University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

American anime fan networks before the Internet: the development of the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization

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American anime fan networks before the Internet: the development of the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization

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AMERICAN ANIME FAN NETWORKS BEFORE THE INTERNET:
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CARTOON/FANTASY ORGANIZATION

by

Cristian Augustin Roman

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC DORNSIFE SCHOOL OF LETTERS, ARTS, AND SCIENCES
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(EAST ASIAN AREA STUDIES)

August 2023

Copyright 2023 Cristian Augustin Roman

ii

Table of Contents
List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... iii
Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iv
Chapter One: Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1
Chapter Two: Methodology ....................................................................................................... 12
Chapter Three: Anime in 1980s America ................................................................................. 16
The VCR ................................................................................................................................... 17
Issues of Localization ................................................................................................................ 22
Galaxy Express 999 ................................................................................................................... 24
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind .......................................................................................... 26
Chapter Four: The Workings of the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization .................................... 30
The Structure of the C/FO ......................................................................................................... 31
Participation and Consumption in the C/FO as an American Anime Fan ................................ 42
Chapter Five: Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 49
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................ 55

iii

List of Figures
Figure 1. Item of mail containing club materials addressed to Fred Patten .................................. 15
Figure 2. A 1978 Sony advertisement for its Betamax Video Recorder ...................................... 21
Figure 3. C/FO May 1980 Treasury Report .................................................................................. 35
Figure 4. C/FO-L.A. and C/FO-Orange August 1982 Bulletin .................................................... 36
Figure 5. C/FO June 2002 Bulletin ............................................................................................... 37
Figure 6. C/FO 1986 Pasadena Bulletin ....................................................................................... 44
Figure 7. Episode notes for the anime Space Adventure Cobra ................................................... 46

iv

Abstract
The Japanese animation, or anime, fandom in America has only grown since Astro Boy
hit American airwaves in 1963, but official channels of distribution in America have lagged
behind demand and piracy has been one of the de facto solutions to satisfy the demand for anime
in America ever since the 1970s. While the networks of fans in the modern moment of the
internet and their digital interactions have enjoyed a large amount of attention from both media
companies and scholars alike, American anime fan networks before the advent of the internet
during the 1980s can perhaps explain why activities such as piracy have become so embedded in
the American anime fandom. Marked by the age of the VCR and the lack of official American
anime releases, the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization during the 1980s and 1990s offers a promising
look into one of the first and largest fan networks of distribution and circulation among
American anime fans. Supported by a strong culture of participation among its members and
American anime fans in general, a look at the C/FO can perhaps explain why the circulation of
pirated materials has become an accepted aspect of the American anime fandom over the past 40
years.

1

Chapter One: Introduction
The Japanese Animation, or anime fandom in America is a fandom of continuing growth
ever since Astro Boy hit American television in 1963.
1
In recent decades products coming out of
East Asia such as Korean Pop music and dramas through the various Korean Hallyu Waves,
2

Japanese pop music and dramas, and other visual media products are enjoying a growth of
popularity in the United States. More recently the unique situation of the coronavirus pandemic
has also given a hefty bump to the number of fans of these East Asian products, including
Japanese animation, more commonly referred to as anime by fans. For the longest time, at my
local Target here in Los Angeles County California you would be hard-pressed to find anything
related to Anime or its companion product manga, with only remnants of the Disney-distributed
Studio Ghibli DVDs occasionally appearing on shelves, but in the last couple of years that has
quickly changed. HBO acquired the rights to stream Studio Ghibli films such as Hayao
Miyazaki’s internationally renowned classics of Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke in the
United States, and 2019 marked the first time that one could stream these shows in the United
States without having a physical copy.
3
As the years went on, my local Target’s selection of
Anime would slowly grow to include more and more official American releases of anime such as
Ghost in the Shell and Sailor Moon, with Sailor Moon shirts and apparel also appearing along
with a new manga section next to the regular selection of books that Target carries.
4
The Anime
fandom in America is growing and the networks of official distribution are growing to meet the

1
Osamu Tezuka. Astro Boy, 1963.
2
Dal Yong Jin, New Korean Wave Transnational Cultural Power in the Age of Social Media (Urbana, Il: University of
Illinois Press, 2016).
3
“HBO Max Acquires US Streaming Rights to Studio Ghibli Films,” GKIDS Films, August 4, 2020,
https://gkids.com/2019/10/17/hbo-max-acquires-us-streaming-rights-to-studio-ghibli-films/; Hayao Miyazaki.
Spirited Away, 2001; Hayao Miyazaki. Princess Mononoke, 1997.
4
Mamoru Oshii. Ghost in the Shell, 1995; Sukehiro Tomita. Sailor Moon, 1992.

2

demands of the market to the extent that one can buy eggs and the new volume of Chainsaw Man
at the same store.
5
A reality that was seemingly completely out of reach 10 years ago at the
beginning of the 2010s. Despite this flourishing of the networks of distribution of Anime in
America, along with a clear acknowledgment of North American fans by Japanese companies,
the consumption of Anime in America has had a turbulent history.
A legacy of piracy through physical copies that transformed into digital files during the
advent of the internet has made piracy a constant pressure on Japanese and American companies
and legal bodies when dealing with the distribution of Anime in the United States. Nowadays
though if you are a fan of a popular and recent Anime show, you would have a high percentage
of finding that show in a local store or through an official online retailer based in America,
making the process of physically owning anime quite seamless. An explosion of streaming
services has also allowed fans to watch anime on anime-centric platforms like Crunchyroll as
well as more mainstream platforms like Netflix and Hulu, each with their own small library of
anime available to their respective subscribers. Problems continue though for older or lesser-
known pieces of animation. For example, Panda! Go, Panda!, despite being a part of the works
of Studio Ghibli, one of the most well-known Japanese animation studios around the world, was
finally released on DVD in North America in 2015 after it was licensed by Discotek Media in
2011, and on Blu-ray in 2022 when the license was acquired by GKIDS which was only after a
small DVD release in the early 2000s.
6
It is quite common to see this sequence of events for
older pieces of Japanese animation brought over to the United States. While Japanese anime
continues to get more official releases in the North American market by expanding their

5
Tatsuki Fujimoto, Amanda Haley, and Sabrina Heep, Chainsaw Man (San Francisco, CA: VIZ Media, LLC, 2021).
6
“Panda! Go, Panda! (Movie),” Panda! Go, Panda! (movie) - Anime News Network (Anime News Network),
accessed January 17, 2023, https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=352.

3

copyright regime there exists a continued resistance, or maybe a reluctance, by fans who
continue to pirate anime. A look at the time in America before the encroachment of these larger
copyright regimes I believe can give us some insight as to why the network of unofficial
distribution, or perhaps more accurately “circulation” of pirated anime has been so embedded in
the American anime fandom.
I believe that the history of the Anime fandom in America, like many others, is a history
that is closely tied to networks. Networks by itself is a broad term but has a long history and
close relationship with the consumption of media and its mediums. Particularly today amid the
digital age in the developed world, networks surround us, and are a part of us as much as we are
a part of them. Television networks, social networks, radio, transportation, and even the human
nervous system are only a few examples of the networks that occupy our day to day. Many of
these networks involve the transportation of ideas, people, or products, and in the more physical
sense are usually associated with infrastructure. Antennas for radio, satellite and cable for
television, trains on a railroad, and cars on the road, are all pieces of infrastructure that channel
the flow of information and people in our society. This is explored by Shannon Mattern who in
describing the Deep Time of Infrastructure notes that “not only institutions but also the everyday
practices of ordinary people” are an integral part of the history of infrastructures at large and
should be studied together.
7
This idea of people as infrastructure is only briefly explored in this
chapter of the larger body of work, Signal Traffic but it remains a point that I believe is
incredibly important for fan communities whose social connections follow an almost one-to-one
relationship with how their chosen media product is consumed. For example, Mattern uses the

7
Lisa Parks and Nicole Starosielski, Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures (University of Illinois
Press, 2015), 104.

4

historical and current example of people filling up buckets of water at a well and bringing it back
home, a journey they referred to as the “last mile”.
8
In this case, people and their actions have
formed a piece of infrastructure and a part of a network for the distribution of water in their
community. Keeping in line with Mattern’s claim that institutions and people should be studied
together though one cannot ignore the physical existence of the water well and its importance.
The well in this case is the physical existence of the water distribution network itself.
Nonetheless, there is a parallel that can be made between this example, and the consumption of
media when its conventional physical networks are unable to keep up with or reach fans who
wish to consume their desired piece of media. In this case, the parallel is to the situation of anime
fans in the United States who in the absence of official channels of distribution, created their
own networks with a physicality and intimacy that goes past simply watching a VHS or DVD.
Fandoms are a network of people, and the anime fandom both today and during what I
would like to call the formative decades of unofficial distribution and circulation during the
1980s and 1990s exemplify this aforementioned human network. The internet as we know it of
course did not exist during this time, but the act of utilizing networks to unofficially watch anime
has existed since this pre-internet era. During the 1980s, one of the major, if not the only, source
of finding and watching anime in the United States would be other anime fans. Since official
distributions of animated Japanese movies and shows were incredibly sparse or nonexistent
during these decades, networks of people would instead come together to watch, share, and
discuss anime, forming clubs and organizations where enough people were able to meet and
form connections. These organizations would acquire VHS tapes usually through personal
connections with Japanese fans and would then share and circulate them through the American

