Central Park Media Shuts Down, Files Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Owing $1.2 Million to Creditors (Updated)

Crain’s New York Business reports that Central Park Media, a mainstay in the Second Wave of domestic anime distributors has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and has been shut down since Monday with a debt load of $1.2 million owed to various creditors.

At its peak in the mid-90s, the Albany, NY based distributor operated the Software Sculptors, U.S. Manga Corps, and Anime 18 labels that featured shows as diverse and influential as Grave of the Fireflies, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Mobile Police Patlabor, Record of Lodoss War, Slayers, Night on the Galactic Railroad, Project A-Ko, Dominion Tank Police, Descendants of Darkness, Demon City Shinjuku, Urotsukidoji, and La Blue Girl respectively.

The distributor was dealt a near death blow in 2005 when The Musicland Group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which nearly eliminated its retail footprint as CPM titles were distributed across a majority of Musicland and Sam Goody locations.

The company also branched out into book publishing earlier this decade with the CPM Manga imprint which published the manga adaptation of Comic Party and The Record of Lodoss War as well as operating the embattled Be Beautiful Boys Love and yaoi manga imprint which came under scrutiny when it was discovered that the contracts it held for the library were rendered invalid as a result of the Japanese master licensor(s) going into liquidation which ultimately resulted in litigation from which the distributor never fully recovered.

CPM had not registered any activity within the last 12 months, but the CEO was present at the New York Anime Fair reassuring fans that it would be able to publish its library as normal. With the status of the home video library in doubt, it remains to be seen what will happen to the remainder of the home video library.

Update: ICV2 goes into extensive detail regarding CPM’s finances and creditors affected by the liquidation, with Bank of America being the largest one. The report also details that no value has either been set or an unknown value has been set on its former home video library and collection of master recordings.