1.
Bandai Namco Holdings
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Bandai Namco Holdings Inc. also known as the Bandai Namco Group, is a Japanese holding company which was formed from the merger of Bandai and Namco on September 29,2005. It specializes in toys, video games, arcades, anime, the companys headquarters are based in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Their US branch, Bandai Namco Holdings USA, was formed on January 6,2008. The main business of Bandai Namco Holdings consists of the design and implementation of management strategies for the conglomerate and its task is to bring Namco and Bandai into one organized brand. Namco Bandai also supply various arcade machines to theaters and arcades across the globe. Bandai started in the 1950 as a toy manufacturing company in Japan, during the 1960s, Bandai expanded their business portfolio to include export sales. The 1970s provided Bandai with success through their car sets. Bandai established Bandai America Inc. in 1978 in order to have a sales, by the 1980s, Bandai was Japans leading toy company and consumer product licensor for popular franchises such as Power Rangers and Digimon. During the late 1990s, Sega expressed an interest in merging with Bandai, however, Namco started in 1955 as a childrens entertainment company in Japan under the name Nakamura Manufacturing. In 1974, Namco purchased Atari Inc. Japan for $500000 including liabilities, the purpose of this acquisition was for a capital injection for Atari Japan in exchange for Namco to be a publisher for Atari games in Japan. In 1978, Namco created a subsidiary in the United States in order to license Namco games to western publishers, namcos first debut into the video game industry was through a game called Gee Bee. Their second debut, Galaxian was the first video game to project RGB color spectrum and it was on their third arcade debut, Pac-Man, that Namco gained worldwide acclaim and pop culture relevancy, and as a result, made Pac-Man the definitive mascot for the company. Namco continued their success in the gaming industry by contributing to the Golden Age of arcades and home console gaming with notable franchises such as Tekken, Soulcalibur. Namco Bandai Holdings was created in 2005, when Bandai and Namco performed a management integration, furthermore, Bandai swapped one of its shares for 1.5 of the new Namco Bandai. Namco traded evenly with a share, carried out via a share exchange. The shareholders of Namco received one NBHD share for each Namco share, prior to the merger, Bandai and Namco had various subsidiaries that worked under them. After the merger of Bandai Namco, the respective Bandai and Namco subsidiaries were re-designated into different areas of the combined conglomerate, in September 2006, BNHD acquired CCP Co. Ltd. from Casio and made it a wholly owned subsidiary. BNHD have since fully acquired developers Banpresto and Namco Tales Studio since the merger, formerly, both were partially owned by Bandai and Namco respectively
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Bandai Namco Partners
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The acquisitions came on the heels of Ataris financial difficulties, which had begun to snowball in 2006. Bandai Namco Partners Australia Pty. Ltd. is a division serving Australia, originally Ozisoft was established in 1982 in Sydney, Australia and Los Angeles, California by Kevin Bermeister and partner Mark Dyne. Ozisoft was one of the first interactive multimedia companies, in 1987, Ozisoft began representing Sega Enterprises Japan in Australia and New Zealand. During this period, Ozisoft released a variety of Sega consoles, by 1990 Ozisoft was Australias largest international software distributor. Sega-Ozisoft distributed home entertainment and educational products and software in Australia and New Zealand such as Sega products plus software for PCs, Nintendo, mastertronics Group, distributed Sega video games in Europe. Radica Games and Jakks Pacific notwithstanding, on the May 6,1992, Sega Ozisoft Pty Ltd was established by Bermeister and Dyne. The Sega Ozisoft franchise is one of the most successful in the multimedia area, on the March 31,1998, Sega relinquished its controlling share and the company reverted to the name Ozisoft Pty Ltd. On the December 15,1998, Infogrames Entertainment SA acquired majority shareholding in Ozisoft Pty Ltd, on April 15,2002, Infogrames acquired 100% ownership. On the May 8,2003, Infogrames Australia Pty Ltd changed to its most incarnation, Atari Australias head office is located in Alexandria, Sydney. Atari Australia has released industry leading titles including Metal Gear Solid, Tomb Raider, Colin McRae Rally, Driver, Bandai Namco Holdings already had a 30% share in Ataris Australian subsidiary. Later in 2009 Bandai Namco Holdings acquired Ataris European operations outright in one swoop, Atari Australia Pty Ltd profile at MobyGames
3.
