Oct 2024 – Present · 1 yr 6 mos · London Area, United Kingdom · Remote

• "Anime industry veteran Jerome Mazandarani takes up the Answerman mantle to answer your burning questions!"
• I write a bi-weekly column of between 600-1,200 words where I field questions regarding global anime industry developments, trends, gossip, and explore some of the behind-the-scenes shenanigans behind some of your favourite anime series and movies.

May 2024 – Present · 1 yr 11 mos · London Area, United Kingdom · Remote

• 8 Lions is a bold new force in distribution, connecting the best in kids & teens entertainment with global audiences.
• My role at 8 Lions involves leveraging my extensive and deep connections in the anime and young adult entertainment space to help storytellers and library owners develop new creations and create new connections with sophisticated young audiences around the world, and together ensure that their stories inspire the next generation of super-fans.

May 2024 – Dec 2024 · 7 mos · London Area, United Kingdom · Remote

• Assisting the CEO and the international rights management, sales and distribution team to expand their global partnerships across L&M, publishing, games and audio-visual rights management for established brands including SCISSOR SEVEN (currently streaming on NETFLIX) and a slate of brand new anime content that will surprise and delight tween, teen and adult audiences all around the world. The next generation of Asian animation megahits is here!

Apr 2022 – May 2022 · 1 mo · Marseille, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France · On-site

• I featured as a guest speaker at the inaugural CARTOON NEXT summit hosted in Marseille to host a special information session on anime and anime-adjacent content, and the ways in which genre storytelling in the animation medium could provide a lifeline to Europe's ailing animation industry.
• "The newest member of the Cartoon family, Cartoon Next, aims to explore the future of the animation industry. At its first edition last week, one of the core topics was anime, an area of the genre that is experiencing “soaring” levels of demand, according to speakers.
• Speaking during a session dedicated to anime, Amit Devani, insights director at Parrot Analytics, highlighted a 35% year-on-year increase in demand for anime globally in 2020/21. This comprised an 18% rise in demand for new anime content, such as Tokyo Revengers, Star Wars: Visions and Arcane, and a 17% increase in demand for existing anime content, like Attack on Titan, Dragon Ball Z and My Hero Academia" - Karolina Kaminski, C21 Media
• https://www.c21media.net/department/next-big-things/all-about-anime/

Mar 2022 – Aug 2024 · 2 yrs 5 mos · London, England, United Kingdom · Hybrid

• I am a well-respected professional in the animation world with a proven track record in brand-building and IP development. I have an impressive collection of accomplishments including managing, running and selling the UK’s most successful anime label, Manga Entertainment LTD to Sony Pictures/Funimation global group in 2019, serving as Executive Producer on the Netflix anime series, CANNON BUSTERS and global sales and marketing lead on the award-winning anime feature film, IN THIS CORNER OF THE WORLD.
• I connect business around the world with Japanese IP owners, creators and makers as well as finding creative ways to connect Japanese brands with the rest of the world.
• Over the past year I’ve been busy helping a massive Japanese fashion brand to connect with European anime fans via socials and real life events, provided creative development and biz dev services to an up-and-coming SE.Asian anime studio and secured a number of important anime feature films for a respected pan-European theatrical distributor. Just to name a few of the exciting projects I’ve assisted with.
• Clients include:
• Piece of Magic (Amsterdam)
• AHAVERSE (Beijing)
• Mediatoon Licensing (Paris)
• UNIQLO Europe (London)
• 108 Media (London)
• Robot Playground Media (Singapore)

Jul 2021 – Jan 2022 · 6 mos · London, England, United Kingdom · Hybrid

• Overseeing all consumer marketing for Arrow’s D2C ecomm brand as well as its self-branded SVOD service. Duties incl.
• Customer Acquisition for all UK & US D2C ecomm
• Subscriber Acquisition for dedicated SVOD platform (Arrow-Player.com) and our branded Amazon Channels
• Responsible for all new product launches across home entertainment (Blu-ray, 4K UHD, TVOD)
• All marketing control, ROI and budget responsibility
• Senior Management Team member and directly responsible for a team of 4 plus freelancers

May 2019 – May 2021 · 2 yrs · London, England, United Kingdom · Hybrid

• Following Manga Entertainment UK’s acquisition by FUNIMATION/Sony we were briefly rebranded to FUNIMATION UK/Eire. Following Sony’s successful acquisition of Crunchyroll in 2021, Funimation was rolled into the new anime vertical, Crunchyroll, LLC in early 2022.
• I really enjoyed my time working within a Sony/Funimation/Crunchyroll company. It’s a good place to work.

Jan 2018 – May 2019 · 1 yr 4 mos · London, England, United Kingdom · On-site

• During this period my team and I completed the sale of Manga Entertainment LTD’s UK business to FUNIMATION, the largest anime distributor in North America and its parent company, Sony.
• I stepped into the MD role following the sudden death of our beloved leader and friend, Colin Lomax , at the end of 2017.

Mar 2015 – Jan 2018 · 2 yrs 10 mos · London, England, United Kingdom · On-site

• MangaUK became a privately owned company in 2015. I was promoted to COO of the business and responsible for all aspects of the company’s business strategy while maintaining and strengthening our relationships with key stakeholders in Japan, North American, UK and Europe.
• This role and opportunity allowed me to double down on the brand’s success at the local box office while expanding our sales and distribution on a number of international projects including co-producing the Netflix Original Anime Series, #CANNONBUSTERS and the Annecy award-winning anime feature film, “In This Corner of the World”.

Dec 2012 – Mar 2015 · 2 yrs 3 mos · London, England, United Kingdom · On-site

• In total I worked full-time at Manga Entertainment LTD (also known as #MangaUK) for over 16 years between 2005 to 2021. During that time I received several promotions, which I’ve chosen to highlight here. It has been an absolutely incredible journey and a huge privilege to have had the career I had with Manga. I loved my time with Manga.
• For this specific role I was promoted to Director at the end of 2012 and held this position for several years until the spring of 2015.
• Side quest Notes: In 2014 I made a strategic decision to leave Manga and set up a new anime label called #Animatsu. This was during a period of flux within Manga’s operating parent company (#STARZ). Animatsu took on marketing and licensing responsibilities for Manga for a brief period as a partner label before I returned to a newly reorganised Manga Entertainment and took on the role of COO.

Jan 2005 – Dec 2012 · 7 yrs 11 mos · London, England, United Kingdom · On-site

• Head of all marketing and content acquisitions for UK, Ireland and Europe. During my tenure I acquired and managed some of the biggest IP in anime and adult animation for this market incl. NARUTO, DBZ, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokémon, Soul Eater, AKIRA, Ghost in the Shell, Afro Samurai, HALO web-series and more.

Jan 2017 – Aug 2019 · 2 yrs 7 mos · London, Los Angeles, Tokyo · On-site

• In 2016 my employer, Manga Entertainment Ltd entered into an exclusive co-production agreement with artist/writer/artist/animation director, Le Sean Thomas to develop his original anime series pilot, Cannon Busters into a 12-episode original anime series. In 2017 we successfully closed international sales on the series production and started pre-production with Satelight Studio in Tokyo in the first quarter of 2017.
• My role as EP on the series was primarily focused on the business and commercial aspects of the series including production budget management, production supervision, completion bonding, production financing, final delivery, marketing, sales and distribution.