Manga Entertainment

Manga Entertainment is a producer, licensor and distributor of Japanese animation in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Australia and New Zealand. It also co-produces several anime series, including Ghost in the Shell, Street Fighter Alpha: The Animation, Highlander: The Search for Vengeance and Eon Kid, usually through financial contributions toward production costs. It was established in 1991 by Andy Frain, who was the Managing Director of Island World Communications; a subsidiary at the time of Chris Blackwell and John Heyman's Island World Group. It is currently a subsidiary of Starz Media, a subsidiary and joint venture of venture capital firm Liberty Media and independent film distributor The Weinstein Company. It has also played a part in dubbing anime, when it is not sub-licensing a production that has already been licensed by another company (e.g., Akira, licensed and redubbed by Geneon in 2001, Bounty Dog, and Lupin III: Bye Bye Liberty Crisis).

They currently have licensing and distribution deals with Funimation Entertainment, Sentai Filmworks, and Viz Media in the UK, however unlike previous licensing agreements they do not bring titles from Funimation, Sentai, and Viz to Australia under their brand as Manga's Australian distributor, Madman Entertainment has the licenses from these companies.

Manga Entertainment, especially Manga UK has had a special relationship with Madman Entertainment since Madman's founding in 1996. Manga is credited by many as the major force behind turning Anime into mainstream entertainment in Australia during the 1990s and early 2000s. Manga's latest DVD & Blu-ray masters are encoded and provided by Madman Entertainment because of Madman's extremely large and modern DVD & Blu-ray authoring division.

Despite its name, the company's principal business is the distribution of anime rather than manga, although they have published some manga, such as Crying Freeman, in the United Kingdom under the Manga Books imprint.