James Veronico with Japanese film director Shigeyuki Hayashi (center) and studio founder Masao Maruyama (right) in the summer of 2006.

James Veronico grew up in Brooklyn New York and came to SUNY Albany in the fall of 1997. Having previously had a job at New York retail company Anime Crash, he continued to pursue his interest in Japanese culture and began a major in Japanese studies.

During his studies with the East Asian Studies Department James continued to work in the field of Asian entertainment for Anime Crash New York, where he served as special events liaison for personalities of the Japanese commercial and fine art world and was also active on campus arranging screenings of Japanese films such as Director Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoké. James finished his undergraduate degree at Kansai Gaidai in Osaka Prefecture during the latter half of 2001.

After returning to the U.S. he took an executive position at The Crash Media Group, then corporate partner of AGE (formerly Mego Tyos), and has negotiated rights for animated and live action intellectual properties from Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, The UK, and Thailand. During his time at Crash he helped build one of the largest libraries of early martial arts films in the U.S., and has also dealt with divisions of SONY, Takara, Kodansha, Geneon, Aniplex, KOCCA, SBS, Wal-Mart, and Best Buy regarding media licensing, animation production, and sales.

“I think licensing and entertainment production are the next boom markets for Japan, Korea, and China” James says, “now that heavy industry is starting to share space with publishing TV and film production, government subsidies are going to get larger and the amount of product is going to increase, and with demand for Asian pop-culture skyrocketing, there’s a market for it.”

James currently lives and works in New York City and is VP of Sales & Marketing for Crash Media Group Inc. and a license consultant for Fusian Films LLC, a subsidiary of the Inspired Corporation.