aboutus

Welcome to the official Anime Corner 'About Us' page for those of you that did not know enough already. This page was 4 years in the making, and we have compiled corporate information, and brief history of the Anime Corner, and more interesting information to help feed your curiosity about what makes the Anime Corner tick... -_^

Of course, as always, if you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail us!

The Anime Corner Store's mission is simple - to be the largest, best source for Japanese Anime in the world!

Our goal is to be the leading retailer in the Anime industry by having the highest level of customer satisfaction, the largest selection of products, competitive prices, the fastest shipping, and second to none customer service. We truly are the original online Anime Superstore, run by fans, for fans. (Customer Testimonials)

Established in 1997 originally as a fan site, the Anime Corner quickly grew into one of the finest and largest online retailers of anime and manga related products. The Anime Corner Store® is now recognized worldwide as a leading, customer friendly, Anime retailer - a place that fans can obtain the latest Anime and Manga products at the most competitive prices, and still be backed up by the fastest delivery and best customer service in the industry.

Over the years, the Anime Corner® has grown into a diverse, challenging, and exciting enterprise. Operations are managed daily from our 9,000 square foot distribution center in Ranson, West Virginia. From here, we ship hundreds of orders all over the world each week. No matter our size and growth, however, our priorities and commitment will always remain to our customers and to the Anime community which we serve and are proud to be a part of.

Back in 1998 when Robert (aka Bob) was working as a computer consultant and his wife Jamie (affectionately known as 'J' around the office) was working for an Aerospace company, they were both die hard Anime fans, but there was no place local to them that sold Anime (they didn't even have a local comic book shop), and there were only a couple of places online at that had any kind of real selection that you could buy licensed Anime from.

Being former large customers of Anime Nation, they knew first-hand that the few online Anime stores at the time had frustrating customer service, scant inventory (if at all), terrible web sites, and just basically didn't do a very good job selling Anime despite whatever claims they might make to the contrary. More than that, the prices they charged were very high. Bob had been involved in several early e-commerce projects, and had been wanting to put his own online store together. Bob and Jamie both knew the budding Anime industry desperately needed reliable, quality distribution at the retail level to help grow the genre, and that they could a much better job than the other Anime retailers that existed at the time. It all fell together. Bob and Jamie left their day jobs and invested all of their time and savings into the new anime business, and Robert's Anime Corner Store® was born in the summer of 1999 after several months of planning and development.

Robert - Founder & President of the Anime Corner Store

We built a very easy to use and navigate retail website as an extension of the fan-site Bob already had called Robert's Anime Corner® (hence the name Robert's Anime Corner Store®, if anyone is wondering how our store's name came to be). Our goal was to become the #1 Anime retailer on the web by offering:

In the beginning we carried, in stock, about 400 Anime items, including the few licensed VHS videos and English translated manga that were available back then, but after we officially opened in Oct of 1999, we quickly grew to over 2,600 items after only 1 year, and over 5,000 items in only 2 years. Today we carry in stock over 7,200 Anime items, and the list grows almost daily. We quickly found that we outgrew the small office space we had originally leased in Harpers Ferry WV, so in late 2000 we purchased a large warehouse/office building closer to the city in Ranson, WV and moved our corporate headquarters and fulfillment team into it in early 2001, which is were we still fill our orders from today.

Since we began over 7 years ago, we've grown our Anime selection to over 7,600 items which we keep in stock right here in our Ranson, WV warehouse, and despite the incredible growth we've seen as a company, we've still held firmly to the fundamental principals that we were originally founded on, and that is what our fellow fans and customers in the Anime community have responded to.

We currently advertise across a broad spectrum of Anime and Gaming related publications. Unlike other companies, each one of our ads is an original hand made work of Anime art, that requires many weeks of planning and development from initial concept to final drawing. Each of our ads tells a story, and we are very proud of them! Here are a few examples:


'Girls of the Anime Corner' Full Page Ad w/ Momo, Aya, Rinda, Raina, & Noemi in a Nice Group Shot Outside of Our HQ	'Happy Summer Days' Full Page Ad w/ Noemi, Raina, & Mai Enjoying a Day at the Beach	'Okinawan' Full Page Ad w/ Noemi, Meriko, and Kisara Outside of a Shrine in Okinawa, Japan


'St. Noemi' Full Page Holiday Ad w/ Noemi Delivering Presents to Miharu and Ataru, Two Aspiring Otakus	'Ranshin Kendo Dojo' Full Page Ad w/ Noemi, Asagi, & Himiko (Sports Themed) The RACS Kendo Team Shot Inside of Our Company Sponsored Dojo	'Cute on Campus' Full Page Ad w/ Noemi, Harumi, & Uehara Some of Our Girls Attend Junior College in the Afternoon after Work

Anime Corner Christmas' Full Page Holiday Ad Showing What Happens to Noemi when Miharu and Ataru are Happy to See Her!	'Goth Polymer Project' Full Page Ad w/ Noemi, Sonoko, & Remei This more serious work depicts Noemi and and her companions during a Vampire hunt.	'Faye Faye' 1/4 Page Ad

Original Anime Corner Store print artwork first goes thru a short screening process where we toss around ideas for the upcoming ad. Once we decide on a theme, we will sometimes create a *very* preliminary sketch just to get a general idea on how the ad will look. The artwork is then created either from scratch or the preliminary sketch, using a vector application similar to Adobe Illustrator. Because of the amount of precision involved with vector graphics, a mouse is used as opposed to a drawing tablet.

Once the main artwork for the ad is complete which can take anywhere from 2-3 weeks, we piece together the ad elements (ie. RACS logo, icons, credit card bar, etc...) and then finalize the work by exporting to the proper print formats (such as CMYK TIFF for the color separations). Because the main artwork is scalable to any size without loss in quality, the RACS print ads can appear as sharp and clean as their digital counterparts.