My obituary of Toren Smith (left), prime mover in the American manga business, is up now on the Manga UK blog.
The Official Schoolgirl Milky Crisis Blog
Adventures in the Anime and Manga Trade
My obituary of Toren Smith (left), prime mover in the American manga business, is up now on the Manga UK blog.
The Official Schoolgirl Milky Crisis Blog 
very sad to find out he had passed… Casan;t put a comment on the obituary itself, so would like to just say it was a wonderful and informative article
I first met Toren when he was working at ProData Corp in Rohnert Park California. At that time he was just a computer nerd, like me. I was lead programmer, and he was lead operator, so we saw each other alot, and were good friends.
We were talking about conventions one day, and he convinced me to go to Dai Con in Palo Alto, if I recall correctly. He introduced me to Japanimation (his word, at the time), he introduced me Crusher Joe, and Akira. He He got me a bootleg copy of Rocky Horror Picture Show. He introduced me to a lot, but at this time it was still only a hobby to him. I don’t think even he thought his enjoyment of “Japanimation” would ever become the thing that defined him and his life.