Pioneer Entertainment, one of the top anime packagers and distributors in the U.S., is forming Pioneer Anime Music, a new label that will release English versions of the soundtracks from many of Pioneer's most popular anime titles.   Pioneer plans to price the disks at $14.98 (srp), which will make them a bargain when compared with Japanese imports.  Higher audio quality, English translations and slicker design will provide the new Pioneer disks with an edge on the bootleg disks from Taiwan and Korea that have captured much of the market here in the states.  ADV Films recently joined Tokyopop and Viz to create high quality, relatively low cost anime soundtrack disks featuring music from its extensive line of anime titles (see 'ADV To Release Anime CDs'), so you can see there is a trend here.  In Japan anime soundtracks are very big business and as the U.S. anime market develops, the market for soundtracks should as well.

Pioneer plans to launch its label in July with six releases and follow up with three CDs per month.  The first wave of disks has some real winners including the Chobits Original Soundtrack 001, plus disks for Hellsing, Serial Experiments Lain, Patlabor WXII, as well as an album from composer Yuki Kajiura (Noir, dot hack) and one from idol singer Yoko Ishida, which includes love songs from the hot new Pioneer series Ai Yori Aoshi. In the future soundtrack releases will be coordinated, as much as possible, with the release of the anime, and Pioneer plans to cross-promote its video and audio releases with stickers and inserts.  Retailers wishing to increase anime sales might also want to start cross-promoting audio and video releases.