Tatsunoko Production

Tatsunoko Production Co., Ltd.(株式会社タツノコプロ, Kabushiki-gaisha Tatsunoko Puro; often shortened to Tatsunoko Pro(タツノコプロ, Tatsunoko Puro)) is a Japanese animation studio headquartered at the Musaino YS Building in Nakacho, Musashino, Tokyo, Japan. Originally founded on October 19, 1962 by manga author Tatsuo Yoshida and his brothers Kenji Yoshida and Ippei Kuri as a manga studio, three years later the studio entered animation production as it produced its first television series, an original work titled Space Ace. Since then, the studio has produced numerous anime series, such as Speed Racer, Gatchaman, The Genie Family, the Time Bokan series, Samurai Pizza Cats, Pinocchio: The Series, The Adventures of Hutch the Honeybee, and The Littl' Bits, among others. It holds numerous original rights and character copyrights for its original works in Japan and abroad.

The studio is responsible for the planning and production of anime films and television series, as well as character licensing.

The company is one of Japan's leading anime studios in terms of the breadth and richness of its content, ranging from hard action heroes to comedies, science fiction, anthropomorphic animals, and domestic dramas.

Although the company later began producing works set in Japan, since its inception it has essentially aimed to produce works that can be used anywhere in the world in a stateless manner.

In the genealogy of animation studios in the history of Japanese animation, Tatsunoko is known as the studio that created many derivative studios along with Toei Animation, Mushi Production, and Tokyo Movie (currently TMS Entertainment).

In the past, Tatsunoko had a production system in which almost all processes, from planning to scriptwriting, drawing, cinematography, and editing, were completed in-house. The company continued to use this system for a long time after Toei Animation and Mushi Production, which had a similar production system, became unsustainable due to streamlining and bankruptcy.

Initially, founder Tatsuo Yoshida tried to establish his studio's own style with realistic drawings that accurately depicted muscles and skeletons. At that time, it was common knowledge that animation was to be abbreviated or deformed, and that pictures were to be simplified as much as possible to show movement. Even Mushi Production and Disney used to draw the car so that when it starts, it first contracts like rubber and then jumps out like a bullet due to the recoil, and when it stops, it contracts once due to braking and then extends and returns to its original state. However, Tatsuo Yoshida insisted on realistic animation and produced Mach GoGoGo. For the scene where the car spins, he rented a driving school and had the driver actually demonstrate the spin with the car, and had the animators draw the scene without deforming it by referring to the demonstration. It was so well received that it became the studio's origin and led to subsequent realistic, hard-action works. However, Yoshida's drawings, with their many lines, precision, and sharpness, were unsuitable for animation, which required many drawings of the same picture, and were difficult for other animators to imitate. Most animators refused to participate in the production, and the company's schedule was on the verge of collapse. However, the company was able to get through the busy season when a comedy with a simple design happened to enter the production rotation. This allowed the company to learn how to run a studio that alternated between serious action animation with detailed drawings and comedy animation with simple drawings using deformation, resulting in a wide range of styles.

After 43 years running as an independent studio, an 88% stake of the studio was purchased by Takara on June 30, 2005 a year prior to its merger with Tomy[ja] to form Takara Tomy. Nippon Television Holdings, the parent company of Japanese television broadcaster Nippon Television, purchased the studio in a share swap with Tomy in 2014.

The studio's name has a double meaning in Japanese: "Tatsu's child" (Tatsu is a nickname for Tatsuo) and "seahorse", the latter inspiring its logo.

History

The studio was founded in October 1962 by mangaka and anime pioneer Tatsuo Yoshida and his two younger brothers: Kenji, who managed Tatsuo, and manga artist Toyoharu, better known by his pen name "Ippei Kuri", at Tatsuo's house. It initially began as a production company specializing in manga to manage the copyrights of Tatsuo Yoshida's manga and his assistants. However, at the time, the manga artist community was abuzz following the beginning of the broadcast of Astro Boy, Japan's first domestically produced anime television series produced by Osamu Tezuka's Mushi Production. Tatsuo Yoshida became interested in anime production after hearing from Hiroshi Sasagawa, a manga artist who had worked as Tezuka's assistant, and Tatsunoko set out to produce anime. Tatsuo saw that more people were buying televisions in the early 1960s and predicted that they would demand higher quality anime program in the future, so decided to provide it to them. Around that time, Toei Animation, having heard of Tatsuo's hopes, invited Tatsunoko to produce an anime TV series. It was a good deal for Tatsunoko, which was entrusted with the original story, script, and direction, while Toei worked on the subsequent inbetweening, finishing, cinematography, etc. Toei trained animators over a three-month period, with Tatsunoko staff, including Tatsuo and Sasagawa, also able to participate in training. However, the negotiations broke down due to copyright issues, so Tatsunoko decided to produce an original work on its own. They bought a plot of land in Kokubunji, cleared out a wooded area, and built a prefab house, which became an improvised animation studio. As for animators, Tatsunoko had three manga artists, Tatsuo, Kuri, and Sasagawa, and about 10 assistants to Tatsuo, so they were confident that they could manage. However, most of them refused, saying that they wanted to be manga artists rather than making animation. With no other choice, Tatsunoko placed an advertisement in the newspaper looking for animators and trained 50 amateurs from across the country based on their training experience at Toei. In addition, art director Mitsuki Nakamura from Toei Animation and screenwriter Jinzō Toriumi from Nikkatsu transferred to the company to provide immediate assistance. Tatsunoko did not have any experience yet, so they produced a 15-minute pilot and pitched it to TV stations.

