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YOU NEED TO KNOW . . . Gen Fukunaga

COMPANY: Entertainment TITLE: President and CEO STATS: 120 employees, $37.2 million in net sales for fiscal 2006, founded in 1994, based in Fort Worth WHY YOU NEED TO KNOW HIM: Industry trade publication ICv2 named him the most powerful man in North American anime. “I don’t feel any stronger,” Fukunaga says of the honor. “But I’ll have to ask for a raise now.” His FUNimation Entertainment is the leading producer-marketer-distrib- utor of Japanese animation in America. Born in Japan but raised in , Fukunaga got hooked on the fantasy- themed cartoons after a yearlong stay in his native country when he was 13. After pro- fessional stints in computers and consult- ing, the adult Fukunaga listened to his inner child and in 1994, began licensing anime titles, importing them, and dubbing them into English. The domestic brand manager for over 100 popular titles—ask your kids (or grandkids), for instance, about Z—FUNimation outsells competitors two or three times to one per release. Now, Fukunaga, 45, is having some fun of his own with several original projects: He’s celebrat- ing the release of a motion-capture anima- ted Tony Hawk DVD and a highly antici- pated Fullmetal Alchemist movie (the second all-time best-selling anime series behind Dragon Ball), while expanding the reach of a new 24-hour FUNimation Channel and finishing work on the Spike network’s upcoming Afro Samurai—an innovative show American in concept, THE BALL’S IN HIS COURT: produced in Japan, and voiced by Samuel L. Gen Fukunaga, CEO of Jackson. Despite such an impressive lineup, FUNimation Entertainment, the power hasn’t gone to Fukunaga’s head. has the no. 1 and 2 best- selling anime titles with the But that doesn’t mean he can’t flex his hugely popular muscles now and then. —JESSICA JONES SELLERS and Fullmetal Alchemist AN D