Bandai

The Bandai Group aspires to grow and develop as a company, fulfilling dreams and providing happiness to people around the world while making a positive contribution to society. The main tenets of our management philosophy are as follows. 1. Shareholder satisfaction: As well as honoring the trust of our shareholders by passing on profits and disclosing relevant information in a fair and appropriate manner, Bandai strives to continuously improve the company's business performance, aiming to maximize the value of its shares. 2. Customer satisfaction: Bandai is committed to developing and supplying products and services that meet the needs of the times, to enhancing the quality of people's lives, and to making an ongoing contribution to the world's cultural richness. 3. Job satisfaction for employees: Bandai believes that human resources are the key to corporate growth and development, and we respect the professional aspirations and ambitions of our employees. Careful to ensure that the right employee is in the right job, we carry out impartial and rigorous staff assessments, we and do all we can to help employees augment their skills and to maintain staff morale at a high level. 4. Good corporate citizenship: Bandai is fully aware of our role and duties as a corporate member of society and is fully committed to our policy of environmental responsibility. 5. Flexible and pragmatic management: In line with our global perspective, Bandai keeps closely in touch with changing trends and adapts management infrastructure in accordance with the needs of the times. The company creates its first toys based on characters from a television program. Changeable Gobots toys are launched in United States but are outsold by Transformers. Power Rangers toys become a huge success in United States and other markets. Pippin and a proposed merger with Sega are abandoned; Makoto Yamashina steps down. Digital content unit is spun off to create Bandai Networks Co., Inc. Bandai announces its plan to create a holding company structure by 2005. Bandai Co., Ltd. is the third-largest toy manufacturer in the world. The company is best known for products derived from popular television and comic book characters such as Power Rangers, Gundam, and Ultraman. These range from action figures and their accessories to video game software, clothing, and candy. The firm has also had success with faddish toys like the "digital pets" Tamagotchi and Digimon and other ventures that include selling toys in vending machines and providing digital content online and through cellphones. Other Bandai units make animated television programs and movies, design and manufacture amusement machines and amusement centers, make stationery, and sell, lease, and manage real estate properties. Based in Japan, where it is the number one toymaker, Bandai distributes its products worldwide. Bandai's roots date to post-World War II Japan, where Naoharu Yamashina, a war veteran who had lost an eye in combat, was struggling to make a living. The son of a rice retailer, Yamashina had studied business in high school, and after the war he began working for a textile wholesaler in Kanazawa run by his wife's brother. Business was slow, and when a neighbor told him of the potential for success in toy sales, Yamashina convinced his employer to send him to Tokyo to try this new field. Putting in long hours there with his wife, he gradually built up a small toy distribution business. In 1950, Yamashina took control of the toy distributorship and renamed it Bandai, which was derived from the Chinese phrase for "things that are eternal." At this time the firm was mainly selling celluloid and metallic toys, along with rubber swimming rings. In early 1955, Bandai established a manufacturing facility, the Waraku Works, and during the summer began construction of a new Tokyo headquarters and introduced a new "BC" logo. The fall of 1955 saw the firm offer its first product guarantee for the Toyopet Cro