8
Ibid, 106.

5

organizations that they were a part of. Screenings would be the principal activity of these fan
club meetings and would usually occur according to a schedule set by the fan organization or
club. Public organizations, clubs that grew from groups of friends, and university and college
clubs would be the most common.
As these anime organizations in America grew in number, networks within networks of
animation organizations would start to be created, with some networks reaching a national scope
and trade between American anime clubs becoming commonplace. Once organizations started to
reach their limits with growing libraries of tapes of anime, bartering became a common method
to acquire tapes of anime that one was not able to get themselves or from within their local
organization.
As mentioned before though, despite the very human-centric elements of these networks,
technology still played an integral role in these networks of unofficial distribution and circulation.
The VCR and the abilities it afforded to those who could afford it became an integral part of the
distribution and circulation of pirated Japanese animation in America. The ability to both record
and copy became a quick and easy way for many fans of television broadcast media to physically
create their own media. While there is a great focus on the tapes of anime itself, it is also
important to not forget that in the process of screening anime and holding these meetings, the
creation of posters, paper advertisements, and English episode guides was also distributed.
Drawing on Henry Jenkins’ positioning of active fans in a fandom community as being out of not
just interest in the media but also a sense of “frustration and antagonism,” we can see this

6

sentiment in circulated materials of anime fan organizations during the 1980s and 1990s such as
guides and informative booklets supporting the pirated materials.
9

Of course, with the abilities afforded to people by VCRs the question of the legality of
these VHS tapes arises. The issue that presented itself during the 1980s and 1990s is that many
of the anime VHS tapes that were circulated and copied during this time in America were not
official North American releases. It becomes a grey area of jurisdiction and punishment when
someone consumes a pirated piece of media, but in a region where there is no official release. If
someone legally bought a VHS tape of anime that was only released officially in Japan and gets
sent to America where it is subsequently copied and distributed by American fans, is it piracy?
There is an argument for the intent behind the original purchase made in Japan and the purpose
of sending it here to America being illegal in nature but the question of whether the American
fans that are copying and sharing these VHS tapes are infringing on copyright seems to vary
depending on who you ask. Still, as much as the VCR and other technologies that have emerged
since then have to some extent “liberated” the consumer, it is important not to slip into a techno-
determinist point of view and instead look at this technology in conjunction with the behaviors of
the people that are utilizing it.
So then, who exactly are these people? Who, what, and where exactly did these American
Anime fan organizations exist and meet? While there are many clubs and organizations across
the United States, with many being lost to time, and some continuing to exist today there is one
organization in particular that was in its prime during these decades that can offer us a look into

9
Henry Jenkins, Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (New York: Routledge, 2013).

7

how these networks of American anime fans went about consuming, distributing, and circulating
anime.
The Cartoon/Fantasy Organization (C/FO) was a fan organization created in 1977 by
science fiction fans who wanted to create a physical space for people to meet up, watch, and
discuss animated and related Japanese media products. The background of the creators and many
of the members were originally members of other fandoms such as the science fiction fandom or
the furry fandom who met through conventions and meetings. The focus of this new
Cartoon/Fantasy Organization would be focused on Japanese animation as well as other live-
action Japanese media at the time such as Ultraman and the Japanese television series of Spider-
Man.
10
Like other already existing science fiction organizations of the time the C/FO would have
meetings, discussions, and a growing and active membership throughout the 1980s. Originally
based in Los Angeles the C/FO went from a small informal meeting of Japanese animation fans
to an organization that by the end of the decade would have chapters across the continental
United States, including San Diego, Dallas, New York, and Chicago. Previous connections made
between the longstanding science fiction Organizations in America such as “The Los Angeles
Science Fiction Society” (LASFS) and science fiction fans in Japan were easily transferred over
to organizations such as the C/FO, allowing them an open avenue to acquire anime VHS tapes
and to circulate and distribute them among their chapters and screen them during meetings.
11

As we will soon see, the C/FO developed a system of trade among its chapters, with
regional and at times national levels of trade of anime VHS tapes occurring during this time.
Personal connections between fans quickly turned into a fleshed-out system of distributing and

10
Mark Merlino. April 4, 2020, https://dogpatch.press/2020/04/28/history-cartoon-fantasy-organization/;
Tsuburaya Productions. Ultraman, 1966; Toei Company. Spider-Man, 1978.
11
Ibid.

8

copying Japanese animation VHS tapes that were not released nor available in the United States.
Instead of official means of distribution, the C/FO became one of the main avenues for American
anime fans to watch anime and make connections with other fans. Such a system was
problematic at times, with the limits of both the technology of VHS tapes and to what extent one
should share their chapter’s library of anime tapes, the C/FO was by no means proficient in this
trade early on.
The C/FO would continue to exist into the early 2000s albeit with a dwindling member
count. The advent of the internet as well as internal tensions and the expansion of the anime
fandom itself in America lead to the decline and disappearance of many of the C/FO chapters in
America. Still, the C/FO and its legacy remains a key point of discussion when it comes to the
networks of people involved in the unofficial distribution of anime in America and the
circulation of pirated tapes. The C/FO was fan organization first, but in the face of a retraction of
Japanese animation companies after experiencing issues during their few official attempts at
concentrated entry into the American market, the C/FO quickly filled the gap in covering that
“last mile” for American fans who wished to watch anime.
Here I would like to briefly comment on the use of the terms “distribution” and
“circulation.” I will be using these terms according to how they are outlined by Henry Jenkins in
the book “Spreadable Media.”
12
In this book, Jenkins differentiates distribution and circulation
by looking at the relationship between fan activities and the officially released media. Television
shows broadcasted on television networks are “distributed” to those that are tuned into the
network, whereas aspects of the fan experience such as ideas about how the story will play out,

12
Henry Jenkins et al., Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture (New York
University Press, 2013).

9

and altered pieces of the original media made by fans such as fan fiction and joke images are
instead “circulated”.
13
Media products that are distributed are usually done so by an institution of
some level of authority with its own network of “official” channels, which in the case of
television shows are the literal television networks such as ABC and the regulated channel the
media is being broadcast on. Media products that are circulated on the other hand usually lack a
source of authority and are associated with a vague non-centric but active network that in this
case is equated with the network of fans.
14
In the case of the situation of the C/FO then, it is a
participatory culture of circulation that in the absence of the typical official framework of
distribution has substituted its own to cover that “last mile”. Pirated tapes of Japanese anime and
accompanying writings and summaries to cover the language gap are circulated in the presence
of the distribution network that the C/FO developed in America, yet due to the non-centric
structure of the C/FO and the simultaneous participation in this circulation by both fans and
C/FO officers alike the C/FO remains arguably a hybrid network between distribution and
circulation. For the purposes of this paper, I will frame the C/FO more so as a network of
distribution due to its national development and maintenance of a library of anime tapes
available only to C/FO members but it is a network of distribution that is nonetheless supported
by a network of circulation and a culture of participation and informal trade among anime fans
and clubs in America of anime and fan materials such as episode guides.
Furthermore, the idea of “passive” and “active” fans will also be utilized concerning the
activities of the C/FO. Henry Jenkins highlights the behaviors of “active” fans opposite of the

13
Ibid.
14
Ibid.

10

conventionally “passive” nature many would attribute to fans.
15
The active nature of fans being
that of fan writing, conventions, and the general exchanging of ideas relating to their chosen
piece of media. Traditionally fans would be portrayed as a passive entity swayed by corporate
decision-making and marketing, but Jenkins highlights active fans that can interact with and
influence each other with agency. Whereas Jenkins looked at the actions of Star Trek fans I
believe the C/FO to be a prime example of active fans, especially considering the effort required
to consume anime in America during these decades. There are some caveats though when it
comes to the duality of active versus passive.
Despite the focus and framing of my argument around the active networks of the C/FO
and anime fans in general during these decades, the subsequent expansion of the fandom
alongside the internet and expanded official distribution networks has also created a space for
more casual fans. For this paper, I will solely focus on the active participation of the members of
the C/FO due to the circumstances that I will soon outline that made fans active and participatory
out of necessity during this pre-internet age. Therefore while I think Henry Jenkins’ research into
fandoms is significant and useful for my analysis of the American anime fandom such that there
is a strong demarcation between “passive” and “active” fans during these formative decades, this
duality breaks down as the fandom continued to grow in America and increased official
distribution combined with the internet made the existence of more “casual” anime fans a much
more sizable group. Considering the scarcity of official anime releases during the 1980s a hands-
on, active, and participatory fan culture went hand in hand with the consumption of anime in
1980s America, but it was only a matter of time before official distribution networks were able to

15
Henry Jenkins, Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (New York: Routledge, 2013).

11

expand to the extent that such a high level of participation in the fandom was not necessary and
more casual fans started to exist.
There are plenty of other anime organizations in America that were founded during these
formative decades, but the C/FO remains a prime example to explore the behaviors, functions,
and networks that composed the American anime fandom during this time. With the support of
the information contained within the archives of Fred Patten, a founder and the Secretary of the
C/FO for over 20 years whose collection was generously donated to the University of California
Riverside’s Eaton Collection, we can take a more concrete look into the inner workings of the
C/FO and what its meetings, leadership, and screenings were composed of. We can see how the
organization and fans worked together to cover that “last mile” in watching anime, including the
procurement of tapes, copying for the intent of distribution, and issues of localization through
written correspondence, flyers, programming, and newsletters. This level of piracy and more so
participation that was necessary at this time in the absence of official releases could help form
the basis to explain why the circulation of pirated materials, digital and otherwise, continues to
be prevalent in the anime fandom today.

