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Twin Engine, Bandai Partner for Manga, Animation, Merchandise Plans

Anime planning and production company Twin Engine (production for Vinland Saga, Dororo, Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku) announced on Wednesday that it has entered into a strategic partnership with toy and merchandising company Bandai Co., Ltd. with the two companies planning to produce at least one new joint project.

The companies' initiative will involve original manga, animated adaptation, and licensed merchandise and toys. Twin Engine will handle the planning, production, advertising, and distribution for the animation portion, while Bandai will handle planning, product development, marketing, licensing, and maximizing the worth of the intellectual property as a whole.

Both companies aim to make a collective initial investment of up to 4 billion yen (about US$25.35 million). The companies will reveal more details on the initiative soon.

Representative director Kōji Yamamoto founded Twin Engine in 2014. Twin Engine established the EOTA studio team in April 2020. EOTA allows the studios to pool resources and work together to produce video content for worldwide distribution, create short content for social media and other platforms, and form a group that can continue to produce works under flexible circumstances. The new studio team allows the studios to cooperate and utilize each other's strengths and expertise. Twin Engine established two new anime studios in October 2021: BUG FILMS and Scooter Films. The company then established the Studio Chromato and Crew-Cell studios in March 2024. Twin Engine recently acquired shares in anime Studio NuT and made it part of its EOTA system in March earlier this year.

Sources: Twin Engine, Comic Natalie