 Volume 1 Issue #2 of Animerica (April 1993) | |
| Categories | |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Circulation | 45,000 (2004) |
| Publisher | Viz Media |
| First issue | November 1992 #0 |
| Final issue | June 2005 #6 |
| Company | Viz Media |
| Country | United States |
| Based in | San Francisco, California |
| Language | English |
| Website | animerica-mag.com |
| ISSN | 1067-0831 |
Animerica was a monthly magazine published by Viz Media containing news, feature articles, and reviews on manga, anime, and related media, as well as a section that serialized manga published by Viz. After an initial November 1992 preview issue, Animerica's first regular issue was released in February 1993 with a March 1993 cover date. In 1998, Animerica Extra was launched as a separate manga anthology magazine which eventually focused specifically on shōjo titles. It was canceled in 2004.
Viz changed the magazine's format in April 2005, with the new magazine being three different free publications of the same name. One is advertising-oriented and created specially for distribution at anime and manga conventions while the other is more general in scope and with a version each for distribution through Waldenbooks and Borders stores. A similar version was later added for Best Buy stores. All three versions have fewer and briefer articles and a lower page count.
Animerica was one of the first top professional anime and manga magazines released in the United States, and one of the most popular in the 1990s. In 2004, it had a circulation of 45,000 readers, but low sales and high competition from Newtype USA resulted in the essential cancellation of the original magazine and its reformatting as a free digest. One hundred copies each of the first issue of the free digest were sent to 1,000 Waldenbooks and Border stores.