12

Chapter Two: Methodology
Researching fandoms, particularly ones whose entire existence in America was
predicated on the questionable legality of their means of consumption raises some issues. Add on
the fact that of course that many of the communications were physical in nature and were rarely
digitized makes the opportunity to look at Fred Patten’s collection at the UCR Tomas Rivera
library an incredibly insightful avenue to explore the Japanese anime fandom in America despite
a reluctance for fans and members to reveal how exactly they came in possession of VHS tapes
of anime not released in America.
Many scholars have researched the effects and explosive importance of the internet on all
facets of the anime fandom, and fandoms in general a la Web and Web 2.0.
16
Recording fan
activities online and conducting surveys are also commonplace in these pieces of academia. As
someone who is also part of this anime fandom here in America, I have seen and received
various surveys from scholars asking about watching habits, reasons why you watch anime, and
even who my favorite characters are. The anime fandom online is getting justified attention from
academics, companies, and other fans alike,
17
but the study of the American anime fandom tends
to lean toward the modern internet age where the piracy of anime has become much easier, more
popular, and more visible. Anti-piracy campaigns such as “Don’t Copy that Floppy,” “You can
click, but you can't hide,” and “Piracy. It’s a crime.” with the famous first line of “You Wouldn’t
Steal a Car” equating physical theft with digital piracy were incredibly popular public service
announcements meant to tackle digital piracy specifically. As a result, this era during the 1990s

16
Henry Jenkins, Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (New York: Routledge, 2013);Sandra
Annett, “Imagining Transcultural Fandom: Animation and Global Media Communities,” The Journal of Transcultural
Studies 2, no. 2 (2011): 164–88, https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.11588/ts.2011.2.9060.
17
Mizuko Itō et al., “Anime and Manga Fandom as Networked Culture,” essay, in Fandom Unbound Otaku Culture
in a Connected World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 158–78.

13

and early 2000s has been referred to by many as the golden age of digital piracy and is usually
the focus when discussing online communities of piracy. While I do think the internet has
changed to an extreme degree the way fans interact with each other, especially anime fans, there
is something to be gained by looking at the American anime fandom before the advent of the
internet as a community also centered around pirated products.
Despite the very physical and almost clandestine nature of anime organizations in
America during the 1980s and 1990s, there are still many digitized sources and personal
accounts that have been posted to the internet that can help us look back at the American anime
fandom before the internet. For example, Mark Merlino, or “Sy Sable”, a founding member of
the C/FO, in 2020 sent a brief history of the organization’s creation to a fan blog that was
dedicated to the furry fandom of which Mark Merlino was a prominent figure in.
18
Due to a
reluctance or perhaps more so an inability to digitize C/FO materials, many anime fans and
members of the C/FO took it into their own hands to create a personal digital historical account.
Occasionally fans will also take on the role of digital archivist, with some materials for example
making their way to the Internet Archive, a website and organization that aims to archive digital
items and media such as instances of a website or videos posted online. The Internet Archive has
also in recent years accepted the role of allowing people to upload digitized or scanned versions
of physical media allowing more lost media to be found.
Fred Patten, and his collection, then remains one of the most unique collections of
physical American anime fandom materials by its mere existence. Not only as the C/FO’s
Secretary but also as a fan, Fred Patten collected an incredible amount of physical material

18
Mark Merlino. April 4, 2020, https://dogpatch.press/2020/04/28/history-cartoon-fantasy-organization/.

14

relating not to just the C/FO but to various anime organizations around America. For example,
when going through its contents and physical correspondences of other organizations, it was not
uncommon to find the postage still on it, from when it was sent to Fred Patten’s house as part of
his archiving efforts. Up until the early 2000s Fred Patten would receive physical flyers, copies
of posters, and other materials from organizations dated some 10 to 20 years before the posted
postage and would be subsequently added to his collection (see Figure 1). In 2007 Fred Patten
donated almost 900 boxes of materials to the Eaton Collection making it one of the largest single
gifts to the collection followed by smaller gifts by him and his heirs after he passed away in 2018.
There are no pirated materials in Fred Patten’s collection, but the Eaton Collection does
contain some pirated materials from past anime clubs on campus. The Greenwood Anime
Society, a student club at UCR that was founded in the early 1990s has the remnants of their
VHS tape catalog as part of the Eaton Collection totaling some six boxes of VHS tapes. Notable
anime shows in this catalog include Fist of the North Star,
19
Neon Genesis Evangelion,
20
and
Dragon Ball.
21
Duplicates as well as episodes from different anime shows on the same VHS tape
also exist displaying the variety of tapes that existed. Fred Patten on the other hand did not make
his collection with the intent to make it a catalog but instead an account of organizational
activities, events, and proof of existence for fan organizations. From this desire, it is also why
materials outside of anime also exist as part of his collection. The most prominent being
materials from the science fiction fandom and furry fandom, both of which Fred Patten was also
heavily involved in.

19
Buronson, whole, Fist of the North Star, 1984.
20
Anno, Hideaki. whole, Neon Genesis Evangelion, 1995.
21
Toshiki Inoue and Takao Koyama, whole, Dragon Ball, 1986.

15

This collection remains largely uncategorized, mostly due to the sheer amount of material
that has been collected and this paper only uses a fraction of what is available for research.
Hopefully, further research into the American anime fandom before the advent of the internet
can also make use of this collection, as it remains one of, if not the largest physical collections of
material relating to this fandom during this time.

Figure 1. One of many items of mail that were addressed to Fred Patten from other C/FO chapters and other fan organizations
across the United States. (Fred Patten collection on Science Fiction and Animation (MS 250). Special Collections & University
Archives, University of California, Riverside.)

16

Chapter Three: Anime in 1980s America
There are two points that I would like to stress before going into depth about the
workings of the C/FO. These two points are arguably what gave rise to, or provided the setting
for, the growth of fan organizations like the C/FO during the 1980s and aided in creating the set
of behaviors surrounding piracy that have cemented themselves in the identity of the Japanese
animation fandom in America.
The first is the development and widespread adoption of the new consumer technology,
VCR. The VCR, or videocassette recorder, and the ability to make copies of tapes is the
technology that the entire American fandom rested on. I wish to avoid a techno-determinist
viewpoint of the VCR and the unofficial distribution of anime in America during the 1980s, but I
cannot in good faith talk about the fandom during these decades without talking about the
importance of the VCR.
Secondly, the 1980s saw a concentrated effort by both fans and the Japanese animation
industry to bring more anime films to America but was met with a less than stellar reception by
both American companies and Japanese animation companies alike. Anime has been officially
distributed in America since Astro Boy and Speed Racer in the 1960s but the 1980s saw
significant moves by some of the larger players of the Japanese animation industry.
22
For
example, the now internationally renowned Studio Ghibli, famous for films like Spirited Away
and Princess Mononoke,
23
would attempt to enter the American market with Nausicaa of the

22
Tezuka Osamu, whole, Astro Boy (NBC Enterprises, 1963); Tatsuo Yoshida, whole, Speed Racer (Broadcast
Syndication, 1967).
23
Hayao Miyazaki, Spirited Away (Japan: Toho, 2001); Hayao Miyazaki, Princess Mononoke (Japan: Toho, 1997).

17

Valley of the Wind.
24
Due to costs and lack of familiarity with the American market, along with
accepted business practices at the time, an American company focused on importing films would
be in charge of the film’s distribution in America. Unfortunately, issues of reception and
localization became too big to ignore for the Japanese animation industry and they subsequently
retracted from the American market because of low faith in American film import companies.
While I cannot confidently say that these two things were the sole cause of an acceptance
of behavior such as piracy in the American anime fandom, I believe they contributed heavily to
how these fan organizations structured their meetings and garnered appeal and popularity as an
avenue to watch anime that was not officially released in America.
The VCR
Japan and America have historically had one of the strongest film industries and most
developed film technologies. With the continued development and shrinking of camera and film
equipment, to the point where more and more of the general public were able to make their own
films, there was development for a consumer-level technology to afford the public the same
ability that one would have in a film editing room. Just like how filmmaking technology
developed and shrunk, so too did the devices to playback visual media shrink as well. The
continued development of these technologies in the 1970s led to the VCR.
Before the creation of the VCR, the VTR, or Video Tape Recorder, was the main
technology to record and playback media stored on magnetic tapes. Developed in the 1950s, they
started out as large stationary machines about the size of a washing machine that could only
record. At the time due to the cost and size of these machines which could be upwards of

24
Hayao Miyazaki et al., Nausica ä of the Valley of the Wind (Japan: Toei, Inc., 1984).

18

$50,000 at the time, only large media companies, typically television stations, would own such a
machine. They continued to be developed into the 1960s with playback now being possible and
portable and home versions started to be made later in the decade. Sony created their first home-
use VTR in 1965 and soon American companies like RCA and AMPEX started to release their
own domestic home-use versions of the VTR in 1967. These products were extremely limited
though in their newfound capabilities. Pricing hovered around $1,000 to $2,000 at the time
which while being incredibly cheaper compared to the previous decade was still out of reach for
most consumer households. Furthermore, the technology of recording was extremely limited,
with a limited black and white color scale, a time limit on the recording of usually 20 minutes or
less, and then the added price and storage of the open magnetic reels used made recording a very
clunky and expensive process to do at home. Despite this, movies would soon be released to be
played on home VTRs, albeit in small catalogs, pushing companies to continue to make this
technology into a household product.
25

The 1970s soon saw the development of the first “Video Cassette Recording” by Phillips
and then the ensuing “format wars” between JVC’s Video Home System (VHS), and Sony’s
Betamax in Japan and America. Pushed by a drive by the Japanese Ministry of Trade and
Industry to settle on an industry standard, along with the perceived importance of VHS’s longer
recording times by many consumers, particularly in America, the VHS became the accepted
format.
26
By 1988 Betamax only had 7.5% of the market share which cemented VHS as the
format of choice for the industry.
27
The harsh competition pushed the development of the VCR

25
Andrew C. McKevitt, Consuming Japan: Popular Culture and the Globalizing of 1980s America (The University of
North Carolina Press, 2017), 137.
26
Anders Bylund, “The Format Wars: Of Lasers and (Creative) Destruction,” Ars Technica, January 4, 2010,
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/01/is-the-end-of-the-format-wars-upon-us/.
27
Ibid.

