TOA Heavy Industries, LLP to expand with original projects in games, goods, product design

Polygon Pictures Holdings — the principal shareholder of 3DCG anime studio Polygon Pictures — and manga creator Tsutomu Nihei announced on Monday that they have partnered to establish a joint venture named TOA Heavy Industries, LLP (Tōa Jūkō Yūgen Sekinin Jugyō Kumiai). The new company will aim to go beyond screen projects and expand into other fields, with planning for original projects in games, goods, and industrial product design underway. It will also be engaged in supervising works and rights management.

The company's site will launch this year.

The company's name is a reference to a similarly named company that appears in the stories of many of Nihei's works.

Polygon Pictures has previously adapted Nihei's Knights of Sidonia and Blame! manga into 3DCG anime films and series. The studio is also known for the two Ajin television anime series and film trilogy, and the ongoing Godzilla: Kaijū Wakusei film trilogy.

Nihei is currently serializing his APOSIMZ manga, which launched in February 2017. It has 250,000 copies in print.

Polygon Pictures and Japanese publisher Kodansha previously established a new joint venture company called Kodansha VR Lab last October. The new company will create VR and AR content such as videos, games, and other digital content. Kodansha VR Lab also plans to target its content to a global market. Polygon Pictures Holdings also established the Element Factory company alongside game content developer Historia in January to develop CG models using Unreal Engine 4 (UE4).

Source: Animation Business Journal (Tadashi Sudo)