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, the largest Japanese publisher, produces the manga magazines ''Nakayoshi,'' ''Afternoon,'' ''Evening,'' and ''Weekly Shonen Magazine,'' as well as more literary magazines such as ''Gunzō,'' ''Shūkan Gendai,'' and the Japanese dictionary ''Nihongo Daijiten.'' The company has its headquarters in Bunkyō, Tokyo.〔"(Company Overview )." Kodansha. Retrieved on April 5, 2011. "Address: 12-21, Otowa 2-chome, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 112-8001, Japan"〕 The Noma family (relatives of the founder) continue as owners of Kodansha. ==History== Seiji Noma founded Kodansha in 1909 as a spin-off of the ''Dai-Nippon Yūbenkai'' (Greater Japan Oratorical Society) and produced the literary magazine ''Yūben'' as its first publication. The name ''Kodansha'' (taken from "Kōdan Club," a now defunct magazine published by the company) originated in 1911 when the publisher formally merged with the ''Dai-Nippon Yūbenkai.'' The company has used its current legal name since 1958. It uses the motto . Kodansha Limited owns the Otowa Group, which manages subsidiary companies such as King Records (official name: King Record Co., Ltd.) and Kobunsha, and publishes ''Nikkan Gendai,'' a daily tabloid. It also has close ties with The Walt Disney Company, and officially sponsors Tokyo Disneyland. Kodansha is the largest publisher in Japan. Revenues dropped due to the 2002 recession in Japan and an accompanying downturn in the publishing industry: the company posted a loss in the 2002 financial year for the first time since the end of World War II. (The second-largest publisher, Shogakukan, has done relatively better. In the 2003 financial year, Kodansha had revenues of ¥167 billion, as compared to ¥150 billion for Shogakukan. Kodansha, at its peak, led Shogakukan by over ¥50 billion in revenue.) Kodansha sponsors the prestigious Kodansha Manga Award, which has run since 1977 (and since 1960 under other names). Kodansha's headquarters in Tokyo once housed Noma Dōjō, a kendo practice-hall established by Seiji Noma in 1925. The hall was demolished in November 2007, however, and replaced with a dōjō in a new building nearby. The company announced that it was closing its English-language publishing house, Kodansha International, at the end of April 2011.〔Kamiya, Setsuko and Mizuho Aoki, "(Kodansha International to close doors )", ''Japan Times,'' 4 March 2011, p. 1.〕 Their American publishing house, Kodansha Comics USA, will remain in operation. Kodansha USA began issuing new publications under the head administrator of the international branch Kentaro Tsugumi, starting in September 2012 with a hardcover release of ''The Spirit of Aikido.''〔Kisshomaru Ueshiba "()", ''Kodansha USA, Inc.,''Sept. 4, 2012. ISBN 9781568364094 〕 Many of Kodansha USA's older titles have been reprinted. According to Daniel Mani of Kodansha USA, Inc., "Though we did stopped () publishing new books for about a year starting from late 2011, we did continue to sell most of our older title throughout that period (so Kodansha USA never actually closed)." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kodansha」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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