"Most of us don't deal with the union," says Matt Greenfield, Vice President of Production at AD Vision. "Union demands are built around these big, huge multi-billion dollar Hollywood productions and not around small operations like dubbing. There simply isn't the kind of cash flow involved for a union-type operation to be profitable."

Greenfield cites an abridged list of all the inhibiting regulations of a SAG or AFTRA production - residual payouts, a limited time to complete projects and royalties. All of these make it difficult for US anime production companies to comply with union standards. Greenfield says that it is not even the actor's expenses that make it unfeasible, but rather the extra legal expenses as well as bookkeeping required of a union production.

The boom in anime throughout the 90s could be attributed to American production companies eluding the financial pressures of the union and channeling those funds into promotion. According to Freeman, voice-over operations legally fall into the category of dialogue replacement rather than acting. This creates many loopholes through which anime production companies jump to escape unions once they have the rights to an anime.

Also, several of the leading anime companies such as AD Vision and Funimation (who produce "Dragonball Z") are headquartered in Texas. Texas is a right-to-work state, along with North Carolina and New York, which means that film production of any kind can be non-union. This enables non-union actors to work on union projects much easier than in other places. Some production companies like VIZ, another anime superpower whose titles include "Ranma 1/2," "Maison Ikkoku" and "Pokemon," farms out most of its production work to Canada, where union regulations are less stringent than in America.

The official position of the unions is quite clear.

"Any time a performer works in the US, we or SAG would have a contract to cover that work. So, for example, if a Japanese cartoon was dubbed here in the US, the AFTRA or SAG animation agreement would cover that work, as applicable. However, if the work were done in Japan or some other foreign market, we would not have jurisdiction. We are, of course, anxious for the work to remain in this country, to provide jobs for our membership," says Joan Weise of AFTRA.

Realistically, though, AFTRA, which covers American cartoon voice actors and general voice-over work as well, has had an aversion to even getting into this field. With production companies spanning North America, there aren't enough actors in a centralized location to voice a loud enough objection to the way the anime industry has been able to slip under the union radar. And the anime production companies haven't made enough money to make a potential AFTRA cut worth it to union leaders.

But the industry has been growing. "With the exception of something like '(Princess) Mononoke' that was put out by Disney, (anime productions companies) aren't putting the money into it," says Lisa Ortiz, the voice of Lina Inverse of "The Slayers" and Deedlit of "Record of Lodoss War." "Even though there's more stuff out there that's mainstream enough to make a lot of money on, they're still not necessarily willing to put it into union ... They can go to Canada or somewhere else. There are so many options available to them that allow them to circumvent the system ... and they have the ability to do that if they choose."

Even televised programs such as "Pokemon" and "Card Captors" don't have to originate from union production houses. The syndication system disassociates the production company from the broadcast companies like the WB or Fox, who buy these series as finished products.

"It hasn't been a problem; I haven't seen or heard any issues come up," says Ken Duer, Vice President of Acquisition at WB. "Issues that have to do with unions are sensitive with any studio. There are a lot of loopholes, so when union issues come up in any studio, the heads are really reluctant to discuss them. They don't bring it up because they don't want to create any waves with the union, so I think I have the same position here. I don't really want to comment that much because you know, who knows where it leads."

Giving added insight into the situation Freeman adds, "There's no reason to be union if you want to do anime. You can't even join the unions if all you're doing is anime ... It's a sticky situation since many shows on TV should be union in my opinion ... It's really becoming a problem now that anime is becoming more popular and showing up on cable more."