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Curated category

Mass media companies based in Tokyo

  • Nippon TelevisionNippon Television went on the air on the 28th of August 1953, and the very first TV commercial it broadcast aired upside-down by mistake.
  • Mainichi ShimbunMainichi Shimbun has been printing daily newspapers in Japan since 1872, making it one of the oldest surviving daily papers in the country.
  • The Asahi ShimbunThe Asahi Shimbun first appeared on the 25th of January 1879, sold for one sen a copy, and fit everything it had to say on four pages.
  • TV AsahiTV Asahi broadcasts from a sleek building in Roppongi, Tokyo, designed by architect Fumihiko Maki, a structure that would have seemed impossible to the…
  • King Records (Japan)King Records, the Japanese label founded in January 1931 as a division of the publisher Kodansha, takes its name from a magazine that no longer exists.
  • ShogakukanShogakukan operates as a Japanese state-owned enterprise under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
  • TV TokyoTV Tokyo broadcasts today from the Sumitomo Fudosan Roppongi Grand Tower in Roppongi, Tokyo, as the flagship of the TX Network.
  • Kadokawa ShotenKadokawa Shoten no longer exists as its own company. On the 1st of October 2013, it became an internal division of Kadokawa Corporation.
  • Square EnixSquare Enix was born from the union of two companies that had long watched each other across Japan's video game landscape.
  • CoamixCoamix is a Japanese manga and anime production company whose founding story reads like a creative reunion. On the 4th of June 2000, a small but notable…
  • TMS EntertainmentTMS Entertainment traces its roots to 1946, when a textile manufacturer was founded in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, with no connection to cartoons whatsoever.
  • NHKNHK, Japan's statutory public broadcaster, carries a history stretching back to a radio station founded in 1924 under Count Gotō Shinpei.
  • Pony CanyonPony Canyon's catalogue includes a 1996 Indian erotic film called Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love, credited among the company's co-productions.
  • NTT PublishingNTT Publishing stands at an unlikely crossroads: a subsidiary of one of Japan's largest telecommunications companies that became the home for some of the…
  • NBCUniversal Entertainment JapanNBCUniversal Entertainment Japan sits at an unusual crossroads: it is a Japanese anime powerhouse owned by an American telecommunications giant…
  • SoftBank GroupSoftBank Group began not as a tech empire but as a software distributor founded in September 1981 by then-24-year-old Masayoshi Son.
  • Production I.GProduction I.G is a Japanese animation studio that rewrote its industry's business rules from the inside. In 1996, its film Ghost in the Shell reached number…
  • VAP, Inc.VAP, Inc. stands for Video and Audio Project, a name that quietly tells you everything about what this Japanese entertainment company set out to do.
  • WowowWowow is a satellite broadcasting and premium television station based in Tokyo, and it holds a distinction most Japanese viewers take for granted today: it…