Romanization
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Romanization, in linguistics, is the conversion of writing from a different writing system to the Roman script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and transcription, for representing the spoken word, There are many consistent or standardized romanization systems. They can be classified by their characteristics, source, or donor language – A system may be tailored to romanize text from a particular language, or a series of languages, or for any language in a particular writing system. A language-specific system typically preserves language features like pronunciation, while the one may be better for cataloguing international texts. Target, or receiver language – Most systems are intended for an audience that speaks or reads a particular language and this affects the ease of creation, digital storage and transmission, reproduction, and reading of the romanized text. Reversibility – Whether or not the original can be restored from the converted text, some reversible systems allow for an irreversible simplified version. Most romanizations are intended to enable the reader who is unfamiliar with the original script to pronounce the source language reasonably accurately. Such romanizations follow the principle of phonemic transcription and attempt to render the significant sounds of the original as faithfully as possible in the target language, the popular Hepburn romanization of Japanese is an example of a transcriptive romanization designed for English speakers. The International Phonetic Alphabet is the most common system of phonetic transcription, for most language pairs, building a usable romanization involves tradeoffs between the two extremes. In modern times the chain of transcription is usually spoken foreign language, written language, written native language. Reducing the number of processes, i. e. removing one or both steps of writing, usually leads to more accurate oral articulations. In general, outside a limited audience of scholars romanizations tend to lean more towards transcription, Romanization standards include the following, Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft, Adopted by the International Convention of Orientalist Scholars in Rome. It is the basis for the very influential Hans Wehr dictionary, qalam, A system that focuses upon preserving the spelling, rather than the pronunciation, and uses mixed case ISO 233-2, Simplified transliteration. Buckwalter transliteration, Developed at Xerox by Tim Buckwalter, doesnt require unusual diacritics ALA-LC Arabic chat alphabet There are romanization systems for both Modern and Ancient Greek. ALA-LC Beta Code Greeklish ISO843 The Hebrew alphabet is romanized using several standards, ANSI Z39.25 UNGEGN ISO259, ALA-LC The Brahmic family of abugidas is used for languages of the Indian subcontinent and south-east Asia. There is a tradition in the west to study Sanskrit. Various transliteration conventions have been used for Indic scripts since the time of Sir William Jones, ISO15919, A standard transliteration convention was codified in the ISO15919 standard. It uses diacritics to map the much larger set of Brahmic consonants, see also Transliteration of Indic scripts, how to use ISO15919
4.
Kabushiki gaisha
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A kabushiki gaisha or kabushiki kaisha, commonly abbreviated KK, is a type of company defined under the Companies Act of Japan. Often translated as stock company, joint-stock company, or stock corporation, in English, kabushiki kaisha is usually used while the original Japanese pronunciation is kabushiki gaisha due to rendaku. A kabushiki kaisha must include 株式会社 in its name, in a company name, 株式会社 can be used as a prefix or as a suffix. Many Japanese companies translate the phrase 株式会社 in their name as Co. Ltd. while others use the more Americanized translations Corporation or Incorporated. English texts often refer to kabushiki gaisha as joint stock companies, while this is close to a translation of the term. The Japanese government previously endorsed business corporation as an official translation, the first kabushiki gaisha was the First National Bank of Japan, incorporated in 1873. Rules regarding kabushiki gaisha were set out in the Commercial Code of Japan, over time, Japanese and U. S. corporate law diverged, and K. K. assumed many characteristics not found in U. S. corporations. For instance, a K. K. could not buy back its own stock, issue stock for a price of less than ¥50,000 per share, or operate with paid-in capital of less than ¥10 million. On June 29,2005, the Diet of Japan passed a new Companies Act, the new law greatly affected the formation and function of K. K. s and other Japanese business organizations, bringing them closer to their contemporary counterparts in the U. S. Prominent examples are the renaming of Nikon KK and Sony KK to Nikon Corporation and Sony Corporation, a kabushiki gaisha may be started with capital as low as ¥1, making the total cost of a K. K. incorporation approximately ¥240,000 in taxes and notarization fees. Under the old Commercial Code, a K. K, although seven incorporators were required as recently as the 1980s, a K. K. now only needs one incorporator, which may be an individual or a corporation. If there are multiple incorporators, they must sign an agreement before incorporating the company. K. to act beyond its purposes. Judicial or administrative scriveners are often hired to draft the purposes of a new company, the Corporation Code allows a K. K. The articles must be sealed by the incorporator and notarized by a notary public, in a direct incorporation, each incorporator receives a specified amount of stock as designated in the articles of incorporation. The other method is an incorporation by offering, in which each incorporator becomes the underwriter of a number of shares. As in a direct incorporation, the incorporators must then hold a meeting to appoint the initial directors. Any person wishing to receive shares must submit an application to the incorporator, capital must be received in a commercial bank account designated by the incorporator, and the bank must provide certification that payment has been made. Once the capital has received and certified, the incorporation may be registered at the Legal Affairs Bureau
5.
