Anime Business Central Park Media Closes Shop

Filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy within the past week, Japanese animation licensing and distribution outfit Central Park Media (CPM) is in the process of giving up various properties under ownership in order to pay back several hundred thousands in U.S. dollars owed to creditors. Increasingly inactive from the past two to four years, Central Park Media, a company that has served anime consumers in the west for nearly two full decades, has officially closed its doors. Across the anime distribution market, other licensors are already picking up the pieces, acquiring titles once marketed by the New York-based company.

Forced into bankruptcy by an unrecoverable attack from a weakening economic climate, inconsistent regional tax incentives, and an even weaker and less-consistent market for its most retailed commodities (anime), Central Park Media has uncomfortably sat in stagnation for quite some time. Founded back in April 1990 by John O'Donnell, the anime distributor had a long history of craftily merging an unyielding business competence with fan needs; essentially hoping to protect the consumer by protecting the product. Originally distributing documentaries and educational material, CPM officially entered the anime market in July 1991, at the time establishing its home video label U.S. Manga Corps.

According to reports, Central Park Media owes its creditors an approximate $1.2 million. Getting further inside the numbers, the distribution group acknowledged assets of $126,282 against $908,173 in secured liabilities and $277,531 in unsecured liabilities. Through its rawest definition, Chapter 7 bankruptcy is "the sale of a debtor's nonexempt property and the distribution of the proceeds to creditors." In other words, Chapter 7 almost completely and entirely liquidates the debtor's property in a final effort to erase any remaining debts. Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code often means the loss of a vast amount of property for the sake of getting out of under the burden of debt more quickly. Those who simply do not have the financial assets to keep with minimum credit payments file this type of bankruptcy.

Contributing to the company's shuttering, for example, was a sluggish state governorship, who enacted tax credit extensions to the local film and television industry, which according to sources, simply didn't extend far enough. State legislation allowed a percentage of qualified film production costs eligible for credit from 10 percent to 30 percent as recent as last year; uncertainty over long-term provisions, however, remain.

Hard to swallow as the closing of a reputable if markedly quiet anime business may be, Central Park Media has been in a fair decrescendo for some time: surviving off of re-packaged re-releases in between the subtle relinquishing of additional liabilities through the limited liquidation of various manga books, manhwa comics, and video properties. Much of this was spurred with the bankruptcy of Musicland in January 2006. As a major retail supporter of Japanese animation, Musicland and its bankruptcy dealt a near-lethal blow to anime fandom -- and, by extension, small distribution groups such as Central Park Media.