19

into a household name that became much more affordable for Japanese and American consumers
with prices continuing to decrease as the technology developed and became a commonplace item.
Of course, the VCR introduced an issue of legality that continues today, especially as it
relates to the American anime fandom. VCRs introduced the ability for the average consumer to
record, playback, and copy whatever it is that they wanted. People would record sports games,
news, and especially television shows and dramas. Other things were also recorded and copied as
well as other secondary technologies were developed in the 1980s like the personal camcorder
which allowed people to film what they wanted to, from family events to independent films. The
ability to record broadcast and copyrighted material though made entertainment companies
anxious over their visual properties and copyrights. The Disney Corporation and MCA would
file suit against Sony arguing that the copying capabilities of the VCRs they were selling were
enabling and associated with widespread copyright infringement and thus were liable for
damages. In 1984 this case would end up in front of the United States Supreme Court and in a 5-
4 decision it ruled in favor of Sony, concluding that the VCR and the personal actions of
consumers were protected under fair use and that Sony could continue to sell VCRs in America.
Even so at the time of 1984, with upwards of 8 million VCRs in America at the time of the ruling,
as scholar Kevin C. McKevitt states, “enforcing a ruling against VCR manufacturers would have
proven to be a Sisyphean task.”
28

What is interesting and important to take note of here is that copying and recording visual
products was an accepted and encouraged behavior by VCR companies. Sony had extensive ad
campaigns during the first decade of the VCR’s existence with ads stating “You’re always stuck

28
Andrew C. McKevitt, Consuming Japan: Popular Culture and the Globalizing of 1980s America (The University of
North Carolina Press, 2017), 140.

20

watching what the networks want. Why not watch what you want instead?”
29
For the first time,
consumers were able to choose what they wanted to watch and when to watch it ignoring the
schedules of television networks. Of course, as we saw, American media conglomerates were not
happy with such encouragement but at this point in time recording and making copies was
simply something that one did if they had a VCR. Combining this with the expansion of movies
and other visual media being released on VHS tapes, it is no surprise that piracy quickly became
a reality and continues to be an issue even today some 40 years later.

29
Ibid

21

Figure 2. A 1978 Sony advertisement for its Betamax Video Recorder, emphasizing its freedom of use through the tagline
“Watch Whatever Whenever” in large bold text.
Without the VCR and VHS, anime fan organizations would simply not exist to the extent
that they did during the 1980s. Since anime VHS tapes were rarely released in America, whose
reasons we will soon explore, the ability to record and copy VHS tapes from Japan proved to be
incredibly important for the lifeblood of not just a singular Anime club, but others connected to it
as well. By making copies one would be able to barter with other clubs and organizations who
were able to get a different show. Fred Patten in an interview stated that “fans from the C/FO in
Los Angeles started corresponding with other fans around the country…[and] started trading

22

tapes back and forth.”
30
Ideally, at this point for the American anime fandom, they would enjoy
the occasional release of an anime show or movie on VHS but those would become few and far
between, actually ending in a worse spot during the end of the 1980s compared to the start. So
why exactly did the American anime fandom lean into this behavior of copying tapes? By
looking at the Japanese animation industry’s attempts to enter the American market, we can
perhaps formulate an answer as to why American anime fans embraced the practice of piracy
during the 1980s and 1990s.
Issues of Localization
What was one of the most common and accepted behaviors among companies importing
foreign media into the United States was the act of localization. Localization being the act of
editing a foreign product with the intent of making it more accessible to the local market. These
edits would include dubbing over the original language in the local language, changing dialogue
to fit more regional-specific phrases, and at times editing and omission of entire scenes of a film.
Localization is not uncommon and some examples that can be seen today of localization in
animation are commonly found in Disney and Pixar Animation films. For example, in Zootopia,
a society of various animals exist instead of humans and during a particular scene where animal
newscasters are present, depending on which country you see the film in, the animals differ to a
local species.
31
Two examples are China’s changes to a panda newscaster and Australia’s
changes to a koala newscaster all with the intent of localizing their film to make it more
accessible to the local audience. This was also occurring with Japanese animation being imported

30
Sean Leonard, “Celebrating Two Decades of Unlawful Progress: Fan Distribution, Proselytization Commons, and
the Explosive Growth of Japanese Animation,” UCLA Entertainment Law Review 12, no. 2 (2005): pp. 189-265,
https://doi.org/10.5070/lr8122027074, 199.
31
Zootopia (United States: Walt Disney Animation Studios, 2016).

23

to the United States and being released in English but a few highly anticipated films when
localized failed to impress both the American anime fandom and the Japanese animation industry
that entrusted their product to these American import companies. By looking at the experiences
of two major films that were imported to the United States, we can form some reasoning as to
why official releases of anime were so few during the 1980s and 1990s and why piracy was so
prevalent. These films are, as their current and modern English titles say, Galaxy Express 999
and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
32

While I am only focusing on two films, they were part of a larger part of the increased
interest in the American market by the Japanese animation industry. For example, Tezuka
Osamu, the creator of Astro Boy,
33
the “Godfather of Japanese Comic Books” and owner of his
own animation studio made frequent visits to American fan conventions surrounding Japanese
animation in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1980 he attended the San Diego Comic-Con to screen his
new film Phoenix 2077 which was met with enough positive reception that another screening in
America was scheduled shortly thereafter.
34
The Japanese animation industry and creators alike
were aware of the existence of the American market and American fans were happy to see
Japanese creators at American conventions. At the beginning of the 1980s, there was an
eagerness and optimism on both sides of the Pacific Ocean that more official releases of
Japanese anime were going to make their way into American theaters and households.
Unfortunately, as we will see, at the end of the decade that optimism quickly turned into

32
Galaxy Express 999 (Japan: Toei Company, 1979); Hayao Miyazaki et al., Nausica ä of the Valley of the
Wind (Japan: Toei, Inc., 1984).
33
Tezuka Osamu, whole, Astro Boy (NBC Enterprises, 1963).
34
Renato Rivera Rusca, “Phoenix 2772: A 1980 Turning Point for Tezuka and Anime,” Mechademia 8, no. 1 (2013):
pp. 109-125.

24

cynicism, and the official releases of anime that were hoped for by American fans never came,
and at the root of this was the process of localization at the hands of American import companies.
Galaxy Express 999
Galaxy Express 999, directed by Rintaro (Shigeyuki Hayashi) was a film released in
Japan in August of 1979. Based on a TV series of the same name,
35
it became an incredibly
popular and successful film in Japan, grossing 4.3 billion Japanese Yen, firmly planting it as one
of the highest-grossing films in Japan at the time. As a result of the incredible domestic success
that the film had in Japan, the animation studio Toei Animation was planning to release the film
in the American Market as well. Picking up on the cues of Tezuka Osamu and the experiences of
other Japanese animation creatives that received positive reception on their trips to American
conventions Toei planned to not only convince the fans but also the executives in Hollywood as
well that Japanese animation was a lucrative product to support importing into the American
market.
In an interesting and unordinary way of dealing with business, Toei Animation first
reached out to American anime fans as an anchor to their dealings with Hollywood powerhouses
such as Warner Brothers Studio, who was their first choice of business partner for the planned
American release of Galaxy Express 999. One of these fans was Fred Patten from the C/FO. The
events that soon transpired was that Fred Patten acting as a pseudo liaison and translator for Toei
Animation would set up a test screening some two blocks down the street from Warner Brothers
Studio’s executives’ offices, who among many others in Hollywood were all invited to the
screening of Galaxy Express 999. Unfortunately, the screening was attended by only a small

35
Leiji Matsumoto, whole, Galaxy Express 999, 1978. The television series.

25

number of fans and no executives from Hollywood went to the screening, crushing the hopes of
Toei Animation in a single night.
36
As a result, the American distribution rights for Galaxy
Express 999 were sold to Roger Corman’s New World Picture, a company that made its money
off of localizing and releasing low-cost foreign films in the American market. In 1981 an edited
release of the film Galaxy Express 999 under the new name Galaxy Express was released, a
reality that was far from what Toei Animation originally imagined.
37

New World Picture as part of their localization process would go on to make heavy
changes to characters’ names, dialogue, and scenes of the film. Character arcs and development
would be flattened by editing out nuanced dialogue and scenes that were assumed to be too
ambiguous as to who was the “bad guy” in the story. A 129-minute runtime became 91 minutes
which resulted in a “shallow and choppy” film viewing experience.
38
The English dubbing of
certain characters in the film like Captain Harlock became a John Wayne copycat and the
character Tetsuro Hoshino had an extremely and comically long nickname given to him in the
edited English language version becoming Joey “Hana-cana-boba-camada” Smith. Overall, the
film’s main story persisted through the edits but scenes that added more nuance to the characters
of the story, particularly towards the end of the story saw the cutting block in this new version.
Despite the efforts of Fred Patten and the C/FO working with Toei Animation the large
American release of Galaxy Express 999 ended up being released as a different movie and under
the supervision of a much smaller company that made edits to the film that made other
companies from Japan double guess whether to release their products in America. It became one

36
Sean Leonard, “Celebrating Two Decades of Unlawful Progress”, 201.
37
Jerry Beck, The Animated Movie Guide: The Ultimate Illustrated Reference to Cartoon, Stop-Motion, and
Computer-Generated Feature Films (Chicago Review Pr, 2005), 91; Galaxy Express, Internet Archive (New World
Picture, 2021), https://archive.org/details/galaxy-express-999-roger-corman-edit.
38
Jerry Beck, The Animated Movie Guide, 91.

