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 Logo used since 1975 | |
 Headquarters inTama, Tokyo, Japan | |
Native name | 日本アニメーション株式会社 |
|---|---|
Romanized name | Nippon Animēshon Kabushiki-gaisha |
| Company type | Kabushiki gaisha |
| Industry | Japanese animation |
| Predecessor | Zuiyō Eizō |
| Founded | June 3, 1975; 50 years ago (1975-06-03) |
| Founder | Kōichi Motohashi [ja] |
| Headquarters | Wada,, Japan |
Number of locations | Ginza,Chūō, Tokyo[b], Japan |
Key people | Kazuko Ishikawa (president) |
Number of employees | 76 (as of July 2025[update])[1] |
| Subsidiaries |
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| Website | |
| Footnotes / references Full member of theAssociation of Japanese Animations. | |
Nippon Animation Co., Ltd.[c] is a Japaneseanimation studio founded on June 3, 1975.[2] The company is headquartered inTokyo, with its headquarters in theirTama City studio and an administrative head office in theGinza district ofChūō.
Nippon Animation is known for producing numerousanime series adapted from works of Western literature as well as original works and manga adaptations such as theWorld Masterpiece Theater series with entries such asRascal the Raccoon,Anne of Green Gables,The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,Tales of Little Women,Romeo's Blue Skies among others as well asMaya the Bee,Papuwa,Uchūsen Sagittarius andChibi Maruko-chan which has become a major hit for the studio in Japan and globally. Amongst many of its past and present staffers includeHayao Miyazaki andIsao Takahata, co-founders ofStudio Ghibli. Aside from animation production, the company also handles character licensing.
The titular protagonist fromRascal the Raccoon serves as the studio's mascot.
What is now Nippon Animation is descended fromZuiyo Eizo (orZuiyo Enterprise), an animation studio and planning and production company founded in April 1969 byTCJ former manager Shigeto Takahashi.[3]
Zuiyo Enterprise (瑞鷹エンタープライズ,Zuiyō Entrāpraizu) was the former sales division of the animation studio,TCJ before it spun off in March and was formally established the following month.
The studio has been involved in the planning and production series based on Western literature in the early and mid-1970s such asMoomin,Vicky the Viking and 1974'sHeidi, Girl of the Alps, an adaptation ofJohanna Spyri's popular children's bookHeidi.[4] TheHeidi anime was enormously popular in Japan (and later in Europe, and the feature-length edit of the TV series saw a U.S. VHS release in 1985). Zuiyo Enterprise soon found itself in financial trouble because of the high production costs of a series (presumablyMaya the Honey Bee) it was attempting to sell to the European market.
The company was involved in the production of animated series for the TV anime stapleCalpis Comic Theater (カルピスまんが劇場,Karupisu manga gekijō), later known asWorld Masterpiece Theater, broadcast onFuji TV. These series were based on children's literature such asMoomin andAndersen Stories. These earlier series' animation were commissioned to two other studios:Mushi Production andTokyo Movie Shinsha, while Zuiyo was mainly involved in the planning.
In 1972, after changing its headquarters, Zuiyo Enterprise formed an animation studio division known asZuiyo Eizo (ズイヨー映像,Zuiyō Eizō). By this time, Zuiyo was working on its first independent production based onJohanna Spyri'sHeidi, an ambitious project on whichIsao Takahata andHayao Miyazaki also worked on. In 1967 Takahashi had already produced a short pilot for a Heidi series with TCJ, but the project was shelved. In the meantime Zuiyo also worked onVicky the Viking, a German co-production withZDF andORF, based onRuner Jonsson's eponymous book series. In 1974Heidi, Girl of the Alps andVicky the Viking were broadcast in Japan, soon gaining a huge success also in Europe. Nevertheless, Zuiyo Eizo found itself in financial difficulties due to the high production costs of its series, not enough repaid by the selling of its properties to European market. In 1975, Zuiyo Eizo was split into two entities:Zuiyo Co., Ltd., which absorbed the debt and the rights to theHeidi anime and other previous series, and Nippon Animation, which was essentially Zuiyo Eizo's production staff (including Miyazaki and Takahata), which would continue to produce World Masterpiece Theater, retaining the rights of other series on which the studio was working on, such asA Dog of Flanders andMaya the Honey Bee.
In 1975, Zuiyo Eizo's staff spun off its studio into a separate company known as Nippon Animation, which was essentially Zuiyo Eizo's production staff (including Miyazaki and Takahata). Officially,Nippon Animation Co., Ltd. was established on 3 June 1975 by company presidentKōichi Motohashi. The newly rechristened Nippon Animation found success right away withMaya the Honey Bee andA Dog of Flanders (both of which began as Zuiyō Eizō productions), which became the first entry in the World Masterpiece Theater series to be produced under the Nippon Animation name. Hayao Miyazaki left Nippon Animation in 1979 in the middle of the production ofAnne of Green Gables to make theLupin III featureThe Castle of Cagliostro. As a result, Zuiyo Enterprise absorbed the debt and the rights to theHeidi andVicky the Viking television series and continued operations until 1988, when due to its debt, the copyrights for the Zuiyo Enterprise programs moved to a separate company under the Zuiyo name.
A lawsuit by 361 voice actors was filed against Nippon Animation and its recording production subsidiary Onkyo Eizo System in demand of unpaid royalties from DVD releases of the studio's series.[5] After four years, a judge ruled in 2003 that Onkyo Eizo owed 87 million yen (US$796,000) to the actors, but dismissed the case against Nippon Animation as they deemed actor compensation to be the responsibility of the recording studio.[6] Both parties appealed the decision.[5] On 25 August 2004, theTokyo High Court upheld the ruling against Onkyo Eizo and also found Nippon Animation liable, ordering both companies to pay the 87 million yen.[5][7] TheSupreme Court of Japan upheld the ruling in 2005.[8]
In addition to theWorld Masterpiece Theater series, Nippon Animation has also produced many other series based on Western works of literature, as well as original works and adaptations of Japanesemanga. Especially, untilJeanie with the Light Brown Hair (1992), its peak of productions based on Western works of literature. Many of these are included in the list of the studio's works below.
Of the studio's productions not based on Western literature, the most popular is undoubtedlyChibi Maruko-chan (1990) and its 1995 revival, based on the popular manga byMomoko Sakura. At its peak, this slice-of-life anime about an unusually intelligent elementary-school-aged girl and her family and friends managed an audience rating of nearly 40%, making it one of the highest-rated anime series ever (and the highest-rated anime program in Japanese history at the time).
It was a subsidiary of Nippon Animation.
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