By 
From the Archives is a deep dive into MAHQ’s history that revisits some old content that still has historical value.
This dive into the MAHQ archives focuses on Justin Sevakis, a man who has worn many hats in his career in the anime industry. He is known for founding the Anime News Network in 1998, and more recently he founded MediaOCD, a video post production company that owns AnimEigo and works with Discotek Media. At the time of this interview, originally posted on July 17, 2007, Sevakis worked at ImaginAsian Entertainment, which ran an Asian-focused TV channel from 2004-2011.
On July 17, I conducted a telephone interview with Justin Sevakis, manager of strategic development and programming at ImaginAsian Entertainment. The TV network, which broadcasts anime, recently entered into a deal with TMS Entertainment to release classic titles such as Super Dimension Century Orguss on DVD. A previous VHS release of the series by the now-defunct U.S. Renditions was dub only and covered 17 out of 35 episodes.
MAHQ: What led the network to get into the anime licensing business?
JUSTIN SEVAKIS: We did (and are still doing) a great branded block with Geneon [Entertainment] to promote their DVD releases. TMS, the classic animation studio, reached out to us out of their L.A. office wanting to do something with us. They’re very famous – they have a really long history, and we’re honored that they’d reach out to us. I’m an old school anime fan myself, and looking through their catalog was like a kid going through a candy store. It just so happens a few months ago a company called TitleMatch approached us about doing DVD on-demand, and the two just seemed a perfect fit. Older anime titles tend to not do so hot on DVD, so this was a new way of making a DVD release of an older anime possible.
MAHQ: How was Orguss selected as one of the initial titles along with the other two titles you’re releasing?
SEVAKIS: It’s a fantastic old show by the creators of Macross, and it’s probably the most famous out of the three we’ve licensed [Ed. the other two are Cat’s Eye and Nobody’s Boy Remi]. The previous VHS release here was unfinished, so all of the people decades ago that bought the original VHS were kind of left hanging. This was also an opportunity to finish it off for those fans as well.
MAHQ: As someone who’s in the anime industry, but also as a fan, what do you think makes Orguss appealing and could make it successful as part of this line?
SEVAKIS: It was made by the creators of Macross, but a couple of years afterwards. The lessons that they learned while making Macross, and the additional experience and animation know-how made a big difference in terms of animation quality. The animation is probably some of the best that classic mecha has to offer from that time period. It’s really quite mature in the way it tackles some interracial issues. It’s really quite timely, despite being over 20 years old.
MAHQ: There have been some concerns from fans about the use of DVD-R media, as well as Orguss‘ video quality, so how would you address those concerns?
SEVAKIS: As far as DVD-R media, there are two concerns that I’ve heard so far. The first one is the longevity of the media won’t last long, which we don’t know to be true. People have had DVD-Rs die, but it’s the cheap DVD-Rs that die. TitleMatch uses nothing but the best DVD-R media, Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim for the most part, which are pretty much universally respected for their quality. Taiyo Yuden in particular guarantees their media for over 100 years, so while none of us will be alive, I’m sure our children will still be enjoying these DVDs. The only other real question about using DVD-R media is just the fact that it’s DVD-R media and not properly replicated. That’s really just a psychological hang up. The video quality is still the same as if we were replicating, but it just wouldn’t be possible to replicate these discs given the low numbers they’re expected to do.
As for the video quality on Orguss, I think people are expecting too much from a 25-year-old show, to be honest. Orguss was actually the only one that was not digitally restored from a new transfer. It is cleaned up a little bit, but it uses the old one-inch original video master that was made for broadcast back in 1983. It’s not going to look as clean and compress as cleanly as a brand new transfer, but that’s just how it is.
MAHQ: Given that Orguss didn’t receive a remaster, how does its video quality compare to Cat’s Eye and Nobody’s Boy Remi?
SEVAKIS: All three series have their little quirks. Orguss and Remi have excellent colors. Cat’s Eye was shot on a high, quick return 16mm film stock. As far as video presentation goes, I can’t imagine it looking much better, but you still get the grain and washed out look of that film stock. Remi is a beautiful restoration, also progressive. We had to cram a little more on those discs than we would’ve liked, just to make it a feasible number of volumes to release. They all look at minimum ‘good,’ some of them ‘great.’