26

of the earlier examples that having domestic success from Japan and transferring it to the
American market was not a guarantee. Even so, there is another Japanese studio that still worked
with New World Picture, but after their first American release refused to work with New World
Picture for the remainder of their contract.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, a film that many know as being one of the main
reasons for the creation of internationally renowned Japanese animation studio, Studio Ghibli,
and one of the early works of one of the studio’s founders, director Hayao Miyazaki. It was a
domestic hit grossing upwards of 1.48 billion Japanese yen.
39
Unfortunately, when they decided
to bring Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind to the United States in the same year as its Japanese
release, 1984, the Japanese publisher that was in charge of the international rights to release it,
Tokuma Shoten, chose New World Picture as the company to be in charge of their US release.
Perhaps it was an industry precedent from the frequent use of New World Picture by non-US
companies or a lack of knowledge of what New World Picture has done to other animation films
like Galaxy Express 999, but they were chosen to be the ones in charge of the American release
of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and unfortunately, the story for this film is much worse
than what happened to Galaxy Express 999.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, just like Galaxy Express 999 was heavily edited, but
to a degree much more severe with the English title for their release becoming Warriors of the
Wind.
40
A completely different title and a completely different film. Despite difficulties in

39
“Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Film Information),” Nausicaa.net, accessed May 8, 2023,
http://www.nausicaa.net/wiki/Nausica%C3%A4_of_the_Valley_of_the_Wind_(film_information).
40
Warriors of the Wind (United States: New World Picture, 1985),
https://archive.org/details/Warriors_of_the_Wind_1990.

27

finding this version of the film, the utilization of the Internet Archive to watch this version along
with other personal accounts, Warriors of the Wind was truly a different film compared to the
original. 23 minutes of screen time in total were cut from the original, erasing scenes and
dialogue that many considered to give more nuance and weight to the development of the
characters and the plot.
41
Princess Nausicaa became Princess Zandra in Warriors of the Wind and
fans also became critical of the quality of the English dubbing in the new version as well.
Despite this level of editing, Warriors of the Wind still enjoyed an average to above
average amount of praise from American critics such as an LA Times critic who after watching
the film at the Los Angeles International Animation Celebration in 1985 called it, “incredibly
exciting, blending elements of ‘Star Wars’ and ‘2001’”.
42
The reception that did become
incredibly important though was the reception on behalf of those from Studio Ghibli. In an
interview for a French anime fanzine in 1992, Isao Takahata, the producer for Nausicaä of the
Valley of the Wind and one of the founders of Studio Ghibli had this to say when asked about
Warriors of the Wind:
It is absolutely horrible! They did an enormous and aberrant censorship; they cut
Hisaishi's pieces of music, without forgetting the changed dialogues. It was a great error
of Studio Ghibli, and we haven't given broadcast rights to foreign countries since; and
we'll never again give such rights without an attentive examination of the condition
beforehand. For that matter, the international rights for Nausicaa given to the U.S.A. will
be over in 2 or 3 years. All these movies are grounded strongly in Japanese culture and

41
Jerry Beck, The Animated Movie Guide, 305; Brian Ruh, “Transforming U.S. Anime in the 1980s: Localization and
Longevity,” Mechademia: Second Arc 5 (2010): pp. 31-49.
42
Brian Ruh, “Transforming U.S. Anime in the 1980s”

28

are not conceived with an eye toward exportation. Censoring them is worse than
betraying them.
43

As a result of the localization and the editing that Isao Takahata likened more to censorship,
Studio Ghibli for the rest of their 10-year contract with New World Picture did not release any
more films in America, and in 1997 New World Picture would become defunct.
44

With this sequence of events by the mid-1980s both Toei Animation and Studio Ghibli,
two companies with incredibly successful domestic properties, gave up on the American market.
Especially considering the attempts by Toei Animation to use the fan community as a link and a
device to persuade Hollywood executives, there was low faith in American companies by both
American fans and Japanese companies alike. Still, this situation of fan cooperation remains a
unique and isolated incident considering common media business practices both in Japan and
elsewhere in the world. It was commonplace to look at the audience as an entity to be observed
rather than interacted with, which made this instance between the C/FO and Toei Animation
quite unique.
It is important to note that the Japanese animation industry’s lack of attention towards the
American market after the less-than-stellar importation of their media products, would also
extend to the anime fandom in America as well. The failure to lure in Hollywood executives for
the screening of Galaxy Express 999 by working with the local fandom, cemented that for the
coming decade, cooperation between the Japanese animation industry and their foreign fandom
would be a rarity when it came to releasing products. It remained a reality though that the

43
Cedric Littardi, et al., “An Interview with Isao Takahata,” AnimeLand, 1992, pp. 27-29.
44
James LaPierre, “When Nausicaä Became Warriors of the Wind: Cinematheque,” When NAUSICAÄ Became
WARRIORS OF THE WIND | Cinematheque (University of Wisconsin-Madison, September 6, 2016),
https://cinema.wisc.edu/blog/2016/09/06/when-nausica%C3%A4-became-warriors-wind.

29

demand for Japanese animation remained in the American anime fandom, and among the fan
organizations. The demand for Anime continued to exist and so these fan organizations would
have their own screenings, their own meetings, and their own market for anime VHS tapes to fill
in the elusive “last mile.”

30

Chapter Four: The Workings of the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization
The way the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization operated during the thriving decade of the
1980s is both incredibly similar and different from what one would see in the online anime
fandom today. By looking at the structure of the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization itself and taking a
deeper look into the actions and behaviors of the organization’s structure, meetings, and
networks we can start forming the basis of an answer as to how piracy became so embedded in
the American anime fandom. There is a sharp divide that many in the anime fandom today have
created between the communities that existed before and then after the advent of the internet.
The process of acquiring anime, interacting with other fans, and the overall experience of being
exposed to foreign products has without a doubt gone through numerous changes in the age of
the internet but the actions and behaviors of American anime fans, and how they interact I would
argue are a legacy of the communities that existed before the internet. While it is simply the
reality that the internet is not the revolutionary and liberating force that it was believed to be and
operates increasingly within the framework that existed before the internet age, I think the
American anime fandom itself is in denial, or perhaps more so ignorant, of its own history before
the internet. At the end of this analysis of the C/FO, I hope to showcase how the C/FO became a
network that one could compare to what we see online today and offer the beginning of, or basis
of an answer as to why piracy and its networks of unofficial distribution and circulation continue
to be a major part of what identifies the anime fandom.
By looking at the various bulletins, flyers, and correspondences in Fred Patten’s archives
that are a part of the Eaton Collection at the University of California Riverside, we can dig
deeper into the inner workings of the C/FO as this unofficial network of distribution, as well as a
community where the increased amount participation in, and circulation of, pirated products has

31

led to the act of piracy becoming accepted as part of the process of consuming Japanese
animation.
The Structure of the C/FO
The structure of the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization follows that of most typical
organizations gone national, with only the actions of this organization, that being of piracy, being
the most stand-out aspect of their operation. Still, even though the operation of the C/FO and the
business side of how they functioned is quite par for the course, their structure was the basis for
how members, information, and most importantly, how anime VHS tapes were circulated around
the United States. We saw how in the face of the poor business reception of Anime films in
America in the 1980s, animation companies would not put in the additional effort to import their
films into America out of fear of being edited. As a result of this, the C/FO’s members and
officers hoped for more official releases of Japanese Animation were left to their own devices to
satisfy their demand for Japanese animation. Thus, the C/FO would become the vehicle, and the
community through which American anime fans would satisfy their demand; it was an active
participation for many fans and slowly developed into a sophisticated network of clubs and fans.
The first chapter of the C/FO was C/FO-Los Angeles which was founded in May
1977. The first two years according to an internal letter written by Fred Patten “operated under a
system of anarchy.”
45
The original intent of Fred Patten’s 1981 letter was to inform the officers
and higher-ranking members that he would have to cut back on his responsibilities, and in it he
described the early days of the C/FO and the growing pains that they had to go through. This
chapter of the C/FO, which before 1980 was not a chapter, but the entirety of the C/FO would set

45
An Open Letter to the C/FO, March 1981. Fred Patten collection on Science Fiction and Animation (MS 250).
Special Collections & University Archives, University of California, Riverside.

