Tatsunoko Production

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. (October 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Tatsunoko Production" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message) You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Japanese. (July 2024) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Japanese article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 1,408 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Japanese Wikipedia article at [[:ja:タツノコプロ]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|ja|タツノコプロ}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation. (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Tatsunoko Production Co., Ltd.

Logo used since 2014
Headquarters in Musashino, Tokyo
Native name	株式会社タツノコプロ (formerly spelled as 竜の子プロダクション)
Romanized name	Kabushiki-gaisha Tatsunoko Puro
Company type	Kabushiki gaisha
Founded	October 19, 1962; 62 years ago (1962-10-19)[1]
Founder	Tatsuo Yoshida Kenji Yoshida Ippei Kuri
Headquarters	Musashino, Tokyo, Japan[1]
Key people	Kyou Itou (President and CEO)
Products	Anime
Owner	Nippon Television (55.2%) Takara Tomy (20.0%) Horipro (13.5%) Production I.G (11.2%)
Number of employees	101[2] (2024)
Divisions	I.G Tatsunoko (1987–1993)
Website	tatsunoko.co.jp

Tatsunoko Production Co., Ltd. (株式会社タツノコプロ, Kabushiki gaisha Tatsunoko Puro)^[a] and often shortened to Tatsunoko Pro (タツノコプロ, Tatsunoko Puro), is a Japanese animation company. The studio's name has a double meaning in Japanese: "Tatsu's child" (Tatsu is a nickname for Tatsuo) and "sea dragon", the inspiration for its seahorse logo.^[3][4]

Tatsunoko Production was established in 1962 and is engaged in the planning and production of anime films and television series, as well as character licensing.^[5] The company produced many hit anime series from the 1960s through the 1980s, and holds numerous original rights and character copyrights for its original works in Japan and abroad.^[5] The company is one of Japan's leading anime studios in terms of the breadth and richness of its content, ranging from hard action heroes to comedies, science fiction, anthropomorphic animals, and domestic dramas.^[6][7][8] Since the first work, Space Ace, they have produced many works such as Speed Racer, Hakushon Daimaō, Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, and the Time Bokan series, supporting the dawn of Japanese animation.^[7][9] Although the company later began producing works set in Japan, it has basically aimed from its inception to produce works that can be used anywhere in the world in a stateless manner.^[7]

In the genealogy of animation studios in the history of Japanese animation, Tatsunoko is known as the studio that created many derivative studios along with Toei Doga (currently Toei Animation), Mushi Production, and Tokyo Movie (currently TMS Entertainment).^[10][11][12]

In the past, Tatsunoko had a production system in which almost all processes, from planning to scriptwriting, drawing, cinematography, and editing, were completed in-house. The company continued to use this system for a long time after Toei Doga and Mushi Production, which had a similar production system, became unsustainable due to streamlining and bankruptcy.^[6][13][b]

Initially, Founder Tatsuo Yoshida tried to establish his studio's own style with realistic drawings that accurately depicted muscles and skeletons.^[9][14] At that time, it was common knowledge that animation was to be abbreviated or deformed, and that pictures were to be simplified as much as possible to show movement.^[14][15] Even Mushi Production and Disney used to draw the car so that when it starts, it first contracts like rubber and then jumps out like a bullet due to the recoil, and when it stops, it contracts once due to braking and then extends and returns to its original state.^[14][15] However, Tatsuo Yoshida insisted on realistic animation and produced Mach GoGoGo.^[6][16] For the scene where the car spins, he rented a driving school and had the driver actually demonstrate the spin with the car, and had the animators draw the scene without deforming it by referring to the demonstration.^[14][15][17] It was so well received that it became the studio's origin and led to subsequent realistic, hard-action works.^[7] However, Yoshida's drawings, with their many lines, precision, and sharpness, were unsuitable for animation, which required many drawings of the same picture, and were difficult for other animators to imitate.^[7][17] Most animators refused to participate in the production, and the company's schedule was on the verge of collapse. However, the company was able to get through the busy season when a comedy with a simple design happened to enter the production rotation.^[14] This allowed the company to learn how to run a studio that alternated between serious action animation with detailed drawings and comedy animation with simple drawings using deformation, resulting in a wide range of styles.^[9]

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).