Bandai
Bandai (バンダイ), currently known as Bandai Namco, is a Japanese toy company which also produces anime, manga, and tokusatsu series through its subsidiary companies.
The founder of Bandai was originally a member of the bankrupted Imai (今井), a major manufacturer of plastic models for various tokusatsu series. Initially after its founding, Bandai specialized on producing plastic models for various anime series, the popularity of which was mounting at the time, before it diversified its product lines and operations and transformed into the multi-venture, multi-media business it is today.
As today's Bandai directly controls the production of various works on which its toy product lines are based, it can bend the production designs and even screenwriting of those works to suit its operational requirements of toy product design/production, and to serve its toy marketing strategies. Some creators and fans of those works have expressed dissatisfaction with this, as they are of the opinion that this compromises creative independence.
Bandai made toys for the anime, musicals, and live-action series in Japan, and for the English dub in North America. Many of its toys tied with the anime were made in Japan even though the company had already started to relocate its production lines to China in order to cut production costs. However, at the time when the live-action series was aired, most, if not all, of its series tie-in toys were made in China, although major product designs were still done at its offices in Japan.
A subsidiary of Bandai, Banpresto (バンプレスト), released several Sailor Moon video games, as well.