32

forth the basis of what their meetings would consist of, the dues and benefits of their
membership, as well as how they would meet and interact.
Despite the “anarchy” stated by Fred Patten, the first two years of the C/FO’s
fumbling as an organization helped cement the structure of the organization from local to
national organization. At first, officers and any sort of leadership structure outside of the two
main founders, Fred Patten, and Mark Merlino, were completely nonexistent. Merlino acquired
the anime tapes and scheduled the programming while Patten made and distributed the bulletin
for their meetings. The rest of the founders, Wendell O. Washer, Robin Leyden, and Judith Niver
were instrumental in the creation of the C/FO but had smaller roles when it came to the month-
to-month operation of the C/FO. The lack of any officer board or constitution, regulations, or
bylaws was out of the fear that many had from their past experiences in other science fiction fan
organizations. As a result, “It was resolved at an early meeting that the C/FO’s purpose was to
watch and discuss animation, not to engage in club politics or parliamentary technicalities.”
46

This sentiment could explain the lack of continued involvement behind the scenes of the other
founders and why Fred Patten and Mark Merlino became the two to head the C/FO during the
first two years with no system in place to vote in more officers.
The C/FO would persevere under Patten and Merlino through the growth of their
club and their expansion outside of Los Angeles, California. By June of 1979, the C/FO had
sixty-one members and in 1980 the second chapter of the C/FO was created in New York which
called themselves “C/FO-New York”. It was at this point the distinction was made between the
C/FO as a national organization, and C/FO-Los Angeles as a local chapter. Chapters continued to

46
Ibid.

33

pop up in major metropolitan areas across the United States with 1981 seeing chapters pop up in
Chicago, Cleveland, and even in Orange, California which became a close second to C/FO-Los
Angeles.
47
New chapters would continue to be founded in Austin, Detroit, Knoxville,
Philadelphia, and San Diego, among many others that would sprout up across the United States
in the following years. A milestone for the organization, the national expansion revealed issues
in their structure that would lead to several new administrative projects. Two of these would be
the Correspondence Committee to aid in member engagement and help create bulletins and the
Travel Committee to advertise trips by C/FO members to conventions inside and outside the
United States. The C/FO grew into a national organization with an international reach but with
the development from “C/FO-Los Angeles” to the “C/FO” three aspects of the C/FO became key
to their national structure. A paid membership, bulletins, and the member directory would
become key parts of any anime fan organization in America, and the C/FO was no exception.
On top of the administrative expansion with the installment of officers outside of
Patten and Merlino, finances became a crucial part of supporting the C/FO. The cost of
purchasing anime tapes from Japan or renting them through an agency and the cost of printing
out the bulletin continued to increase as more chapters were founded and more people became
members. In particular, the bulletin, which went from a paper handout at meetings in Los
Angeles to a monthly newsletter that was mailed out to C/FO members across the nation saw a
huge increase in costs. Thus, the C/FO went from a donation-based organization to paid
membership where only paying members would be able to enjoy C/FO benefits. Membership
would hover around ten dollars per year of which most would go towards paying printing and
postage for the C/FO’s member newsletter (see Figure 3). Without the dues paid by their

47
Ibid.

34

members, the C/FO would simply not be able to operate and maintain communication between
the officers and their members. It may seem like a given but I wish to contrast this with the
modern anime fandom that requires less monetary help. The internet and free website hosting, an
increase in the number of clubs and organizations with smaller respective member totals, and
ease of acquiring pirated materials online with no cost meant that the only operating costs would
usually be for a meeting space. Paid memberships in anime fan organizations though still exist,
for example, at the University of California, Los Angeles’s anime club, the “Japanese Animation
Club” (JAC) which I did and still occasionally participate in, has a paid membership. While paid
membership is not required for those that wish to attend and participate in JAC’s meetings and
events, paid membership is still available for those that want to support and help the club with its
operating costs. Still, due to the ease of convenience afforded by the internet, no money is
needed for printing newsletters, and instead, a website and email list are used to digitally send
the newsletter out to members with almost the entirety of the money being put towards events
and payments to the university to rent out a meeting space on campus. Paid membership though
kept the C/FO and its members connected and together through their newsletters and bulletins,
which was only possible due to the funds they acquired through membership.

35

Figure 3. C/FO May 1980 Treasury Report at the top of a newsletter detailing both income and expenditures. (Fred Patten
collection on Science Fiction and Animation (MS 250). Special Collections & University Archives, University of California,
Riverside.)
The importance of bulletins and newsletters in the age before the internet cannot be
understated for these fan organizations. These mailed-out newsletters kept the officers and
members connected and informed. Changes in scheduling, meeting locations, anime to be
screened, and relevant news about special events, conventions, and anime releases would all be
in these newsletters. As Figure 4 shows a typical bulletin would be as follows: mentions of
special screenings pertaining to the local chapter, the schedule of screenings and their location
for the next meeting, and other relevant events and information.

36

Figure 4. C/FO-L.A. and C/FO-Orange August 1982 Bulletin detailing screenings and events. (Fred Patten collection on Science
Fiction and Animation (MS 250). Special Collections & University Archives, University of California, Riverside.)

37

These bulletins and newsletters would be released monthly, mirroring the monthly
schedule of the meetings themselves. Occasionally, special bulletins and newsletters would be
sent out for announcements regarding conventions and other events of interest related to
Japanese media and animation. The C/FO would continue to print these bulletins even well into
the new millennium despite a large drop in membership in the early 2000s.

Figure 5. A June 2002 C/FO Bulletin made with a much more modern word processing program and printing devices with
screencaps of anime taken directly from the internet and added onto the bulletin. (Fred Patten collection on Science Fiction and
Animation (MS 250). Special Collections & University Archives, University of California, Riverside.)
Bulletins were the lifeblood of the C/FO’s month-to-month communications but during
the 1990s another aspect, explored more so by other animation fan clubs in the United States,
also encouraged engagement among their members. This other aspect was member directories.

38

Clubs centered around Japanese animation continued to be made in the United States and
as an extension of the desire to meet with other fans, clubs, and organizations would occasionally
post a member directory so that members would be able to connect with other members locally
and over telephone. As far as Fred Patten’s archives go, the C/FO had an internal list of members
for their larger nationally distributed materials, but it was more so left up to the individual C/FO
chapters on whether to publish this information to their local members. For example, see Figure
3 where the 1980 C/FO report stated their new and renewing members. What the C/FO did
record and publish in the decade of the 1990s was a directory of major known anime clubs and
organizations. Being one of the largest anime fan organizations at the time, it was common for
smaller clubs to work with and cooperate with the C/FO over events and conventions, as well as
of course trading video tapes. As a result, the C/FO had an ever-growing record of
communication with anime clubs and organizations both within their C/FO network and outside
of it. Their first issue of “The Directory of Anime Fandom” would be in the year 1990 detailing
some thirty-six anime clubs and organizations across the United States with their respective
contact number and meeting information if known.
48
A majority of the clubs in the directory
were from California simply since the C/FO and its members mainly resided in the state and
would commonly make their own clubs, typically closer to home, as C/FO founder Mark
Merlino did with C/FO-Orange shortly after the founding of C/FO-Los Angeles. Still, clubs from
the states of Georgia, Minnesota, Florida, and Texas to name a few were not surprising to see
among the thirty-six listed clubs and organizations listed. Pseudo-advertisements for certain
clubs even littered the pages themselves, with the C/FO, EDC Pasadena, and Fans of Animation
in South Texas (FAST) being a few of the organizations that were able to prominently display

48
The Directory of the Anime Fandom no. 1. Fred Patten collection on Science Fiction and Animation (MS 250).
Special Collections & University Archives, University of California, Riverside.

39

their logos and mascots within the directory. The directory was a way for clubs and organizations,
as well as their respective members, to communicate with each other for conventions and other
social meetups as well as continuing to foster the network of circulating tapes and trading them
that continued into the decade of the 90s, which became incredibly important in the face of the
small number of official releases of anime in the United States.
Another directory that can be found in the Fred Patten archives is the member or
“Fandom Directory” of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society (LASFS) which was a fan
organization with a close relationship to the C/FO-Los Angeles due to a noticeable overlap of
members between the two organizations and frequent cooperations for special public screenings
in the Los Angeles area. The specific edition in Fred Patten’s archives is the 48
th
Edition of
“Directory To LASFS the Fandom” which was sent out internally to its members in November
of 1995.
49
An organization with a more hub and spoke model compared to the scattered yet
unified structure of the C/FO, members in the directory of LASFS were from all regions of North
America, including a few members from overseas including one from Germany. Being a packet
of considerable length and therefore cost, outside of regular member dues, an extra copy of the
directory would cost you fifty cents. Member directories despite their length, printing cost, and
infrequent publishing were a common tool for networking and were themselves a product
distributed by these networks of anime fan organizations that helped the circulation of anime
tapes.
Overall, the structure of the C/FO would not undergo any more radical changes regarding
their meetings or overall structure going into the 1990s. Local chapters would have the final say

49
Directory To LASFS Fandom 48
th
Edition. Fred Patten collection on Science Fiction and Animation (MS 250).
Special Collections & University Archives, University of California, Riverside.

40

in scheduling their meetings and as long as membership dues were collected and paid to the
national C/FO treasurer, local chapters would in turn receive the national bulletins and access to
the C/FO’s library of anime tapes and other business connections. Membership in the C/FO
would also continue to steadily rise with the end of the 1990s marking the first decrease in
membership for the C/FO. Still, the C/FO went from a local organization of fewer than ten
people that within five years went national. Despite early issues of no set officer board and the
administrative issues of the original C/FO becoming C/FO-Los Angeles, the C/FO grew and
cemented itself in all corners of the United States and along with it, a sophisticated network of
distribution of physical correspondences as well as a network of circulation of anime tapes.
It is easy to forget in the administrative expansion of the C/FO, that the network of
distribution and circulation of video cassettes was expanding alongside the organization. During
this time, it was assumed that the means to acquire and screen video tapes of anime were already
in place when a new C/FO chapter or other anime organization was founded. The purpose of the
C/FO and all organizations that followed it was and continues to be the viewing of Japanese
anime outside of conventional official frameworks of distribution. Just like the origin of the
C/FO, it was common that the founding of a local C/FO chapter resulted from an already existing
group of people acquiring and watching anime on their own within the greater circulation
network of anime tapes. While modern-day official streaming services, for example, the
aforementioned Crunchyroll, have changed the distribution landscape, these formative decades
of troublesome official anime releases in the American market made these American fan
organizations the primary avenue for people to consistently watch and consume new anime.
With the background support of the VCR, anime organizations propagated across the
United States, just like the C/FO. The technological edge of the C/FO and its network of officers

