News Briefs

Sega, Bandai to merge in October

Game manufacturer Sega Enterprises, Ltd. and entertainment conglomerate Bandai Co. announced merger plans in a 3:40 p.m. Tokyo press conference on January 23rd. Sega is among the top three game console manufacturers and Bandai is the largest toy producer in Japan.

The two companies that will merge as Sega Bandai on October 1st would have the combined annual sales approaching 600 billion yen (the equivalent of 5 billion dollars at time of this writing). The merger will be accomplished through a stock swap of 0.76 share of Sega stock for each Bandai stock share. President Yamashima Makoto of Bandai (capital assets: 22 billion yen or 183 million dollars) will assume the helm of this new entity while President Nakayama Hayao of Sega (capital assets: 39 billion yen or 329 million dollars) will serve as vice-chairman. Okawa Isao, the chairman of both Sega and CSK Corp. (the twenty-percent stock-holder in Sega), has been appointed as chairman of Sega Bandai. Sega Bandai will organize itself into three main divisions: an amusement division centering around Sega's game business, an entertainment division composed mainly of Bandai's character goods, and an multimedia division that will combine efforts working on both game and Internet development.

Sega is primarily known for its arcade machines and the Genesis, Game Gear, and Saturn game consoles for which it has released several anime-based titles. Among the animated series whose production Sega Enterprises, Ltd. has supported or sponsored are Akai Koudan Zillion, Sonic Soldier Borgman, Magic Knight Rayearth, Virtua Fighter, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Mysterious Thief Saint Tail. Sega has also manufactures character goods from girls' clothing and dolls to action figures and UFO Catcher (crane game) machine toys.

Bandai has supported numerous animated projects including Mobile Suit Gundam, Memories, and Ghost in the Shell through its Bandai Visual entertainment arm and Sunrise, the animation studio it purchased . Bandai is also the primary toy manufacturer for many Toei Animation series including Dragon Ball, Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon, and Marmalade Boy. In the game and computer industry, Bandai has been the marketing force behind the Arcadia, the Playdia and the Pippin Atmark consoles as well as software titles that include the upcoming Macross Digital Mission VF-X and Saber Marionette 'J' Battle Sabers.

Sailor Moon manga, TV anime to end in February

Pretty Solider Sailor Moon in its numerous incarnations is scheduled to end next month in Japan in both manga and anime format. Kodansha will print the final Nakayosi manga installment of Pretty Soldier Sailormoon in the March issue to be released February 2. Toei Animation will also finish its fifth and final Sailor Moon animated television series, Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon: Sailor Stars, on February 8 after an overall total of 200 episodes with four theatrical stories and several live-action musicals.

First DVD anime titles released

The first Japanese animated series to be converted to DVD have been released. DVD, or the Digital Versatile Disc standard, is a new video/audio/data format based on the compact disc that some manufacturers hope will supplant both CDs and video tapes. Tokuma Shoten has released a six-volume set of Bt'X (covering the entire run of this 1996 25-episode series from Saint Seiya's Kuramada Masami) for Y4,800 for each volume, or Y1000 less than the VHS release price. Toshiba EMI also released Ninja-sha, the 1996 two-volume original animation video series from AIC, for Y8,544. (continued on next page)