For those who found this interesting, Netflix has a really good show on the history of popular toys called the Toys That Made Us. It's well made and taught me a lot of things about the toys I grew up with.
> Also a powerhouse in IP licensed video games iirc, esp licensing Sunrise anime.
FYI, Bandai has actually owned Sunrise since 1993. Gundam had become so integral to Bandai's business that they bought the studio that made it (over the objections of Gundam's creator, though). Their video games are first-party, not licensed.
Interestingly, Bandai was a significant distributor of anime in the US for a long time, so that meant US releases of Sunrise anime were some of the only anime that was sold in the US first-party and not under license. A few years ago though, they shut down US operations and Sunrise anime is now distributed in the US under license by Nozomi Entertainment.
Im sorry, I’m not very knowledgeable about the plastic model industry, so I can’t answer that question. Unfortunately, I can’t really make a statement on the plastic scale modeling kits, probably because I’d be eradicated from the industry if I made his true feelings known. - Yoshiyuki Tomino
This is very interesting. I'm familiar with Bandai's toys, having been a tokusatsu fan since I was a kid [0], but I knew nothing about their board games.
[0] And seeing Gorenger mentioned in an article posted on HN put a smile on my face. In the west, toku tends to not get mentioned much outside of toku circles.
They own Sunrise, which has produced a ton of the most famous anime series (they own the license to Gundam, for instance). Bandai USA was responsible for a ton of the shows I grew up watching on TV, from Power Rangers to Dragon Ball.