41

and members with their personal VCRs made the C/FO one of the largest and fastest-growing
anime fan organizations in the United States. Members were aware of this and chose to be
members of the C/FO early on due to the larger catalog of anime tapes, and the sheer number of
VCRs members were willing to use to support the C/FO and its networks. One member in a letter
to Fred Patten in 1982 even remarked that the C/FO’s capabilities to copy and circulate tapes was
even a step above two other incredibly large fan organizations in the United States during the
1980s, the STAR WARS Fan Club and Trekkers.
50
It was clear early on that the C/FO’s tape
distribution, circulation, and participation on behalf of their members existed as a far more
sophisticated network than any other American science fiction fandom.
If we return to the bulletins of the C/FO, realizing that all these organizations across the
United States were able to screen up to eight hours of anime at one time on a monthly schedule
puts into perspective the logistics that went into the C/FO and its local chapters. Unfortunately,
perhaps due to the grey legal area that piracy has and continues to exist in, Patten’s collection
lacks any specific details regarding the trading of tapes between C/FO chapters. Still, there is a
clear acknowledgment that it was occurring with regular frequency and was one of the benefits
of being a part of the C/FO.
51
Ultimately, the C/FO and its structure as not only a community for
American fans across the country to meet and watch anime but also as one of the major avenues
for American fans to regularly consume anime during a time of problematic American releases
of anime cemented the C/FO as one of the largest fan networks in America during the 1980s.
While the 1990s saw the start of the downfall of its membership one aspect of the C/FO’s

50
Doug Rice 1982 Letter to C/FO Secretary Fred Patten. Fred Patten collection on Science Fiction and Animation
(MS 250). Special Collections & University Archives, University of California, Riverside.
51
Sean Leonard, “Celebrating Two Decades of Unlawful Progress”.

42

network that has continued to persist in the American anime community is its participatory
culture surrounding pirated media.
Participation and Consumption in the C/FO as an American Anime Fan
The C/FO became a national fan organization with an expansive network and library of
anime tapes, but this was only possible with the active participation of its members and the larger
anime fandom in the United States. Of course, this primary participation was the act of piracy to
contribute to the C/FO’s networks of unofficial distribution and circulation, but the acts of
participation went further than just the VCR. Meetings of these organizations like what we saw
with the C/FO were only possible with the active cooperation of various officers and members.
On top of the regular participation of members in creating and circulating video tapes, episode
guides also became an incredibly sought-after and traded item to accompany the regular trading
of the tapes.
I would like to introduce the concept of the “Textual Poacher” as described by Henry
Jenkins who commonly associated the term with the Star Trek fandom around this same time.
52

As Jenkins put it, Star Trek fans, particularly those that were writing fan fiction about the show,
were at odds with the television networks from a position of marginality and a desire to “protect”
their chosen piece of media. Thus, in a sense, fans would “poach” the content of the television
show and make it their own through active, rather than the traditionally seen as passive, activities
like fan fiction. What differs in this situation described by Jenkins is the effect on the television
networks’ decision-making. Whereas Star Trek fans would impart a sizable presence and
influence on the domestic American television networks through the altering of the original

52
Henry Jenkins, Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (New York: Routledge, 2013).

43

media and creation of new media based on the original show, the fans of anime in America as we
learned were completely ignored by the overseas Japanese animation industry after the lackluster
reception by Hollywood.
53
In “Spreadable Media”, Jenkins outlined the reality that fans and their
active participation are a part of the new networks of “circulation” rather than “distribution”.
54
It
is framed as a struggle by fans to regain control over the means of production in the face of large
studio networks making decisions regarding the story and future of television shows like Star
Trek. It is not only an act of participation but a part of a dialogue and activity of media
circulation that pushes fans closer to their chosen media products and through participation in
acts like fan writing, makes a new piece of media in the process. These activities are close and
intimate acts that reflect the fans’ appreciation of the original media and in a sense make it their
own. These same participatory acts can be seen in the C/FO and other anime organizations in
America, but to a more extreme degree due to the lack of official anime releases in America.
While Jenkins leaves little room for the existence of an in-between casual fan existing more on a
spectrum of participation, the effort needed to consume anime in 1980s America left little room
for a casual anime fan to exist.
Jenkins spoke of fan writing as one of the principal actions of textual poaching and
participatory culture and the English episode guides that circulated within the network of the
C/FO and in the American anime fan organizations during the 1980s and 1990s I would argue
are an example of the “distribution” and “circulation” networks, as well as the participatory
culture explored by Henry Jenkins. While the official American releases of anime as we saw
with Warriors of the Wind and Galaxy Express would almost always dub over the dialogue with

53
Ibid
54
Henry Jenkins et al., Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture (New York
University Press, 2013).

44

English dialogue as part of the localization process, pirated products that circulated within the
C/FO would still be in the original Japanese language. The technology to create and put your
own subtitles on video tapes would soon be developed in the 1990s, but just like the early days
of the VCR, this was almost exclusively used by television stations since it was early in its
developmental cycle. Even so, with the explosion of the internet, CDs, laser discs, DVDs, and
subtitling software, the window to subtitle VHS tapes was only a small moment in time. Since
these tapes were still in the original Japanese language and the ability to create your own
subtitles was a far-off dream during the decade of the 1980s, episode guides were created by
those few in America embedded in the fandom that understood the Japanese language or knew
someone that did.

Figure 6. A 1986 C/FO Pasadena Bulletin where on the bottom of the page there is a disclaimer and announcement that the
screenings will be in Japanese with English program notes only for Vampire Hunter D. (Fred Patten collection on Science Fiction
and Animation (MS 250). Special Collections & University Archives, University of California, Riverside.)
These episode guides were usually very simple printed packets with summaries of
episodes, character backgrounds, and other important exposition that was not portrayed through
the visual medium of the animation. Episode guides, despite their highly sought-after nature,

45

were still few in number, as the number of fans that had the Japanese language ability to
understand the anime episodes as well as the time to write out these summaries were very rare.
Even so, the episode guides circulated with regularity, commonly with the anime tape that it was
providing information for. Similarly, with anime tapes as well, it was not uncommon to copy the
episode notes, referencing those who made the guide, and further circulate notes to other clubs
who had the Japanese anime tapes, but not the corresponding notes. With what is available in
Fred Patten’s archives there is also no way of knowing how many local or personal episode
guides were made that never went into circulation within the C/FO and the fandom at large
during this time. Furthermore, personal accounts talking about someone who understood
Japanese standing by the screen and describing the story and dialogue were not uncommon as a
form of verbal participation and an unwritten form of textual poaching. Nevertheless, these items
were cherished by these clubs and organizations considering that these items were some of the
better-preserved items in Patten’s archives.

46

Figure 7. A section of a packet of episode notes for the anime Space Adventure Cobra. This packet went up to episode 16 of the
31 total episodes of the show and detailed the date the episode aired and who did the script, story, and principal drawing for
each episode. (Fred Patten collection on Science Fiction and Animation (MS 250). Special Collections & University Archives,
University of California, Riverside.)
Along with anime tapes, episode guides provided crucial information to an English-
speaking fandom that regularly consumed media that was not translated due to the lack of
localized official releases in English-speaking countries like the United States. Episode guides
also were not limited to the C/FO or any other organization. Many members, for the same reason
that they were motivated to copy and propagate pirated anime tapes, were also motivated to share
episode guides with other fans and organizations in the name of making it easier for those in
America to consume anime.
What I hope to convey through this research into the C/FO is the level of participation
that both members and officers had when it came to interacting with Japanese anime and the
intimacy of their participation with the media. Copying tapes, going to meetings, reaching out to
other members, creating and sharing episode guides, and other activities outside of the C/FO like
going to conventions, attending special screenings, and in the most extreme cases even being

47

motivated to go to Japan were all actions done by American anime fans that brought them
physically closer to Japanese anime. I cannot stress enough both to myself and others who have
grown up alongside the internet how much effort was necessary to watch anime in America
before the age of the internet. The physical intimacy required to be a part of this fandom and a
member of these anime fan organizations cannot be understated and I believe is hard to compare
to the modern-day digital processes of watching anime, pirated or otherwise. Simply put, being a
passive fan of anime was basically impossible during the 1980s and 1990s. The mere act of
watching anime during these formative decades required such a level of effort and dependence
on piracy that I believe the continuing act of piracy into the internet age should come as no
surprise.
To connect the participation of the American anime fandom to the modern age I will
briefly provide one modern example of how the legacy of the fandom, and the actions of the
C/FO persisted into the modern day: fansubbing.
Fansubbing is inherently connected to those that were creating episode guides and in
many cases were the same people. Fansubbing was an act by usually a group of fans that were
bilingual in English and Japanese and using digital software to put subtitles on anime tapes and
CDs, as well as digital files online, would circulate their English-subtitled anime online at no
extra cost. There was usually no network of distribution past a simple website and whose
existence relied heavily on the circulation of the files between fans, clubs, and organizations.
These fansubbing groups also exist in an arguably hybrid space between a network of
distribution and a network of circulation. Fansubbing groups would rarely work with other
fansubbing groups and groups deemed to have “good” translations would garner loyal followers,
forming a digital but central distribution location and a sense of authority over their distributed

48

product. On the other hand, their product, English-subtitled anime, was not official and thus the
fansubbing groups lacked a “true” authority over the translation in the traditional sense and relied
completely on the network of circulation among the fans of their translations and the fans of the
translated product.
It should also be noted that, even during the aforementioned “Golden Age” of internet
piracy for anime and even today, American anime clubs and organizations that meet in person
still exist. What is perhaps the strongest legacy of the C/FO and a testament to the persistence of
the networks that the C/FO created and was a part of are the anime clubs and organizations
across the United States that continue to exist today. Participation in these fan networks of
distribution or circulation has been a longstanding accepted behavior of the American anime
fandom. Tapes have become files, clubs exist both in person and online, and I still personally
know people who wait for their favorite fansubbing group to post subtitles for recently released
anime, with a few of my friends even being a part of fansubbing groups themselves. While this
level of participation existed during the 1980s due to the lackluster state of Japanese anime being
imported into the United States, two decades of developing a network of both unofficial
distribution and circulation of pirated materials and fan-made media have made this level of
intimacy and participation an accepted fact of the nature of the American anime fandom even
among those who would call themselves casual fans.