Video game industry
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The video game industry is the economic sector involved in the development, marketing and Monetizing of video games. It encompasses dozens of job disciplines and employs thousands of people worldwide, the computer and video game industry has grown from focused markets to mainstream. They took in about US$9.5 billion in the US in 2007,11.7 billion in 2008, sound cards were developed for addition of digital-quality sound to games and only later improved for music and audiophiles. Early on, graphics cards were developed for more colors, later, graphic cards were developed for graphical user interfaces and games, GUIs drove the need for high resolution, and games began using 3D acceleration. They also are one of the pieces of hardware to allow multiple hookups. Product and talent layer, includes developers, designers and artists, production and tools layer, generates content production tools, game development middleware, customizable game engines, and production management tools. Distribution layer, or the industry, involved in generating and marketing catalogs of games for retail. Hardware layer, or the providers of the platform, which may be console-based, accessed through online media. This layer now includes network infrastructure and non-hardware platforms such as machines, or software platforms such as browsers or even further Facebook. End-users layer, or the users/players of the games, the game industry employs those experienced in other traditional businesses, but some have experience tailored to the game industry. Some of the specific to the game industry include, game programmer, game designer, level designer, game producer, game artist. Most of these professionals are employed by video game developers or video game publishers, however, many hobbyists also produce computer games and sell them commercially. Recently, game developers have begun to employ those with extensive or long-term experience within the modding communities, prior to the 1970s, there was no significant commercial aspect of the video game industry, but many advances in computing would set the stage for the birth of the industry. In 1947 Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann filed a patent for a cathode ray tube amusement device and their game, which uses a cathode ray tube hooked to an oscilloscope display, challenges players to fire a gun at target. One of the first known examples is Spacewar, developed by Harvard and MIT employees Martin Graetz, Steve Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen. The introduction of easy-to-program languages like BASIC for mainframes allowed for more games to be developed. In 1971 the arcade game, Computer Space was released, the following year, Atari, Inc. released the first commercially successful video game, Pong, the original arcade version of which sold over 19,000 arcade cabinets. That same year saw the introduction of video games to the market with the release of the early video game console
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Anime
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Anime is Japanese hand-drawn or computer animation. The word is the pronunciation of animation in Japanese, where this term references all animation. Arguably, the abstract approach to the words meaning may open up the possibility of anime produced in countries other than Japan. For simplicity, many Westerners strictly view anime as a Japanese animation product, some scholars suggest defining anime as specifically or quintessentially Japanese may be related to a new form of orientalism. The earliest commercial Japanese animation dates to 1917, and Japanese anime production has continued to increase steadily. Anime is distributed theatrically, by way of television broadcasts, directly to home media and it is classified into numerous genres targeting diverse broad and niche audiences. Anime is an art form with distinctive production methods and techniques that have been adapted over time in response to emergent technologies. It consists of an ideal story-telling mechanism, combining art, characterization, cinematography. The production of anime focuses less on the animation of movement and more on the realism of settings as well as the use of effects, including panning, zooming. Being hand-drawn, anime is separated from reality by a gap of