What is Central Park Media?

Central Park Media is a multimedia Entertainment Company based in New York City, New York. It was founded in 1990 by John O'Donnell. Their three main product lines are "Central Park Media", "U.S. Manga Corps", and "Software Sculptors", and all release anime in North America. At their peak Central Park Media had the licenses to over 85 Anime TV Series, OVA's, Movies, and TV specials. U.S. Manga Corps "mascot" is Geist, a popular anime character from the early 90's. This is shown in the begining of every DVD and VHS from U.S. Manga Corps, above their logo. Another division of CPM is called "Asia Pulp Cinema", and this division deals with live action East-Asian film distribution. "CPM Press", another division of CPM releases manga in North America, under many different lines like "CPM Manga”, "Be Beautiful" and "Manga 18". CPM Press also licences and releases manhwa.

Their office is across the street from the southwest corner of Central Park in mid-Manhattan, thus the name of the company. Their first releases were Dominion Tank Police, Project A-ko, and M.D. Geist. M.D. Geist, despite its reputation, was the first top selling anime. It was a big hit, even staying on VHS top ten charts for weeks after the release. Re-releases of the title (on VHS and later DVD) also sold very well. They were also the first company to release a hentai in theatres nation-wide, "Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend " (the second X-rated animation ever released theatrically) which was even reviewed by the New York Times. CPM was already well established when the other R1 companies came into the market, even to the point where CPM actually did the distribution for ADV, Urban Vision, AnimEigo, Bandai and Pioneer for awhile. Central Park Media is still in buisness and people still work in their offices. As of 2009 Central Park Media is in "hibernation", they have not released or re-released a DVD since early 2007. Officially they have plans to re-release some older titles in the future. Currently Central Park Media still licenses its anime for American television and VOD, and many of its shows are available through iTunes. Recently, some anime series and OVA's licensed by Central Park Media have aired on the Sci-Fi Channel.

Official Website: http://www.centralparkmedia.com/

sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Park_Media, http://www.dvdvisionjapan.com/cpm.html, http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/company.php?id=6,