About the studio
Kodansha has been in the storytelling business since 1909, back when Seiji Noma founded it as a spin-off of a public speaking association, of all things. Over a century later, it's grown into one of Japan's Big Three manga publishers, the company behind Attack on Titan, Sailor Moon, and Fairy Tail. Based in Tokyo and still connected to the Noma family through the Noma Cultural Foundation, Kodansha's role in anime is upstream of the screen: it publishes the manga, and studios adapt it. *Simple on paper, seismic in practice.* Attack on Titan alone reshaped what a dark mainstream anime could look like, and that story started as ink on a Kodansha page. The company took its current legal name in 1958, but its instinct for finding stories worth adapting stretches back to the very beginning. Anime owes Kodansha more credit than a published by line usually gives it.