The Japanese Advertising agency Dentsu, a leading investor in and producer of Japanese animation, has launched a new U.S.-based division DCI Los Angeles (DCI-LA) to develop, co-produce, distribute and license original animation programs.  Late last year Dentsu pulled the plug on Geneon, its American anime subsidiary (see “Dentsu Eats $40 Million”).

Yuma Sakata, the senior vice president for DCI-LA, was critical of contemporary anime productions claiming: “Although Japanese animation has achieved significant global success, many productions we currently see in development do not have broad appeal outside of Japan."  Sakata went on to explain the reasons for setting up the L.A. office: "Working with Western partners in pre-production, and then production teams in Japan for animation, we can create content that will appeal to a wider audience."

Dentsu is seeking North American and European co-production partners to help develop animation projects, which will be backed by Dentsu’s considerable resources in animation production and its access to Asian TV markets.  The target audiences that Dentsu indicates that it is try to reach with these efforts are children 6-12 and males 17-25.

In addition to searching for co-production partners Dentsu is shopping the anime series Deltora Quest, which is based on a series of books written the Australian writer Emily Rodda (published here by Scholastic), and produced by OLM (Oriental Light and Magic).  DCI-LA is looking for broadcast partners and licensees for Deltora Quest in all territories and categories.  Geneon announced the rights to Deltora Quest in 2007, but went out of business before releasing the series on DVD or placing it with broadcasters. Dentsu, which controls all rights to the series worldwide, has licensed manga rights for Deltora Quest to Kodansha as well as card game and PVC toy rights to Bandai. 

In addition to Mr. Sakata, who has had considerable experience as an anime producer (Final Fantasy: Unlimited), the DCI-LA staff also includes Yukio Kusumoto (a producer of Black Lagoon and numerous other anime) and Marc Harrington, who was the former head of Business Development at Geneon.

Dentsu’s announcement of DCI-LA comes just a week after Viz Media opened its Viz Productions office in Los Angeles (see “Viz Productions”), though the objectives of  Viz Productions (to produce and license live action movie and TV versions of properties represented by Viz Media) appear to be quite different than those articulated by Mr. Sakata for DCI-LA.