About the studio
ASCII Media Works formed April 1, 2008 through the merger of ASCII Corporation, founded in 1977 and a Kadokawa subsidiary since 2004, and MediaWorks, founded October 15, 1992 as a spin-off of Kadokawa Shoten itself. Based in Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku, Tokyo, ASCII Media Works became the publisher behind the Dengeki Bunko imprint, the light novel line responsible for Sword Art Online, Shakugan no Shana, Toradora!, and A Certain Magical Index. *That's an absurd number of massive anime franchises to trace back to a single light novel imprint.* Like several other Kadokawa-affiliated publishers, ASCII Media Works ceased existing as an independent company on October 1, 2013, becoming an internal Kadokawa brand rather than a standalone entity. Even folded into the larger Kadokawa structure, the Dengeki Bunko name it carries still represents one of the single most influential publishing pipelines in modern anime's history.