49

Chapter Five: Conclusion
The modern state of the American anime fandom which has enjoyed over two decades of
being joined at the hip with the internet has made the fandom undergo extreme changes. At the
same time, pre-internet networks of distribution and circulation that were developed during the
C/FO’s rise to a national organization and existence as the de facto American anime fan
organization raises questions about how much the fandom’s connections have truly changed in
the past three decades. What cannot be questioned though is that the C/FO developed
sophisticated, national, and highly active networks during the decade of the 1980s and 1990s
centered around the distribution and circulation of pirated tapes of Japanese anime in the United
States.
From a small club that in their first year got immediately kicked out of their meeting
space, the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization went from a group of friends who had some anime
tapes that wanted to screen them to others, to a national organization spanning the United States
with a growing catalog of anime tapes and supporting materials being distributed and circulated.
For an organization of its size, the C/FO enjoyed a long life as one of the largest American anime
fan organizations. Its scattered yet united structure can perhaps be compared to online
communities, but during the 1980s and 1990s, it proved to be a very efficient way of operating
an organization of this size and satisfied the desire of anime fans across the United States simply
wanting to watch more anime in the most convenient manner.
Perhaps blessed by the era of the VCR the C/FO also maintained a technological edge
among even the largest fan organizations in the United States. With the development of the VCR
combined with the necessary highly participatory nature of the anime fandom, the C/FO was
unique in its network of distribution of tapes to local chapters across the nation. Supporting this

50

network was also the network of circulation of anime tapes by the greater American anime
fandom as well, whose eagerness to consume new anime led to a highly active community of
trading tapes whose copies would occasionally find themselves in the libraries of larger
organizations like the C/FO.
These networks also did not just consist of anime tapes. Bulletins, flyers, member
directories, and episode guides all were distributed and circulated by and outside of the C/FO. I
focused on the C/FO as a prime example of the networks of distribution and circulation of anime
before the internet, but one should not forget about the countless other American anime fan clubs
and organizations that existed across the country and those that existed across the world that was
a part of the larger network of fans. Fred Patten as secretary of the C/FO has an enormous
amount of C/FO items, but one should not ignore the bulletins and flyers in Patten’s collection
from various other clubs. EDC Anime Society, the Northwest Anime Society, Cal-Animage, and
countless other local, regional, and international organizations’ pre-internet physical materials
can be found right next to those of the C/FO.
The C/FO was one of, and a part of many networks of distribution and circulation of
anime tapes in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s. American anime fans desired more
anime, and as a result, took it upon themselves to fill in that “last mile” of the networks of
distribution and in the process nurtured a network of circulation. Unfortunately, the research into
Patten’s archives cannot definitively answer the question of why American fans were so
infatuated with Japanese animation that they would go to the continued lengths of piracy to
consume Japanese animation, but there is no doubt that their motivations or desires, whatever
they may be, led to the development of sophisticated networks across the country to aid in the
consumption of Japanese animation, unofficial, illegal or otherwise.

51

I hope that by outlining the networks of the American anime fandom before the internet
and how they operated and developed, there can be further development into how the networks
before the internet have influenced and possibly been the basis for the networks and communities
of fans existing online in a digital space. Even so, despite the explosion of the internet, physical
networks have not been completely replaced. American anime fans still meet in person to watch
anime together, anime conventions continue to become bigger than ever recording higher and
higher attendance, and physical media persists within these fan networks and networks of piracy.
What exists as one of the more ironic persistence of physical media in the anime fandom outside
of Japan, including here in America, is the dependence on Japanese Blu-ray releases due to their
higher quality when digitally pirated for fansubbing, as well as their earlier release schedules
compared to outside of Japan. Still, official methods of distribution have also undergone
incredible development. In the past few years, American theaters saw screenings of anime films
such as Evangelion: 3.0+1.0,
55
Belle,
56
and Suzume
57
marking key milestones in the Japanese
animation industry’s now certain interest in the American market and desire to develop their
official channels of distribution.
Seeing how far official distribution has reached not only in America but across the world
has only made Fred Patten’s collection even more unique. I as well as other anime fans in
America lived in a completely different environment. For example, Toonami has been a well-
established broadcasting block of anime on Cartoon Network since 1997, the licensing of Studio

55
Alex Mateo, “Evangelion 3.0+1.01 Film Screens in U.S. IMAX Theaters on November 30,” Anime News Network,
October 19, 2022, https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2022-10-19/evangelion-3.0-1.01-film-screens-in-
u.s-imax-theaters-on-november-30/.191005;
56
Samuel Patrick Bannon, “Mamoru Hosada's 'Belle' Coming to North American Theaters,” Animation World
Network, October 26, 2021, https://www.awn.com/news/mamoru-hosadas-belle-coming-north-american-theaters.
57
Alex Mateo, “Suzume Earns US$680,000 at N. American Box Office from Preview Screenings,” Anime News
Network, April 14, 2023, https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2023-04-14/suzume-earns-usd680000-at-n-
american-box-office-from-preview-screenings/.197089.

52

Ghibli by Disney, and the numerous amounts of streaming platforms for anime that have been
created in the past decade are a stark contrast to the experience of anime fans during the 1980s
and 1990s. Especially since the internet as a consumer and household utility made the method of
consuming incredibly different. I would wager that anyone who was an anime fan during the
2010s will be familiar with watching anime episodes online, whether it be on a series of videos
on YouTube, legally grey websites such as Kissanime, or the more official streaming services
like Crunchyroll. Being absorbed in the overall digital medium of consuming anime makes it
easy to forget about the physical networks that influenced the anime fandom in the digital space.
What was most surprising was that in the current age, especially in the wake of the
coronavirus pandemic where there was a strong push to make things digitally available online
there is still such a small amount of these materials available online. I wonder if the continued
act of piracy in large parts of the anime fandom has led to a lack of desire to preserve the history
of the fandom. As if the continued tensions over copyright have forced both companies and fans
alike to continue to push into the future without looking at how the current situation came to be. I
felt little surprise at the fact that clubs and organizations before the internet used incredible
amounts of bulletins, flyers, and physical correspondences but knowing that Fred Patten’s
collection is one of the largest “official” collections in America makes me wonder just how
much material from the 1980s and 1990s is still out there. I can only hope that this collection is
digitized soon as it remains one of the few collections of American anime fandom materials.
Jenkins marked a growing shift towards networks of circulation dominated by fans
asserting their ownership over the media product in question, opposite of more official channels

53

of distribution embodied by television studios.
58
After researching these past networks of
American anime fan networks that existed almost entirely as networks of circulation, one though
could argue the opposite for the anime fandom and community, shifting closer back to a network
of distribution as official channels and releases become much more common, just as I noticed in
my local Target store. Still, the fan networks of circulation from the 1980s have only outgrown
the official networks of distribution. The networks of circulation among fans have had much
more time to be developed and with the quick adoption of the internet by fans compared to
companies, outside of the most popular anime shows it will be a long time before official
channels of distribution become the dominant method to consume anime in America.
The Cartoon/Fantasy Organization’s website was last updated in September 2013, but
their Facebook group is still active at the time of writing. A testament to their legacy, and a
prime example of the American anime fandom expanding into digital spaces, the C/FO formed
the basis and developmental test bed for unofficial networks of distribution and circulation
among American anime fans. While the decentralized nature of the internet and the ailing health
of Fred Patten in the early 2000s led to the C/FO’s fall from grace as the de facto American
anime fan organization, the C/FO pioneered and brought to maturity a sophisticated and national
network of distribution and circulation of pirated anime nurtured along by a strong culture of
participation, whose expansion into online spaces remains unexplored. Hopefully, in the future,
further research can be conducted not only on how the C/FO and other pre-internet anime fan
organizations operated, but how they have changed and influenced the greater anime fandom that
exists in this hybrid space between distribution and circulation, offline and online, and unofficial

58
Henry Jenkins et al., Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture (New York
University Press, 2013).

54

and official. I hope that other collections such as Fred Patten’s in the Eaton Collection in the
Tomás Rivera Library at the University of California, Riverside can be further explored in
America and across the world to further our understanding of the history of the anime fandom
outside of Japan, and how in the face of few official local releases, fans developed their own
networks whose legacies arguably persists to this day.

55

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Asset Metadata

Creator Roman, Cristian Augustin (author)

Core Title American anime fan networks before the Internet: the development of the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program East Asian Area Studies

Degree Conferral Date 2023-08

Publication Date 07/10/2023

Defense Date 07/09/2023

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag American anime fandom,anime,C/FO,Cartoon/Fantasy Organization,Eaton Collection,fan networks,fandom studies,Fred Patten,OAI-PMH Harvest,piracy

Format theses (aat)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Yasar, Kerim (committee chair), Chio, Jenny (committee member), Lippit, Akira Mizuta (committee member)

Creator Email augustinbroman@yahoo.com,caroman@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC113262994

Unique identifier UC113262994

Identifier etd-RomanCrist-12050.pdf (filename)

Legacy Identifier etd-RomanCrist-12050

Document Type Thesis

Format theses (aat)

Rights Roman, Cristian Augustin

Internet Media Type application/pdf

Type texts

Source 20230710-usctheses-batch-1064 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright.

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu