Bushiroad Increases Its Stake in Studio SANZIGEN

Bushiroad announced last Friday that it has bought additional shares in SANZIGEN Animation Studio through a third party allocation. With the new purchase, Bushiroad now holds 14.4 percent of the studio. The companies did not share the value of the deal.

Ownership of SANZIGEN is divided among studio president Hiroaki Matsuura, the Ultra Super Pictures holding company, and Bushiroad, though the exact split after this latest move was not revealed.

Founded in March 2006, SANZIGEN has long worked alongside Bushiroad on anime drawn from its properties. The most notable is BanG Dream!, which the studio has handled since the second season, including the recent It’s MyGo and Ave Mujica entries.

The studio’s wider resume is impressive too. Its credits include the Initial D: Legend trilogy, Monster Strike the Animation, and Guilty Gear Strive: Dual Rulers, and it is currently producing the upcoming Rooster Fighter anime and Shōji Kawamori’s original film Labyrinth, alongside extensive 3D work on many other projects.

For background, SANZIGEN helped found the Ultra Super Pictures holding company in 2011 with fellow studios, while Bushiroad, founded in 2007 by Takaaki Kidani, is known for its cross media franchises, several of which began as card games.

My take: Closer ties between a publisher and a studio it already collaborates with feels like a natural step. I just hope it gives SANZIGEN’s talented artists more stability to keep making great work.