Tezuka Entertainment Group

Tezuka Entertainment Group, formerly known as The Osamu Tezuka Company was a Japanese media conglomerate headquartered at Tokyo, Japan.

Tezuka Entertainment's assets included Tezuka Pictures' Film and TV assets, Tezuka Animation Group, Capcom, Rovio, ABCXYZ Television Group, Tezuka Home Media Entertainment, Tezuka Publishing Group, Tezuka Interactive, Dark Horse Comics, Maxis and Polandball Entertainment.

1946-1952: Beginnings
A year after The Second World War, Osamu Tezuka (Born on November 3, 1928) Founded Mushi Publishing Inc as a publishing distribution company

Tezuka began talks with fellow manga creator Shichima Sakai, who pitched Tezuka a story based on Robert Louis Stevenson's classic adventure novel, Treasure Island. Sakai promised Tezuka a publishing spot from Ikuei Shuppan if he would work on the manga. Tezuka finished the manga, only loosely basing it on the original work. Shin Takarajima (New Treasure Island) was published and became an overnight success, which began the golden age of manga, a craze comparable to the American comic book Golden Age at the same time.

With the success of New Treasure Island, Tezuka published The Strange Voyage of Dr. Tiger and The Mysterious Dr. Koronko. And he also hired Shichima Sakai along with six other workers

A few years later, Tezuka published his first masterpieces: a trilogy of science fiction epics called Lost World (1948), Metropolis (1949), and Nextworld (1951). These works featured early steampunk elements.

Soon afterward, Tezuka published his first major success, Kimba the White Lion, which was serialized in Manga Shonen from 1950 to 1954.

In 1951 Tezuka published Ambassador Atom, the first appearance of the Astro Boy character. That same year Tezuka joined a group known as the Tokyo Children Manga Association, consisting of other manga artists such as Baba Noboru, Ota Jiro, Furusawa Hideo, Eiichi Fukui, Irie Shigeru, and Negishi Komichi.

1952-1964: Rebranding, Filmmaking
After a mild success of Ambassador Atom in Japan and receiving several letters from many young boys, Tezuka was expecting success with a series based around Atom, Tezuka's producer suggested that he be given human emotions. After Tezuka was punched in the face by a frustrated American G.I. at a hospital, This encounter gave Tezuka the idea to include the theme of Atom's interaction with aliens. On February 4, 1952, Tetsuwan Atom began serialization in Weekly Shonen Magazine. The character Atom and his adventures became an instant phenomenon in Japan.

In March 1952, Tezuka decided to enter the animation and film industry then formed a film production and distribution company called Mushi Film Corporation.

Due to the success of Tetsuwan Atom, in 1953 Tezuka published the shōjo manga Ribon no Kishi (Princess Knight), serialized in Shojo Club from 1953 to 1956.

In 1954 Tezuka first published what he would consider his life's work, Phoenix, which originally appeared in Mushi Production Commercial Firm.

Although Tezuka establish Mushi Productions in 1952, he didn't fully animate his stories until between 1959-1961. before 1959-1961, the animation was done by different animators, and the film unit was mostly produced live-action films.

In the late to mid-1960's the company produced successful animated TV shows such as Astro Boy (1963) and Kimba the White Lion (1965) as well as their license with NBC Enterprises, and in 1963 the company was rebranded to Tezuka Productions.

1964-1989: Company expansions and Osamu Tezuka's stepping down & death
After the success form Astro Boy and Kimba, Tezuka wanted to diversify the company to different genres such as founding a magazine label, COM. And the adult film market such as A Thousand and One Nights and Cleopatra but these films flopped.

In 1968 Osamu Tezuka stepped down from his own company to focus more on animation and publishing his manga series, however, He will still be a creative consultant of the animation division. And between the late 1960's to early 1970's, some of the animators left the company to found their animation production studios, including Sunrise.

Osaka Tanaka became CEO of Tezuka Productions in 1968, Under his leadership, the company began to solely diversify its production units including purchasing a 50% interest of an American film company Clark Film Corp in 1970.

Tezuka died of stomach cancer on 9 February 1989 in Tokyo, And on February 31, 1989, the company was renamed to The Osamu Tezuka Company in honor of its founder.

Final holdings
List of assets owned by Tezuka Entertainment Group