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Bandai Namco Filmworks Makes Anime Studio 8-Bit Into Wholly Owned Subsidiary
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Bandai Namco Filmworks announced on Friday that it will make anime studio 8-Bit into a wholly owned subsidiary as of April 1. The management structure at 8-Bit will remain unchanged.
8-Bit was founded in September 2008 and has its main studio in Tokyo. The studio has produced such anime as: Infinite Stratos, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime (second season), Encouragement of Climb, The Fruit of Grisaia, Rewrite, Stars Align, Aquarion Evol, Tokyo Ravens, Absolute Duo, The Irregular at Magic High School: Visitor Arc, Blue Lock, Synduality: Noir, and The magic at irregular high school: Reminiscence Arc, among others.
8-Bit and Bandai Namco Arts entered into a business partnership to focus on producing animation-based video works and related content in June 2020. The partnership produced the The Slime Diaries: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime television anime spinoff as their first project. Bandai Namco Arts' plan at the time with the partnership was to take advantage of 8-Bit's animation production pipeline to produce "high quality hit content," while 8-Bit's plan was to take advantage of Bandai Namco Arts' continuous production planning capability and networking ability.
8-Bit established a new studio in Niigata prefecture in November 2021 as its first regional office.
Sources: 8-Bit, Comic Natalie
Disclosure: Bandai Namco Filmworks Inc. (Sunrise) is a non-controlling, minority shareholder in Anime News Network Inc.