In 1965, Tatsunoko's first TV anime series, Space Ace, began broadcasting. The series became popular and successful, and Tatsuo was so pleased with its success that he immediately began work on the next series.

In 1967, Tatsunoko's second TV animation series, Mach GoGoGo, began broadcasting. Not only was it repeatedly reran in Japan, but it was also exported overseas. In the United States, it was dubbed into English and broadcast under the title Speed Racer and became very popular, paving the way for syndication around the world. It was Tatsunoko's first full-color production. At the time, color TVs were not widely available in Japan and most households watched TV programs in black and white. However, Tatsunoko dared to produce the series in full color, assuming from the start that it would be broadcast in the United States. This was due to Tatsuo's desire to move pictures like American comic books and create American-style animation, as well as for financial reasons. The funds from commercial TV stations and sponsors were not enough to cover the production costs, so Tatsunoko decided that the only way to complete the series was to sell it in the United States. They chose car racing as their theme because their target, the U.S., was a car society. However, due to sloppy work by the Japanese intermediaries, Tatsunoko profited little from its worldwide success and received no tribute beyond a mention in the credits of a later live-action film.

In 1972, Science Ninja Team Gatchaman began broadcasting. Tatsuo demanded thorough realism in the works he led. Although the results were excellent, the animators were reluctant to take on the next series because of the increased number of animation cells and the time and effort required to draw them. Tatsunoko therefore recruited and trained new animators and introduced them to this series. The series was a huge hit and related merchandise sold well. Thanks to the copyright income, Tatsunoko was finally on track to recoup its production costs and make a profit. Therefore, from then on, Tatsunoko began to actively introduce mecha in its works for toy manufacturers. Outside of Japan, independent TV program packager Sandy Frank acquired the rights to syndicate Gatchaman worldwide except in Asia. He altered the series by cutting action scenes to meet U.S. broadcast codes, changing the dialogue to take advantage of the popularity of the then hit Star Wars and changing the setting of the work to outer space, changing the title to Battle of the Planets. The series was broadcast in the U.S. and around the world, and he profited considerably from its merchandising. However, Tatsunoko did not profit from the series because they gave him the overseas copyrights.

In 1975, Time Bokan, the first entry in the Time Bokan series, began broadcasting. The series, which added an element of comedy to the action that had already become Tatsunoko's signature, lasted for eight years and became a new Tatsunoko masterpiece.

At the time, Hiroshi Sasagawa, who excelled at comedies, and Hisayuki Toriumi, who had a hard, serious style, supported Tatsunoko's heyday in the 1970s as the two signatures. Also during this period, Tatsunoko was trying to bring up university-educated directors in-house, following the example of Toei Doga, instead of hiring directors from outside the company. These people were Mizuho Nishikubo, Kōichi Mashimo, Hidehito Ueda, and Mamoru Oshii.

On September 5, 1977, Tatsuo Yoshida died of liver cancer. Kenji Yoshida was appointed as the second president and would stay on for the studio's later years.

Around the time, Tatsunoko's production site was on the verge of collapse due to busyness and lack of funds, and there was a steady flow of personnel out of the company, particularly members from the pioneering period.

In 1978, Tatsunoko Anime Technology Research Institute, an animator training institution, was established.

In 1982, Tatsunoko produced Super Dimension Fortress Macross, the first in the Super Dimension series. Macross was a project by Studio Nue that was adopted by Bigwest[ja], an advertising agency, which secured broadcast slots for sponsors and commercial broadcasters. However, Nue was not capable of producing animation, so Artland, which was headed by director Noboru Ishiguro, was assigned to produce the series. However, Artland, a subcontractor, was deemed insufficiently capable, and Tatsunoko took over as the prime contractor, placing orders with Artland and its own subsidiary, Anime Friend. Later, however, Bigwest produced a sequel, Super Dimensional Fortress Macross II: Lovers Again, without Tatsunoko or Studio Nue. In response, Tatsunoko signed a contract with Harmony Gold USA without the consent of Bigwest and Nue, resulting in a dispute over intellectual property rights. In Japan, Tatsunoko sued Bigwest and Studio Nue over copyright and won, but conversely lost a lawsuit filed by them over character and mecha design. As a result of the trial, it was decided that Tatsunoko Productions would retain ownership of the film of the work, but that the designs would be shared by Bigwest and Studio Nue. Meanwhile, overseas, Harmony Gold USA, which had obtained the license, adapted and broadcast several Tatsunoko works as a single epic Robotech series depicting different eras and generations in the same world. Bigwest and Harmony Gold had different claims over the rights to the Macross and Robotech series for many years, and Macross was not developed for business worldwide and Robotech in Japan. However, in 2021, the two companies announced an agreement regarding worldwide rights to the Macross and Robotech series from that point forward. This would allow the Macross series to be developed globally and confirmed that Bigwest did not object to the release of a live-action Robotech movie in Japan. In addition, an exclusive worldwide license outside of Japan to use Macross characters and mecha in the Robotech series approved by Tatsunoko for Harmony Gold through 2021 was ratified.

