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Yumeta, Hal Film Maker to Merge to Form TYO Animations

The TYO production company has announced on Thursday that it will merge its anime studio subsidiaries — Yumeta Company and Hal Film Maker — on July 1. Yumeta Company will absorb Hal Film Maker and change its name to TYO Animations. The merger ratio will be 1:1, and TYO Animations will have 20 million yen (about US$200,000) in capital. Satoshi Yamaguchi and Katsunori Haruta, the current representative directors of Yumeta Company and Hal Film Maker, respectively, will both be representative directors for TYO Animations. The aim of the merger is to eliminate costs in anime production.

TYO will own 83.3% of the new company, while Yamaguchi will own 16.7%. (TYO currently owns 80% of Yumeta Company and 100% of Hal Film Maker.) Yumeta Company brought in 440 million yen (US$4.5 million) in revenues in 2008, while Hal Film Maker brought in 1.02 billion yen (US$10.5 million). However, Yumeta Company recorded a profit of 43 million yen (US$440,000), compared to Hal Film Maker's loss of 280 million yen (US$2.9 million).

Yamaguchi established Yumeta Company in 1986, and it currently has 18 employees. Among its many works are Animation Runner Kuromi, Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time – A Tale of the Eight Guardians, Angelique, and La Corda D'Oro - primo passo. It was involved in almost every anime series based on KOEI's Neo Romance game line for female players.

Hal Film Maker was established in 1993, and it has six employees. Hal Film Maker is best known for Aria the Animation, Prétear, Kaleido Star, Princess Tutu, Sketchbook ~full color'S~, and other works directed or supervised by its staffer, Junichi Satō. Without Sato, Hal Film Maker worked on Skip Beat! and other titles.

Source: animeanime.jp