Pierrot (company)

Pierrot Co., Ltd. (株式会社ぴえろ, Kabushiki-gaisha Piero) is a Japanese animation studio, founded in 1979 by former employees of Tatsunoko Production and Mushi Production. Its headquarters is located in Mitaka, Tokyo. Studio Pierrot is renowned for several worldwide popular anime series, such as Naruto, Bleach, YuYu Hakusho, Tokyo Ghoul, Beelzebub, Great Teacher Onizuka and several others.

The company has a simple logo of the face of a clown. "Piero" is a Japanese loanword for clown, adopted from the classical character of Pierrot.

YuYu Hakusho and Saiyuki, two of the company's anime series, won the Animage Anime Grand Prix Award in 1994 and 1995, and 2000, respectively.

TV series

Note: This may not be a complete list.

1980s

Naruto

Naruto (ナルト) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto. It tells the story of Naruto Uzumaki, an adolescent ninja who constantly searches for recognition and dreams to become the Hokage, the ninja in his village who is acknowledged as the leader and the strongest of all. The series is based on a one-shot manga by Kishimoto that was published in the August 1997 issue of Akamaru Jump.

Naruto was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine from the 43rd issue of 1999 to the 50th issue of 2014, with the chapters collected into seventy-two tankōbon volumes by Shueisha. The manga was later adapted into a television anime, which was produced by Studio Pierrot and Aniplex. It premiered across Japan on the terrestrial TV Tokyo and other TX Network stations on October 3, 2002. The first series lasted 220 episodes, while Naruto: Shippuden, a sequel to the original series, has been airing since February 15, 2007. In addition to the anime series, Studio Pierrot has developed ten movies and several original video animations. Other types of merchandise include light novels, video games, and trading cards developed by several companies.

Pierrot

Pierrot (French pronunciation: ​[pjɛʁo]) is a stock character of pantomime and Commedia dell'Arte whose origins are in the late seventeenth-century Italian troupe of players performing in Paris and known as the Comédie-Italienne; the name is a hypocorism of Pierre (Peter), via the suffix -ot. His character in contemporary popular culture—in poetry, fiction, the visual arts, as well as works for the stage, screen, and concert hall—is that of the sad clown, pining for love of Columbine, who usually breaks his heart and leaves him for Harlequin. Performing unmasked, with a whitened face, he wears a loose white blouse with large buttons and wide white pantaloons. Sometimes he appears with a frilled collaret and a hat, usually with a close-fitting crown and wide round brim, more rarely with a conical shape like a dunce's cap. But most frequently, since his reincarnation under Jean-Gaspard Deburau, he wears neither collar nor hat, only a black skullcap. The defining characteristic of Pierrot is his naïveté: he is seen as a fool, often the butt of pranks, yet nonetheless trusting.

Studio

A studio is an artist's or worker's workroom, or the catchall term for an artist and their employees who work within that studio. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design, radio or television production broadcasting or the making of music. The term is also used for the workroom of dancers, often specified to dance studio.

The word studio is derived from the Italian: studio, from Latin: studium, from studere, meaning to study or zeal.

The French term for studio, atelier, in addition to designating an artist's studio is used to characterize the studio of a fashion designer. Atelier also has the connotation of being the home of an alchemist or wizard.

Art studio

The studio of a successful artist, especially from the 15th to the 19th centuries, characterized all the assistants, thus the designation of paintings as "from the workshop of..." or "studio of..." An art studio is sometimes called an atelier, especially in earlier eras. In contemporary, English language use, "atelier" can also refer to the Atelier Method, a training method for artists that usually takes place in a professional artist's studio.

Yūgen gaisha

A yūgen gaisha or yūgen kaisha (Jp. 有限会社, lit. "limited company," abbreviated in English as Y.K. or as wasei-eigo Co., Ltd.) is a form of business organization in Japan.

Yūgen gaisha are based on the German GmbH and were implemented in Japan in the Limited Company Act (有限会社法) of 1940. Companies Act, implemented on May 1, 2006, replaced the yūgen gaisha with a new form of company called gōdō gaisha, based upon the American limited liability company. Following the implementation, no new YKs were allowed in Japan, but pre-existing YKs were allowed to continue their operations as kabushiki gaisha under special rules.

Whether the term is pronounced as yūgen gaisha or yūgen kaisha is up to the local dialect or the company's preference when it is part of the company's name. While it is pronounced yūgen gaisha in standard Japanese, the alphabetic abbreviation is always Y.K. by standard.

Structure

As of 2005, a Y.K. can have up to 50 investors, called members (社員, shain). The members were required to provide at least ¥3 million in capital contributions, with each investment unit (持分, mochibun) valued at no less than ¥50,000. The minimum capital amount was much more permissive than the ¥10 million minimum for a kabushiki gaisha. A Y.K. was also not required to issue certificates for investment units, whereas stock certificates were required for a K.K.