fiction that provides an ideal path for escapism that audiences can immerse themselves into with relative ease. Diverse art styles are used and character proportions and features can be quite varied, the anime industry consists of over 430 production studios, including major names like Studio Ghibli, Gainax, and Toei Animation. Despite comprising only a fraction of Japans domestic film market, anime makes up a majority of Japanese DVD sales and it has also seen international success after the rise of English-dubbed programming. This rise in popularity has resulted in non-Japanese productions using the anime art style. Anime is an art form, specifically animation, that all genres found in cinema. In Japanese, the term refers to all forms of animation from around the world. In English, anime is more used to denote a Japanese-style animated film or television entertainment or as a style of animation created in Japan. The etymology of the anime is disputed. The English term animation is written in Japanese katakana as アニメーション and is アニメ in its shortened form, in English, anime—when used as a common noun—normally functions as a mass noun
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Film industry
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The film industry or motion picture industry comprises the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking, i. e. Though the expense involved in making movies almost immediately led film production to concentrate under the auspices of standing production companies, advances in affordable film making equipment, and expansion of opportunities to acquire investment capital from outside the film industry itself, have allowed independent film production to evolve. Hollywood is the oldest film industry of the world and the largest in terms of box office gross, other centers include Hong Kong and in Europe the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany are the countries that lead movie production. The worldwide theatrical market had a box office of US$38.3 billion in 2015. The top three continents/regions by box office gross were, Asia-Pacific with US$14.1 billion, North America with US$11.1 billion and Europe, distinct from the centers are the locations where movies are filmed. Because of labor and infrastructure costs, many films are produced in other than the one in which the company which pays for the film is located. For example, many U. S. movies are filmed in Canada, many Nigerian movies are filmed in Ghana, while many Indian movies are filmed in the Americas, Europe, Singapore etc. The cinema of the United States, often referred to as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. The United States cinema is the oldest film industry in the world which originated more than 121 years ago and also the largest film industry in terms of revenue. Hollywood is the nexus of the U. S. film industry with established film study facilities such as the American Film Institute, LA Film School. However, four of the six film studios are owned by East Coast companies. Today, American film studios collectively generate several hundred movies every year, only The Walt Disney Company — which owns the Walt Disney Studios — is fully based in Southern California. And while Sony Pictures Entertainment is headquartered in Culver City, California, its parent company, most shooting now takes place in California, New York, Louisiana, Georgia and North Carolina. Hollywood is the most popular film industry with the highest number of screens, between 2009-2015, Hollywood consistently grossed $10 billion annually. Jenkins used his Phantoscope to project his film before an audience of family, friends, the film featured a vaudeville dancer performing a Butterfly Dance. Jenkins and his new partner Thomas Armat modified the Phantoscope for exhibitions in temporary theaters at the Cotton States Exposition in the fall of 1895, the Phantoscope was later sold to Thomas Edison, who changed the name of the projector to Edisons Vitascope. Nestor Studios was Hollywoods first movie studio, founded on October 27,1911 It was built by David Horsley for Nestor Motion Picture Company and it was then owned and operated by David Horsley and his brother, William Horsley. The first motion picture stage in Hollywood was built behind the tavern, other East Coast studios had moved production to Los Angeles, prior to Nestors move west
8.
