The company was founded in 1991. In 1992, the first anime series distributed by Cloverway for
Latin America was the
Saint Seiya TV series, first broadcast in Mexico and Brazil. It was followed by
Sailor Moon and
Dragon Ball some time later. In 1995,
Dragon Ball was re-dubbed by Cloverway, after Bandai failed distributing their first episodes and a movie, dubbed under the title of "Zero y el Dragón Mágico" ("Zero and the Magic Dragon", based on the
Harmony Gold version). Generally, Cloverway commissioned
dubbing for the Spanish versions to the company '
(until its closure in 2005, later on to Optimedia Productions in 2006) in Mexico, and the Brazilian versions to ' (with exceptions like
Sailor Moon,
Yu Yu Hakusho and
Mirmo) in
São Paulo Brazil, while some other works were dubbed into Spanish through Cloverway's arrangements with Televisa's owned in Mexico. Other Cloverway's arrangements were made with International Telefilms Inc. for first-run syndication broadcasting in Chile (
ETC TV and
CHV) and Spanish dubbing recorded by in
Santiago. As for the series owned by
TMS, Spanish versions were already dubbed by VDI Multimedia in
Los Angeles and previously distributed by other companies, but Brazilian versions were never produced and Cloverway couldn't get a deal for them to be dubbed and broadcast in Brazil. Also, Spanish versions of
Kimba (
Tezuka Productions) and Nippon Animation series distributed by Cloverway, were formerly dubbed and licensed by other companies, so Cloverway just distributed and offered them for reruns or inside TV programming packages. Parallel in the United States, Cloverway tried to distribute the same series by himself as in Latin America, but due to the regulations that led to the
series censorship, they delegated licenses to local distributors who managed the production of English
localization,
dubbing and distribution. However,
Sailor Moon S and
Sailor Moon SuperS were the only two licenses whose English versions were produced by Cloverway, dubbed in association with Optimum Production Services in Canada. As for the U.S. Hispanic market, Cloverway syndicated the series
Tenchi Universe to
Univision (Univision and
Telefutura networks) and
Dragon Ball Z to
Telemundo networks. When
Shueisha became a joint owner of
Viz Communications in 2002 and with the subsequent merger with
ShoPro in 2005, Cloverway eventually lost the representation of Shueisha (for
N.A. and
L.A.) and
Shogakukan (for
L.A.) for publishing licensing in the
Americas. The company's representation of
Toei Animation in America ceased, due to Toei's decision to start licensing and distributing directly since 2004, thus ending the contracts with their agents Tokyo Business Consultants in Europe and Cloverway in America, and launching their own offices in 2004 ( based in
Paris and
Toei Animation Inc. based in
Los Angeles). In 2005, the Toei Animation licenses arranged by Cloverway were transferred to Toei Animation Inc. as a requirement, leaving Cloverway only with the catalog of the other Japanese producers they licensed. As a consequence of this, there has been a chain of irregularities, such as the loss of
master tapes of many series formerly distributed by Cloverway, with the Latin American versions being the most affected for this change in distribution. After losing Toei's successful catalog, Cloverway continued representing and distributing anime from other Japanese companies, adding new properties and selling most of their new catalog to Cartoon Network L.A. and other local TV stations in
Brazil and
Hispanic America. At the middle of 2006, Cloverway licensed an Anime
Free-TV programming block titled "Otacraze" to Brazilian broadcaster
PlayTV who begun airing the block in March 2007, including the series
Ranma ½,
Samurai Champloo,
Trigun, and
Love Hina. Due to economic problems, Cloverway closed its operations in August 2007. ==Licensed titles==