Shawne P. Kleckner is an American entrepreneur, anime producer, and business executive who co-founded Right Stuf Inc. in 1987 and led the company for over 35 years. Under his stewardship, Right Stuf grew from a niche mail-order publisher into one of the largest independent online retailers, licensors, and distributors of anime and manga in North America.
As a founding-generation figure of the commercial anime industry in the United States, Kleckner is recognized for helping build the infrastructure through which licensed Japanese animation first reached broad American audiences. He championed a philosophy of direct fan engagement and premium-quality home video releases at a time when anime occupied a marginal position in mainstream American entertainment. Following the acquisition of Right Stuf by Crunchyroll in 2022, he departed the company, with colleagues and fans noting that his personal approach to vendor and customer relationships had defined the organization's culture throughout his tenure.
Education
Shawne P. Kleckner enrolled at Iowa State University, graduating with a degree in computer engineering.
Career
Founding of Right Stuf (1987–1993)
While still a high school student, Kleckner worked part-time for Des Moines-based computer reseller and manufacturer Century Systems, founded by entrepreneur Robert "Todd" Ferson. Ferson, a fan of classic Japanese animation, had been trying to obtain footage of the 1960s television series Astro Boy for his own collection and realized the title could not be found through ordinary retail channels. He conceived of licensing and releasing it commercially, and collaborated with Kleckner to acquire the license. As the licensor did not have the materials readily available, Kleckner worked to track down the original NBC Enterprises English dub materials produced by Fred Ladd.
In July 1987, Ferson and Kleckner renamed Ferson's existing shell company—originally called "The Right Stuff," a reference to the 1983 film—to Right Stuf, launching it as an anime retailer and producer upon securing the Astro Boy license. Kleckner was still a student at the time. Assembling usable English-dubbed prints required two years of research and correspondence to piece together surviving elements from scattered sources, prior to the widespread availability of home internet. Right Stuf's first commercial release—a VHS tape containing two episodes of Astro Boy—appeared in 1989.
The company built from its initial focus on Astro Boy, Gigantor, and Kimba the White Lion into a broader catalog of licensed anime, manga, and merchandise. Its growth earned it inclusion on the Inc. 500 list of the 500 fastest-growing private companies in the United States in 1999, and Kleckner was profiled by Inc. magazine for the company's performance. He also received the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs (ACE) North American Entrepreneur of the Year award during this period.
Company growth and retail expansion (1994–2007)
In 1994, Right Stuf launched one of the early dedicated anime retail websites in North America, enabling online ordering at a time when anime was sold primarily through specialty stores or mail-order catalogs.
Throughout Right Stuf's growth, Kleckner developed and institutionalized a customer-oriented service approach that he referred to as "Super Service"—a term he used to describe the company's emphasis on personalized customer responses, secure packaging, and reliable shipping: recognition that anime collectors were a passionate, loyal community which had different expectations from regular mass-market retail. He described this approach as central to the company's identity and, in his internal farewell message to staff in 2022, cited it as among the defining commitments he hoped the company would maintain.
Kleckner described Right Stuf's evolution in a 1999 interview with Anime News Network, noting that the company had become a hybrid publisher and distributor in the mid-1990s in response to demand for titles unavailable through ordinary retail channels. He expanded on this approach in multiple appearances on the ANNCast podcast, discussing Right Stuf's acquisition strategy, the state of the physical media market, the economics of Blu-ray, and the North American Gundam home video catalog. A consistent theme across these discussions was his position that investing in the creation of legal, high-quality releases — through collector-grade packaging, complete home video editions, and transparent communication about licensing challenges — was the more durable commercial model at a time when piracy represented a significant alternative for dissatisfied fans; in his view, cutting corners on product quality or availability would ultimately drive committed buyers toward unauthorized sources rather than away from them.
Kleckner created the music label AnimeTrax in 2001 based on consumer requests from customers a joint venture between AD Vision and Right Stuf to bring original soundtrack albums to fans outside of Japan.
Under Kleckner, Right Stuf also functioned as an industry service provider. The company acquired Mangamania, Central Park Media's online manga retail division, and the Z Store, Funimation's original online retail arm. It additionally provided e-commerce infrastructure and fulfillment services for other major distributors—including AD Vision, Tokyopop, Geneon, and Funimation—operating their initial online storefronts before those companies established independent platforms, and offered warehousing and marketing services to other publishers. Industry observers described this approach as one of inclusive stewardship: focusing on cooperation toward the growth of the industry as a whole, and allowing smaller publishers to access audiences they could not reach independently, letting the ecosystem grow collectively rather than competing for exclusive market position.
