In a major article about anime and manga in the latest Fortune, writer Daniel Roth profiles Houston-based ADV Films and draws a sharp contrast between the American anime companies and Hollywood.  Unlike the movie studios that are crawling with MBAs ensconced in posh offices, ADV is headquartered in low-rent Houston and staffed largely by fans who understand and appreciate anime; and unlike the studios with their ever more invasive attempts to stem the technological tide with elaborate copy protection systems, the anime industry has tried to reach an accommodation with the fansub community (which has played a key role in the development of interest in anime in the U.S. and Europe).  ADV has even begun to use BitTorrent software as a marketing tool by allowing fans to download extended trailers and samples of new series.

Fortune's Roth also points out that ADV's marketing to its potential customer base is far more personal than the $100 million plus studio blockbuster campaigns that include movie ads on all sorts of unrelated consumer products from cereal boxes and Poptart wrappers to toilet paper.  Roth quotes Tokyopop's EIC Mike Kiley, who sums up the personalized, core-targeting marketing strategies of U.S. anime and manga producers: 'We're always adopting new technology, and we get in front of 250,000 to half a million fans at trade shows every year all over the country.' 

Jason DeMarco of the Cartoon Network summed up the importance of the fan community, 'With anime, almost more than any other medium except maybe music, the hardcore fans drive everyone else's interest.'

Among the key revelations in the article are the fact that ADV has raised approximately half of the money necessary for the production of the $100 million live action version of Neon Genesis Evangelion and the news that company's video-on-demand service, the Anime Network, ranks as one of the most popular on-demand channels trailing only HBO On-Demand and wrestling.

As usual in this type of coverage, the article references ICv2's manga market size estimate in its analysis.