In 1987, Kenji Yoshida retired from Tatsunoko Production, and Ippei Kuri became the third president. Kenji established a new production company, Yū Entertainment.

In December of the same year, Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, together with the Tatsunoko Production Branch Office, which consisted mainly of staff who had participated in Zillion, became independent and established IG Tatsunoko Ltd. (now Production I.G).

In 1990, Tatsunoko Anime Technology Research Institute led by Koji Sugii became independent and participated in the establishment of Animation 21.

In 1995, Kenji Yoshida returned to Tatsunoko Production and became its first chairman.

Since the 1990s, Tatsunoko has brought back former key staff members, including Hiroshi Sasagawa, who had left the company, and has been producing mainly remakes of older works.

On June 3, 2005, major toy manufacturer Takara acquired a 88% stake in the studio from the Yoshida family, making the company a consolidated subsidiary of Takara. Following this, Kenji Yoshida and Ippei Kuri resigned from their posts, and the entire Yoshida family, including executives, left the studio.

In the same year, Tatsuo Yoshida was posthumously awarded the Special Achievement Award as one of the 20 People Who Made Japanese Animation at the Tokyo Anime Award held at the Tokyo International Anime Fair.

In 2010, Production I.G. acquired 11.2% of Tatsunoko's outstanding shares. Additionally, Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, president of Production I.G and IG Port, became non-executive director of Tatsunoko Production.

In 2013, Horipro acquired 13.5% of the shares, making it the second largest shareholder at the time after Takara Tomy. In the same year, the company changed its name from Tatsunoko Purodakushon(竜の子プロダクション) (written in kanji) to Tatsunoko Puro(タツノコプロ) (written in katakana). At the same time, the head office was relocated from Kokubunji City, Tokyo to Musashino City, and the dispersed corporate functions were consolidated.

At Anime Expo 2013, Sentai Filmworks announced a deal to license and release some of Tatsunoko's titles, including the Gatchaman series and Casshan in North America.

In 2014, Nippon Television Holdings acquired 54.3% of the outstanding shares held by Takara Tomy and made Tatsunoko Production a subsidiary, structured as a sales swap. Takara Tomy continued to hold a 20% stake in the company and maintained the partnership.

In 2019, Tatsunoko founded a new label, Bakken Record. In the same year, four people associated with Tatsunoko received the Achievement Award at the Tokyo Anime Award: Kunio Okawara, Akiyoshi Sakai, Hisayuki Toriumi, and Tsuneo Ninomiya.

Main productions

Original works that are produced in-house are in bold.

Anime television series

Anime television specials

• Ninja Box (2019–2020; co-production with C2C)
• Idol Land PriPara (2021)
• Exception (Netflix) (2022, co-production with 5 Inc.)
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel – Northern War (2023)
• Pole Princess!! (2023)
• King of Prism: Dramatic Prism.1 (2024)
• King of Prism: Your Endless Call - Minna Kirameki! Prism☆Tours (2025)

Anime films

Original video animations (OVAs)

Original net animations (ONAs)

Video games

Other productions

Co-productions

• Genesis Climber MOSPEADA: Love Live Alive (1985; co-production with Artmic)
• Lady Lovely Locks and the Pixietails (1987)
• Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Flash Back 2012 (1987; co-production with Studio Nue and Artland)

Anime studios founded by former members

• Ashi Productions/Production Reed (since 1975)
• Artmic (1978–1997) (defunct)
• Pierrot (since 1979)
• J.C.Staff (since 1986)
• Production I.G (since 1987)
• Animation 21 (since the 1990s) (defunct)
• Xebec (1995–2019) (defunct)
• Radix Ace Entertainment (1995–2006) (defunct)
• Bee Train Production (1997–2012) (dormant)
• Actas (since 1998)
• TNK (since 1999)
• A-Line (since 2000)
• P.A. Works (since 2000)
• Yanchester (since 2024)

Notes

Sources

• Sasagawa, Hiroshi (September 1, 2000). Buta mo Odaterya Ki ni Noboru: Watashi no Manga-dō to Anime-dō ぶたもおだてりゃ木にのぼる: 私のマンガ道とアニメ道 [Even pigs will climb trees if you flatter them: My Manga Way and Anime Way]. Wani Books. ISBN4-8470-1358-1.

External links

• (in Japanese)
• (in Japanese)
• atAnime News Network's encyclopedia