In late 2018, Kleckner announced Right Stuf would discontinue its long-running printed mail-order catalog—first produced in 1989—citing rising production costs, declining use, and environmental considerations, completing the company's shift to exclusively digital retail engagement.
Producer and curator: Nozomi Entertainment (2007–2022)
In a 1999 interview with Anime News Network, Kleckner described Right Stuf's evolution as a response to fan demand: "We became more of a hybrid publisher/distributor in the mid-90s, as we responded to the demand of our customers who could not obtain the product they were looking for at their local store." In addition, the high costs of licensing for anime had essentially removed Right Stuf from competition for top tier releases. In the same interview, he identified The Irresponsible Captain Tylor as among his personal favorite anime—a title he would later release decades later as a premium collector's edition.
At Anime Expo in June 2007, Kleckner announced that Right Stuf had renamed its production division to Nozomi Entertainment, taking its name from the Japanese word nozomi (望み), meaning "wish" or "hope." The label's stated purpose was producing collector-grade releases for audiences of all ages. Under Nozomi, Right Stuf produced premium releases of titles including Astro Boy (1963), Dirty Pair, Mobile Suit Gundam, The Irresponsible Captain Tylor, Revolutionary Girl Utena, His and Her Circumstances, Kimba the White Lion (1965), Emma: A Victorian Romance, and Aria the Animation, among many others.
Right Stuf also operated Lucky Penny Entertainment, a budget-priced label for niche titles, and in March 2012 launched 5 Points Pictures, a live-action division through a distribution agreement with CJ Entertainment. Its adult-content imprint, Critical Mass Video, operated separately from 1996 through the Crunchyroll acquisition.
Critical Mass Video
Right Stuf's adult-content publishing imprint, Critical Mass Video, was founded in 1996 as a separately branded label to handle mature titles, operating with its own branding, age-restricted packaging, and separate marketing channels. Kleckner confirmed the label's two founding releases in the 1999 ANN interview: an uncut edition of Violence Jack—the first uncensored North American release of that title, restoring content excised by Manga Entertainment's earlier version—and the erotic comedy Weather Report Girl. From 1998 to 2015 the label published numerous adult anime titles on VHS and DVD; it was reactivated in 2019 and issued its first Blu-ray. Among its final releases was a SteelBook Blu-ray of Interspecies Reviewers, which Right Stuf had licensed after Funimation dropped it due to its explicit content. The full Critical Mass Video catalog was sold to EroAnimeStore.com on August 5, 2022, the day after the Crunchyroll acquisition closed.
Fan engagement, crowdfunding, and industry communications
From 1990 onward Kleckner was a regular presence at major anime conventions, attending as both a company representative and a participant in fan communities. He gave candid long-form interviews on the Anime News Network podcast ANNCast on multiple occasions between 2013 and 2018, speaking about the economics of licensing, the physical media market, Right Stuf's acquisition strategy, and the North American anime retail landscape. On the Anime World Order podcast, he spoke openly about the economics of licensing, the challenges of producing dubs for niche titles, and the mechanics of the physical media market. He conducted multiple Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions, answering fan questions about licensing constraints, production challenges, and business strategy with a transparency that industry observers noted was unusual for a company of Right Stuf's scale. One AMA addressed why certain long-desired titles—including Naoki Urasawa's Monster—remained unavailable, explaining in detail the multi-party rights complexities that made licensing "a quagmire."
This direct relationship with fans informed his approach to production financing. According to Headline Studios founder and dub director DiGiorgi, Kleckner had proposed using Kickstarter to finance English dubbing projects as early as 2011; the actual campaigns launched in 2017, after concerns from Japanese licensors had been addressed. Kleckner was highly involved in all of the projects, from on-camera interviews, marketing, and fan engagement through Reddit AMAs and Anime News Network Interviews, and documented the production process through Kickstarter updates. Four campaigns followed for titles that would not have received English dubs or extended releases through conventional commercial avenues:
In 2017, Nozomi Entertainment launched a Kickstarter campaign to produce an English dub and HD Blu-ray release of Aria the Animation, the 2005 television anime adaptation of Kozue Amano's manga, directed by Junichi Satō. The Aria campaign launched at Otakon on August 12, 2017, with an initial goal of US$110,000 to fund a dub of the first season of Aria the Animation (2005) and a Blu-ray release. As the campaign exceeded successive stretch goals, its scope expanded to cover the complete franchise: the full Aria the Natural and Aria the Origination television series, the Aria the OVA ~Arietta~, picture dramas, and Aria the Avvenire—the final OVA, which had not previously been released outside Japan. Cast included Michele Knotz, Jessica Calvello, Veronica Taylor, and Lisa Ortiz. The campaign closed on September 11, 2017 having raised US$595,676 from 2,648 backers against the US$110,000 initial goal, more than five times the original target.