John Robert Ledford II (born August 19, 1968 in

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

) is an American entrepreneur and

producer Producer or producers may refer to: Occupations *Producer (agriculture), a farm operator *A stakeholder of economic production *Film producer, supervises the making of films **Executive producer, contributes to a film's budget and usually does not ...

in the anime industry. Most known for founding

A.D. Vision A.D. Vision Holdings, Inc. (known simply as ADV and also referred to as ADV Films) was an American multimedia entertainment distributor headquartered in Houston, Texas, and founded in 1992 by video game fan John Ledford and anime fans Matt Gree ...

, Anime Network, '' Newtype USA'' and Sentai Filmworks, Ledford has been an executive producer for hundreds of

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

titles including '' Halo Legends'', ''

Appleseed Alpha ''Appleseed Alpha'' (also styled as ''Appleseed α'') is a computer-animated military science fiction cyberpunk film. The English version's voice cast includes Luci Christian (Deunan Knute), David Matranga (Briareos) and Wendel Calvert (Two Horn ...

'', ''

Short Peace is a multimedia project composed of four short anime films produced by Sunrise and Shochiku, and a video game developed by Crispy's! and Grasshopper Manufacture. The four films were released in Japanese theaters on July 20, 2013 and were sc ...

'', ''

Sailor Moon is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Naoko Takeuchi. It was originally serialized in Kodansha's ''shōjo'' manga magazine ''Nakayoshi'' from 1991 to 1997; the 52 individual chapters were published in 18 volumes. The seri ...

'', ''

Hello Kitty , also known by her full name , is a fictional Character (arts), character created by Yuko Shimizu, currently designed by Yuko Yamaguchi, and owned by the Japanese company Sanrio. Sanrio depicts Hello Kitty as an Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphi ...

'', and the dubbing of ''

Neon Genesis Evangelion , also known simply as ''Evangelion'' or ''Eva'', is a Japanese mecha anime television series produced by Gainax and animated by Tatsunoko, directed by Hideaki Anno and broadcast on TV Tokyo from October 1995 to March 1996. ''Evangelion' ...

''.

Life and career

John Robert Ledford II was born on August 19, 1968, in Houston, Texas, to Gayle Greer (1945–2009) and John Robert Ledford. His mother, Gayle, was a harpist and an equestrian. An avid fan of

video games Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...

, Ledford began his career in 1990 by founding Gametronix. The business grew to become America's second largest importer of Japanese video games and consoles such as Mega Drive, Famicom, Super Famicom and PC Engine. John's interest in anime began after being introduced to My Neighbor Totoro. In 1992, he and his business partner

Matt Greenfield Matthew Brian Greenfield (born January 12, 1965) is an American producer, scriptwriter, director and voice actor best known for his work in producing the English-language versions of many popular Japanese anime, most notably ''Neon Genesis Evang ...

turned their attention to the anime industry and founded A.D. Vision.

(aka ADV Films or ADV) became a global leader of anime entertainment, innovation, media diversity, branded consumer products, licensing and publishing. By its tenth year, ADV was the largest employer of actors in the Southwest United States and expanded to include Tokyo and UK branches. Within a decade, ADV cemented its status as a major distributor of anime in North America, releasing titles such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Sailor Moon, and Hello Kitty. The company also released live-action films on DVD, such as

Gene Roddenberry Eugene Wesley Roddenberry Sr. (August 19, 1921 – October 24, 1991) was an American television screenwriter, producer, and creator of ''Star Trek: The Original Series'', its sequel spin-off series ''Star Trek: The Animated Series,'' and ''Sta ...

's Andromeda (TV Series) and

Earth Final Conflict ''Earth: Final Conflict'' is a science fiction television series based on ideas developed by Gene Roddenberry. The series was produced under the guidance of his widow, Majel Barrett, Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, who possessed notes kept by Roddenb ...

as well as the

Sci-Fi Channel Syfy (formerly Sci-Fi Channel, later shortened to Sci Fi; stylized as SYFY) is an American basic cable channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. Launc ...

and Jim Henson hit series

Farscape ''Farscape'' is an Australian-American science fiction television series, produced originally for the Nine Network. It premiered in the US on Sci-Fi Channel's SciFi Friday, 19 March 1999, at 8:00 pm EST as their anchor series. The series was c ...

, promoted original film releases and ventured into extreme wrestling with Combat Zone Wrestling. Ledford then founded Anime Network, North America's first all-anime dedicated cable TV network, in 2001; it grew from just 500,000 households to reach over 40,000,000 households. The following year he started publishing Newtype USA in partnership with Kadokawa Publishing. The publishing operation grew to include ADV Manga, which licensed and published hundreds of Japanese

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

and Korean manhwa for North American distribution. Ledford co-founded J-Spec Pictures in 2008 with producer Joseph Chou. The company's first project revolved around Halo, the number one global franchise by developer Bungie and published by

Microsoft Corp. Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

In 2008, Ledford established separate companies from ADV called Sentai Filmworks and Sentai Holdings. Since then, Sentai has acquired roughly four hundred licenses including a number of acclaimed titles such as Grave of the Fireflies,

Ninja Scroll is a 1993 Japanese animated ''jidaigeki''- ''chanbara'' film written and directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, starring the voices of Kōichi Yamadera, Emi Shinohara, Takeshi Aono, Daisuke Gōri, Toshihiko Seki and Shūichirō Moriyama. The film was a ...

, High School of the Dead, and Gatchaman. In 2014, Sentai Filmworks acquired the North American license to

, an omnibus collection of four anime shorts including the 86th

Academy Awards The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

nominated Best Animated Short Film Possessions directed by

Shuhei Morita , born June 22, 1978, in Yamatotakada, Nara is a Japanese anime filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer. He is known for directing the critically successful 2013 film '' Possessions'' for which Morita was nominated for the Academy Award for Best An ...

. The film had a nationwide theatrical release in over 250 theaters. Sentai Filmworks continues to manage one of the world's largest anime libraries released across traditional and digital media platforms. Ledford created Infinite Frontiers in 2010 to aggregate digital content through accounts such as

Hulu Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television serie ...

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...

PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divisi ...

and

Xbox Live The Xbox network, formerly and still sometimes branded as Xbox Live, is an Internet, online multiplayer video game, multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft. It was first made available to the Xbox ...

. Still an avid fan of games, two years later he founded Spectre Media as a mobile gaming start up to develop and publish games to

Apple iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

and web browsers. The company's debut launch title was ''Mobile Infantry (Starship Troopers)'', based on the sci-fi movie, comic and book franchise ''

Starship Troopers ''Starship Troopers'' is a military science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. Written in a few weeks in reaction to the US suspending nuclear tests, the story was first published as a two-part serial in ''The Magazine of F ...

''.

References

External links

* *
LinkedIn Profile

Official Sentai Filmworks Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ledford, John 1968 births Television producers from Texas Living people People from Houston ADV Films 20th-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesspeople

Life and career

References

Other articles

External links