Bandai Visual

Bandai Visual Company, Limited
バンダイビジュアル株式会社

Type	Business corporation (JASDAQ: 4325 TYO: 4325)
Industry	Anime production, animation and distribution Film production and distribution Software & programming
Founded	August 23, 1983
Headquarters	Shiodome Sumitomo Building Shiodome, Minato, Tokyo, Japan
Key people	Kazumi Kawashiro, President and CEO
Owner(s)	Namco Bandai Holdings
Employees	162
Parent	Namco Bandai Holdings
Subsidiaries	Lantis
Website	Bandai Visual Co., Ltd. Official Website

Bandai Visual Company, Limited (バンダイビジュアル株式会社, Bandai Bijuaru Kabushiki Gaisha), is a Japanese anime, film production and distribution enterprise, established by Bandai Company, Limited and a subsidiary of Namco Bandai Holdings, Inc.,^[1][2][3] which is based in Minato, Tokyo, Japan.^[4] Since the reorganisation of Namco Bandai Holdings in 2006, Bandai Visual now heads the group's Visual and Music Content Strategic Business Unit. Its subsidiaries include the Emotion Music Company, Limited, (whose logos also include the Moai from Easter Island), and Lantis Company, Limited music publishing labels.

It is involved in the production and distribution of several anime titles, including those it has directly produced itself and anime series produced by the anime studio Sunrise, a subsidiary of Bandai.

History

Bandai Visual is currently a fully owned subsidiary of Namco Bandai Holdings.^[5][6][7] Namco Bandai announced on November 8, 2007 that it would buy the voting shares it did not own between that date and December 10, 2007 and turn the company into a wholly owned subsidiary.^[8][9] On December 18, 2007, Bandai Namco announced that it owned 93.63%^[10] of Bandai Visual's shares since the end of November.^[8] The remaining shares were delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange on February 15, 2008 after Namco Bandai acquired the remaining 10% of the shares.

Subsidiaries

Bandai Entertainment

Bandai Entertainment was a North American based subsidiary of Bandai America, founded in 1998.^[11][12] Despite its name it was not directly established by Bandai Visual. Originally separate from Bandai Visual USA, Namco Holdings announced that Bandai Entertainment would absorb Bandai Visual USA in 2008.^[13] Headquartered in Cypress, California, it licensed anime properties from various Japanese companies for North American distribution; most of those licenses coming from Bandai and its sister company Sunrise. The company also licensed manga series for release with English translation, and published American-made graphic novels.^[14] As with many North American anime distributors, Bandai Entertainment offers a 'fan support' program to facilitate public screenings of licensed content at anime clubs and anime conventions.^[15] The company confirmed on January 2, 2012 that they would stop offering new DVD, Blu-ray disc and manga releases by February, but would continue to produce their current library of content. Bandai Entertainment was restructured to focus on licensing anime to other companies.^[16] On August 30, 2012, Bandai Entertainment announced that it will discontinue distributing their home video and print catalog on March 1, 2013. They made their final shipment to retailers on November 30, 2012.^[17] All of the titles has been discontinued except Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society which was currently the only remaining title that is still licensed by the company with Manga Entertainment. Many former BEI titles have since been rescued by companies like Funimation and Sentai Filmworks.

Bandai Visual USA

Bandai Visual USA was established in 2005 to distribute and market Bandai Visual's productions in North America.^[18] Bandai Visual USA's anime products were distributed in North America initially by Image Entertainment and later, Geneon Entertainment USA and in Europe by Beez Entertainment.^[19][20] On May 23, 2008, Namco Bandai Holdings announced that Bandai Visual USA would be merged into Bandai Entertainment.^[13] Bandai Visual USA was dissolved on July 1, 2008 and absorbed by Bandai Entertainment.

Music

In August 2009, Bandai Visual had their first music release on US iTunes with Lantis Sounds. In September 2009, Banda Visual teamed up with NAMCO for their periodic release of game sounds (classic and new) to iTunes USA.^[21][22]

Headquarters

Bandai Visual's headquarters are in the Shiodome Sumitomo Building in Shiodome, Minato, Tokyo. When Bandai Visual began in August 1983, its headquarters was in Kōjimachi, Chiyoda, Tokyo. In December of that year the headquarters moved to Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo. In June 1984 the headquarters moved to another building in Roppongi. In May 1985 the headquarters moved to Shibuya, Tokyo. In March 1990 the headquarters moved to Shinjuku, Shinjuku, Tokyo. In August 1991 the headquarters moved to Taitō, Tokyo. In March 1994 the headquarters moved to another location in Taitō. In September 2004 the headquarters moved to its current location in Minato.^[23]

References

External links

• Bandai Visual website (Japanese)
• Bandai Visual at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia

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