Namco
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Namco Limited is a Japanese corporation best known as a video game developer and publisher. Following a merger with Bandai in September 2005, the two companies game production assets were spun off into Bandai Namco Games on March 31,2006, Namco was re-established to continue domestic operation of video arcades and amusement parks. Its headquarters are located in Ōta, Tokyo, the companys English name is often officially written as NAMCO. Namco was a front-runner during the age of arcade video games. Pac-Man went on to become the best-selling arcade game in history, Namco was also known for creating successful franchises such as Galaxian, Ridge Racer, Ace Combat, Tekken, as well as the Soul and Tales series. Masaya Nakamura founded the company as Nakamura Manufacturing in 1955, based in Tokyo, the company started out by running childrens rides on the roof of a department store in Yokohama. The business eventually expanded throughout the Tokyo area, Nakamura Manufacturing was reorganized in 1958 and later underwent a name change to Nakamura Manufacturing Company, which would be used to form the acronym NAMCO. In 1970, the company produced a coin-operated mechanical driving simulator called Racer, Atari Japan, the Tokyo-based subsidiary of Atari, was struggling financially by 1974. General manager Hide Nakajima was left in charge of the company after his boss had quit, Nakajima claims that employees had been stealing money and that he had contributed funds from his personal savings in order to pay creditors and stave off bankruptcy. Sega, then a manufacturer of machines, offered to acquire Atari Japan for $50,000. Nakamura put in a bid for $800,000 and shocked others out of competition, the deal was finalized at $500,000 and Bushnell was glad to take it. Debts inherited from Atari Japan would take Nakamura two years to pay off, but the deal had also secured for him a license to distribute Ataris games in Japan for ten years. Nakamura would follow up by opening video arcades featuring Atari games, everyone thought was mad when he paid so much for Atari, but it turned out to be a very wise investment. Nakajima was promoted to president in 1978, and on his recommendation Namco opened a subsidiary, Namco America. The location he chose was across the street from Ataris former headquarters in Sunnyvale, at the time, games were not released in the U. S. under the Namco label. Namco America existed mainly to license Namcos games to companies such as Atari, Galaxian revolutionized the industry as the first video game to use RGB color graphics. It was Pac-Man, however, that would become definitive of Namcos legacy, galaga, a follow-up to Galaxian, was one of the most successful sequels of the era. Dig Dug, Xevious, and Pole Position continued Namcos success in establishing iconic franchises during the Golden Age, during this period, Namco published video games for home consoles and personal computer under the Namcot brand name
9.
Bandai
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Bandai Co. Ltd. is a Japanese toy maker and former video game company, as well as the producer of a large number of plastic model kits. It was the worlds fourth-largest producer of toys, some ex-Bandai group companies produce anime and tokusatsu programs. Its headquarters is located in Taitō, Tokyo, after its merger with game developer and amusement facility operator Namco, Bandai Company is now under the management of Bandai Namco Holdings and a member of Bandai Namco Group. After group reorganisation in 2006, Bandai heads the groups Toys, in the 1960s Bandai expanded to include export sales. Bandais racing car set, which first appeared in 1962, became a huge success, the 1970s continued to see Bandai expand, with Bandai Models being established in 1971. Although not their most profitable range, Bandais 1/48 scale AFV models dominated that segment of the kit market. Bandai America Inc. was established as local US sales/marketing operation in 1978, spacewarp, a line of build-it-yourself toy rolling ball roller coasters was introduced by Bandai in the 1980s. Before the formation of Bandai Namco Holdings, Bandai had many subsidiaries, after group reorganization in 2006, they are managed under several strategic business units of the group. Further detail, In 1971, Bandai founded its subsidiary company Popy which helped to launch such as Chogokin. It was merged into its parent company in 1983, Bandai USA is the American distribution arm of Bandai that makes toy products for the U. S. market and manufactures Power Rangers, Big Hero 6, Digimon, and Ben 10 toys. Other past products include Alienators, Evolution Continues Astro Boy Beetleborgs Ben 10 Big Hero 6 Cardcaptor Sakura Cyclonians Dick Tracy D. I. C. E, jelly Jamm Bandai Visual Co. Ltd. produces and distributes many popular anime and tokusatsu titles. These titles include Cowboy Bebop, Big O, Outlaw Star, escaflowne, and the popular Gundam, Kamen Rider, Ultraman, and Super Sentai series. Their subsidiaries include the Emotion Music Company Limited, in which the logo is the Moai and they now head the Visual and Music Contents SBU. Their North American division, Bandai Visual USA was absorbed into Bandai Entertainment on July 1,2008 and their headquarters in the United States were located in Cypress, California. They had a European subsidiary named Beez Entertainment who handled European licensing & distribution rights to their library, the first part of Beez Entertainments name stood for Bandai Entertainment European Zone, as Bandai Entertainment had operations in Europe. Beez Entertainment was based in France, in addition, Bandai Visual also took over Beez Entertainment as their entry into the European market, and Beez Entertainment also continued to be part of Bandai as well. However, Bandai Entertainment is no longer acquiring licenses to new anime, also, Beez Entertainment is no longer releasing new anime in Europe. Carddass is the Bandai subsidiary responsible for releasing trading card based on popular Bandai franchises
