Happy New Year!

We find ourselves passing our 10th year serving Anime fans and entering our 11th. Wow! Who would have thought in 1997 we'd be running one of the largest online Anime stores in the country.

As we enter 2008, Downloading and bootlegging continues to destroy the industry as studios are forced to downsize or close, and the best creative talent is lost to more profitable and rewarding endeavours. How's the US Anime industry doing right now? About 'Average'. That is to say that today is worse than yesterday, but probably better than tomorrow, at least short term.

I'm satisfied with our results for the past year, even though the fourth quarter was weaker than we had expected, mostly due to the loss of Geneon's entire product line. We have not seen the sort of massive sales shortfalls that the mass market retailers have reported, but that's because we have always catered to the core Anime fan whos interest remains strong. We've never really cared much what box movers like Best Buy does, but sales shortfalls in those areas do effect the studios that have come to rely on those tenuous sales channels far too heavily. 2007 was a very challenging year for the Anime industry as a whole, and we'll continue to change and adapt as necessary in the coming months. You might see new product lines become available on the store while other lines may be reduced or phased out. We're also deciding if it's finally time to change the Store around and add more 'commercial' style elements and features to the shopping experience. I'm still not a big fan of that, but ultimately it will depend on what you guys tell us you want.

Whatever happens, we'll be here for another year continuing to help all of you enjoy the Genre as much as we do. As Farragut said - "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"

Here's to a prosperous 2008 for all of us. Happy New Year everyone!