The name "Sunrise" may be a big company that has accompanied generations of Japanese manga fans, and they recently announced that they will be renamed "Bandai Namco Filmworks" (temporarily translated as Bandai Namco Image Productions), and the classic name of Sunrise Animation will also come to an end.
Sunrise was founded as early as 1975 by employees of Bug Animation, and in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, a large number of robot animations were released and recognized by the audience as the "best robot animation company", and I think this impression may not have changed until now.
Perhaps Sunrise's most iconic work is the 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam series, which set an example for future robot animation. In addition, most of Sunrise's robot animations are original content, and later gradually participated in the production of adapted animations.
In the 1980s, Sunrise introduced a studio system, which divided different categories of works into different working groups to complete them, so as to absorb more different kinds of works. In the 1990s, Sunrise was incorporated into the Bandai Group, as an important means of promoting toys under its umbrella, and also gained more opportunities; in the 21st century, Sunrise also followed the trend and produced more categories of works...
In addition to "Mobile Suit Gundam" and a large number of ancient robot animation works, Sunrise's representative works also have many long-form serial animations with excellent reputation, such as "InuYasha"
"Gintama" is also a representative long-form animation work of Sunrise, and this group of "Gintama" is very good at restoring the style of manga spoofs, and wonderfully introduces strange ways such as opening song spoofs, ending song spoofs, interlude still screens, etc. to increase the laughter of the work, which can be described as very dedicated... It is also a bloody comic adaptation that has always maintained a good production quality in long-form works; the animation of "Gintama" accompanies the growth of a generation with laughter;
"KERORO Cobia" is a children's animation suitable for all ages, vivid and interesting character images, which leave a deep impression, and because the copyright of the "Gundam" series of images itself belongs to Bandai, it can be unscrupulously used in "KERORO Cobia", which also makes the spoof content more profound;
A lot of people will overlook, except for these big long stories and mecha animations, Love live! The series is also the "cash cow" of Sunrise Animation, this series is an animation IP cross-border case, with animation as the axis, scattered mobile games, comics, peripherals, all-round rollout, once the most popular mobile game IP, and now still updated with new works, "Love live!" superstar！ It also received high praise, which shows that Sunrise's different animation groups can present completely different styles and maintain high quality.
Sunrise's proudest IP is "Mobile Suit Gundam". This series, which was born in the late 1970s, can be described as a bellwether for Real Robot Animation in Japan, and has also experienced the rise and fall of different eras, and is still launching a new series of works and attracting many fans to stop. However, the Gundam series is still facing the embarrassment of difficulty attracting young fans, in the early 21st century, relying on a "Mobile Suit Gundam SEED" to turn the tide, but now, the 3rd decade of the 21st century, the Gundam series is still facing this problem, but it seems that before solving this problem, the reputation of "Sunrise" will change even more.
In February, Bandai Namco announced that Sunrise would be reorganized and renamed Bandai Namco Filmworks, and the name "Sunrise Animation" would become history.