Houston's 'Japanimation' station

The Houston Chronicle spotlights locally based ADV Films, the largest anime distributor in the world outside of Japan:

"We are now the fourth-largest home video distributor in terms of content in North America (after MGM, Warner and Sony)," [ADV president John] Ledford says. "Not in (quantity) but in (number of) DVD releases."

ADV also may be the largest employer of Houston-area actors. The average DVD has four 30-minute episodes that each require five to 25 voice actors.

In a sidebar, the newspaper offers a manga primer. Here's Ledford again:

"In the United States, the bestselling comic books like Batman or Spiderman sell (about) 100,000 (copies) a month. In Japan (popular titles) sell 5 million to 7 million copies. (The comic books are) about the size of a phone book, 300 to 400 pages, and they come out weekly."