You know them. Nendoroids, POP-UP Parade, figma; if it came out of Japan, is from a large franchise, and it’s a PVC figure, action figure or whatever the fresh hell a Nendo is, Good Smile probably made it.
What you probably didn’t know is that, in another timeline, they manage idols and voice actors. And 4chan.
Founded in 2001 by Aki “Aki-san” Takanori, Good Smile was originally not in the hobby business, but in the talent management business. Takanori was originally working at Banpresto at the time (Banpresto having at that time been a game developer instead of a brand that produced toys for Bandai Namco) and even managing to work with names like Tomokazu Sugita of all people. (For those of you in the back who don’t look too impressed, this man played the likes of Gintoki in Gintama, Joseph Joestar, frickin’ Chrom and, for the fujos reading this, Yusuke in Persona 5.)
As talent management isn’t exactly lucrative, Takanori had to run a fishing supply store in order to make bank. Such is life sometimes. Sometimes, you have to sell fishing supplies to make ends meet. Other times, you have to own parts of 4chan.
Fortunately for Takanori and the toy industry at large, Good Smile had retained the legendary Makoto “Max” Watanabe (of MAX Factory fame) as a talent. While Takanori was unfamiliar with the hobby industry at first, his collaborations with Watanabe eventually gave birth to Good Smile entirely abandoning the talent management industry and hopping over wholesale to the hobby industry. As a result, many Good Smile products are actually more accurately described as MAX Factory products, distributed and marketed by Good Smile, though Good Smile has its own in-house products at this point (on top of distributing other products by other companies).
Good Smile would expand into other ventures such as animation in the form of Ultra Super Pictures (counting studios like Trigger and Liden Films under their umbrella), racing (even producing car accessories) and, for some unfathomable reason, owning parts of 4chan. Takanori himself would get around to producing anime in his own right, having helped produce Symphogear, Haganai and Black Rock Shooter, a collaboration which probably convinced huke to work with them to make chitocerium.
Also, yes, we will actually explain the 4chan bit.
In 2020, a lawsuit placed against Good Smile by its Los Angeles office alleged, among other charges which we have no interest on commenting in either on here or in private, that Good Smile had been funding 4chan, which was eventually revealed in documents acquired in 2022 to be real. To Good Smile’s credit, they apparently never had much of a say in running, or even a relationship with, 4chan and haven’t been affiliated with them since 2023, as far as we know.
We just like reminding people that this happened because it is, to be frank, extremely bloody funny. Any opinions on whether funding a site that has contributed to the continued enshittification of civilized society, especially for racial and sexual minorities who are largely minding their own bloody business and are probably not the real enemy of the downtrodden masses, is a good idea are of course not for this guide.
Produced Lines:
- chitocerium
- PLAMAX (collaboration with Max Factory)
- GODZ ORDER (produced by Max Factory, distributor)
- Guilty Princess (produced by Max Factory, distributor)
- PLAMATEA (collaboration with Max Factory)
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