MAHQ: Was there any difficulty in acquiring the defunct English dub for the first 17 episodes of Orguss?
SEVAKIS: Not as much as I had thought there would be. We were able to get these from an inside source. That particular dub was recorded at the infancy of the anime industry, and also one of the first dubs produced by Animaze, which later went on to make such well-regarded dubs as Ghost in the Shell and Cowboy Bebop. They were still learning at the time, and it shows in the quality of the mix.
MAHQ: Has there been any clean up or remixing of that dub?
SEVAKIS: No. There’s no stem, so there’s really nothing to remix. It doesn’t make for a seamless viewing experience – it’s only there for posterity.
MAHQ: In terms of the adaptation, how does the dub compare to the original Japanese version?
SEVAKIS: They were still learning how to do script adaptations at that point. If you look at the credits of the English dub, which are reproduced on our disc, the English re-write was tossed to about 5 or 6 different people over the course of the 17 episodes they dubbed. So they vary quite a bit. They made some different choices than we did as far as how to translate certain technical terms. Overall, I was kind of surprised how faithful they kept it for that era.
MAHQ: What led to the partnership with The Right Stuf International to release these series?
SEVAKIS: That was the idea from the get-go. People trust Right Stuf to fulfill their order and they trust them with their credit card number. ImaginAsian doesn’t have a reputation for online order fulfillment, whereas Right Stuf is possibly the most preferred online place to order anime.
MAHQ: I believe all three titles street on August 14, correct?
SEVAKIS: August 10. They’re giving themselves a couple of extra days. They use a new format of DVD-R that was supposed to be approved last month by the DVD Copy Control Association. It has not as yet been ratified – we’re still waiting for that. Basically, these discs are fully authored, the masters are where they should be, they just need to press “go” once the resolution is passed.
MAHQ: Does Right Stuf have any data on how preorders have been for the three titles?
SEVAKIS: Sales have been quite strong. We were pleasantly surprised with the number of preorders, and that was before any actual marketing. We had a big splash at Anime Expo, and I’m going to Otakon this weekend. As additional marketing comes into play, we’ll see how far this goes.
MAHQ: I have a friend who’s going to kill me if I don’t ask this question. If a sci-fi show like Orguss does well, what are the chances for Space Adventure Cobra?
SEVAKIS: We would love to work with TMS more in the future, should this work out well for us. I’ll leave it at that.
MAHQ: In terms of working with TMS’ catalog, how far can you go? Are you limited to classic titles, or could you pursue more recent titles?
SEVAKIS: We’re open to almost anything with TMS. The question is, this is a limited way of releasing an anime, and does it make sense from TMS’ point of view, or are they still courting the FUNimations and the Geneons and the Media Blasters of the world to try to take some of this other stuff? That might work better for them. It’s up to what makes sense from their point of view.
MAHQ: How have the ratings been on ImaginAsian so far for these series?
SEVAKIS: We’ve had extremely strong viewer feedback. We’re in 5 million households, and when you’re that small, you only show up as a tiny blip on the radar as far as ratings go. We rely more on viewer feedback and test groups and people in the field to give us some data on how they do. We’ve had more feedback on these shows than almost any other anime we’ve shown in our three years on the air.
MAHQ: How does the network plan to expand in the future and reach more markets across the country?
SEVAKIS: Carriage is first and foremost. We just went on the air not too long ago in Dallas and northern Virginia. We’re on in Houston now as well. We’re adding new markets all the time. I’d encourage your readers to go to our website to see what our latest coverage is, and if they don’t get us to bug their cable and satellite provider. It really does help, believe it or not. We’re building a new movie theater. We have one here in New York and a second one that’s going up later this summer in downtown Los Angeles.
MAHQ: Any upcoming anime premieres?
SEVAKIS: Our Anime Ener-G block with Geneon is about to start with a brand new batch of shows. On July 31 at 8 p.m. we start off Paradise Kiss, Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales and Kamichu! That’s in addition to our two ongoing series, Kyo Kara Maoh and Law of Ueki.
Comments