The nascence of ADV can be traced back to a tribe of Texas anime fans huddled around a television and computer in the late eighties, fan-subbing import titles with modest ambitions of promoting Japanese animation to broader circles. Over a decade later, ADV has boomed into the largest producer of domestically released anime in North America, and its ambitions have turned almost hubristic in scale, with an announced 2002 release schedule that includes over a hundred titles.

Matt Greenfield, co-founder of ADV, is heavily involved in the production of many of the new anime series and features to be released by ADV this year. Matt also produced, wrote, and directed the amazing theatrical release of Spriggan, which is currently making its way across the continent.

In the minutes leading up to the ADV Panel at Ohayocon 2002, I overheard the nervous patter of the con's guest relations staff, want for an ADV representative on their official guest list, confounded as to who would hold the scheduled ADV panel. One theory snatched from the pregnant air rang out: "Maybe Greenfield will do it?" This notion was promptly shot down by a confident, "No. He's not here. He doesn't come to little conventions like this."

Calm and collected, I sat patiently for Greenfield to show up for not only did I know that he had furtively slipped into the con the previous night, but had actually chatted with him briefly in his room, locking down a time to speak on the record immediately after the panel. Greenfield's convention schedule may come close to being as ambitious as ADV's release schedule.

The panel, small but well attended, closed out, giving me some face to face time with the convention face of ADV.

ADV's got a busy year planned for 2002. Why don't you tell us a little bit about it?

Matt Greenfield: We're working on a couple of TV deals with a lot of the larger networks. We can't really talk too much about those yet. We've got a lot of new series coming out. Probably the biggest priority right now is trying to get everything that ADV has ever released out on DVD by the end of the year.

It's quite a bit of a way to come from the old days of anime when it was one title every couple of months. Nowadays it's like, "OK, what are the seven titles we're releasing this month?"

With the exception of a few really popular titles, you're planning on producing DVDs exclusively?

MG: Yeah that's pretty much the way the entire video industry is going over the next year. This year, for the first time, penetration of DVD players in American households went over fifty percent. But a lot more impressive than that is, even before that number hit, which was right at Christmas, last year the majority of software sales in the country were on DVD, not VHS. And as a result, a lot of the store chains are cutting way back on VHS. And, when you get into your collecting markets, the more niche products, things like anime specifically, most of the fans in those bases and those groups switched over to DVD fairly early.

Last year, tapes that were being released subtitled on VHS stopped selling almost completely. The drop in VHS sales was pretty much proportional to this bump we were seeing on the DVD sales.

This year we're seeing some more slumps starting on the dubbed VHS in the last six months, so a lot of the newer titles - Princess Nine, Soul Hunter - DVD is all there's going to be.

More releases means a greater demand for retail shelf space. However, considering the two for one gain edgewise on DVD over VHS, how is ADV looking at retail shelf space?

MG: Well, it's even better than that actually because not only are you getting rid of two different SKU's on VHS, where you have a sub and a dub, but you also get more episodes on a DVD. We're putting five, six episodes on DVD's versus three or four on a tape. The compression is huge. But even so, we're very fortunate. We've got a really good relationship with most of the major retailers, and they know that ADV products have sold consistently well over the years. That's why in addition to just doing the anime, we've branched out to doing other things.

Other producers are coming to us and saying, "Hey, you know ADV has a talent for getting this stuff into the stores and making it sell, and we want you to handle our product." That's what we've started doing. We did Monster Rancher, we did Shadow Raiders, and, of course, last year we started doing Farscape by Jim Henson Productions. And this year we're going to be doing Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda.

So, we haven't had any trouble with shelf space because the venders know that ADV's product sells. But it is getting tight out there. The stores are definitely moving to DVD in general because there's not that much shelf space in the stores.