; maybe eight or nine a year. So that's only eight or nine adult titles compared to 45 to 50 anime titles a year without sexual content. That makes it very frustrating to hear someone say, `Oh, yeah, I know about anime. It's those porno cartoons from Japan.'"

Jeff Zitomer, CPM's supervisor of production and marketing, feels that even the anime that emphasizes sexual content is misrepresented by being equated with pornography. "There is an important misconception in thinking of the adult anime labels like Anime 18 as animated pornography. If you look at actual pornographic videos, you'll see that they have no real story, no characters or character development, no attempt at imaginative camerawork--just close-ups of straight sex. The adult anime market is actually aimed at viewers who want intense adult situations in real stories, whether it's dramatic action or humor. There are eleven video volumes in the Urotsukidoji saga, and its story progress is actually more important than the sex. You could fast-forward through the naughty scenes and still have an interesting story to follow. The sexual nature of the story puts it into a unique category; it's not just a horror movie with a lot of sex scenes which could be taken out without changing the story. The Anime 18 line is not a porno line as much as a next step in animated storytelling for mature audiences, as the next step in adventure films beyond PG is an R rating. Our Anime 18 titles are for adults who want even more mature situations and dialogue in their suspense or their comedy, but who definitely want a story and interesting characters rather than just naked bodies engaged in sex."