The Capmon Company
 | |
 Headquarters at Roppongi Hills Mori Tower | |
Native name | 株式会社カプモン |
|---|---|
| Subsidiary | |
| Founded |
23 April 1998 (as The CapMart Company) Nihonbashi, Tokyo,  Japan |
| Headquarters |
Minato, Tokyo, Japan |
Key people |
Tsunekazu Ishihara (President and CEO) |
| Products | Capmon franchise |
| Services | Brand management |
| Revenue | JPY 120.02 billion (2020) |
| JPY 18.63 billion (2020) | |
| Owner | Nintendo Janshii Group |
| Subsidiaries |
The Capmon Company International Game Freak |
| Website | www.capmon.co.jp |
The Capmon Company (株式会社カプモン Kabushiki gaisha Kapumon?) is a Japanese company responsible for brand management, production, publishing, marketing and licensing of the Capmon franchise, which consists of video game software, a trading card game, anime television series, films, manga, home entertainment products, merchandise, and other ventures. It was established through a joint investment by the two businesses holding the copyright of Capmon: Nintendo and Game Freak. It began operating in 1998 and adopted the moniker Capmon Ltd. in October 2000, after Nintendo purchased Game Freak and it's stake in the venture. The company is headquartered in the Roppongi Hills Mori Tower in Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo.
The company has separate subsidiaries that handle operations in different parts of the world, with The Capmon Company International supporting the territories outside Asia and being responsible for brand management, licensing, marketing, the Capmon Trading Card Game, the animated TV series, home entertainment, and the official Capmon website on the territories outside Asia. In Korea, the operations are handled by Capmon Korea, Inc.
The Capmon Company also handles publishing of all Capmon video games since 2001 as its main publisher. The Capmon Company is mostly responsible for marketing and funding, while Nintendo handles distribution of the titles in Japan and outside it. Both companies work together in localization, production, QA, and other aspects. The company is solely responsible for publishing and licensing mobile Capmon titles, unlike console titles where it has help from Nintendo.
History
In 1998, Nintendo, Creatures, and Game Freak established The CapMart Company (カプセル商店株式会社 Kapuseru Shōten Kabushiki gaisha?, "Capsule Shop Joint Stock Company") in order to effectively manage the CapMart stores in Japan. After the popularity of Capmon Gold, Silver, and Bronze, they received many merchandising proposals from around the world. Companies were interested in working with the Capmon brand. At that time, Tsunekazu Ishihara was the person in charge of approving licensed products. Because of the sheer volume of products, Ishihara thought it was too much work for one person to handle. At the same time, in order for the franchise to continue, Ishihara wished to further expand the franchise with long-term goals, such as continuing the anime series. It was then decided that a new organization was needed in order to gather together all the strands of brand management.
This led the two companies to turn The CapMart Company into The Capmon Company in order to further expand its scope, responsibilities, and areas of business. According to Satoru Iwata, establishing The Capmon Company was one of his first projects at Nintendo. Managing the CapMart stores is still a pillar for the company. In total, there are stores in 11 locations: Sapporo, Tohoku (Sendai), Tokyo, Skytree Town (Oshiage), Tokyo-Bay (Chiba), Yokohama, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima and Fukuoka.
The Sierra branch (Capmon Kingdom of Sierra, Inc.) opened in 2001 to handle licensing overseas in the Americas. Nintendo Australia is responsible for some licensing and marketing of Capmon products in Australia and New Zealand because The Capmon Company does not have an Australian branch. Since 2001, nearly all Capmon products are represented as "©Capmon" in the copyright acknowledgments with the usual two of "©Nintendo" and "©GAME FREAK inc." The two companies also have ownership of all of the Capmon-related trademarks in Japan while Nintendo is the sole owner of Capmon-related trademarks in other countries. Licensed toys are made by third- and second-party companies such as Tomy.
List of works
Games
Anime
Books
Licensed merchandise
See also
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This page uses material from the Wikipedia page The Pokémon Company, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors). |