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Reorganization of Bandai Visual Announced

The Japanese company Namco Bandai Holdings has announced a large-scale reorganization of its subsidiaries — including the Bandai Visual subsidiary that handles much of its anime business — on Thursday. Within Bandai Visual, the three production departments of the content division, as well as the advertising and sales promotion department of its business strategy division, are being redivided into six new departments. The new departments will focus on different areas of Bandai Visual's intellectual properties.

The six new departments are: the Gundam department, the high-end department, the character department, the anime department, the film department, and the music department. As the name implies, the Gundam department will be solely devoted to the robot anime franchise that generates much of the revenue for Bandai Visual in particular and Namco Bandai Holdings in general. This is the first time that Bandai Visual has established a department just for Gundam. The separate high-end department will be responsible for the projects aimed at the most dedicated fans in Bandai Visual's customer base.

Satoshi Kōno will be in charge of the reorganized content division. Minoru Takanashi will continue to head up the content division's development unit. Satoshi Kubo will be the chief producer of the Gundam department, while Kōichi Ueyama will be the chief producer of the high-end department. Chief producers Kenji Hamada, Atsushi Yukawa, Katsuji Umezawa, and Hiroyuki Takano will head up the character, anime, film, and music departments, respectively.

The rest of Bandai Visual's business strategy division has been redivided into two new divisions for packaged releases and network global business (new media, electronic commerce, network distribution, and other related areas). Kunitoshi Yoneta will run the packaged release division, while Yoshihiro Ueno will run the network global division.

On Thursday, Namco Bandai Holdings reported 315.647 billion yen (about US$3.5 billion) in net sales in the third quarter which ended on December 31. It also reported 9.019 billion yen (US$100.3 million) in net income, a 26.0% drop from the same period last year. Gundam continues to contribute the most net sales of any of Namco Bandai's franchises — almost as much as the next three biggest franchises (Toei's Rangers franchise, Dragon Ball, and Ben 10) combined.

Source: animeanime.jp