Ashi Productions

Ashi Productions (葦プロダクション Ashi Purodakushon) is a Japanese animation studio based in Suginami, Tokyo. Their domestic anime work includes such series as Special Armored Trooper Dorvack, Dancougar, Machine Robo, Macross 7, Blue Seed, and F-Zero GP Legend.

Ashi Productions' stickers on Dorvack packaging (left) and Transformers Deluxe Vehicle packaging (right).

They've also worked on Western animated productions as an outsourced studio, including such shows as the Ruby-Spears Mega Man, season 2 of M.A.S.K., Skysurfer Strike Force, and Diabolik.

Masami Ōbari, Shin Matsuo, Nobuyoshi Habara, Shinya Ohira, and Michitaka Kikuchi worked for them during the '80s.

Nobuyoshi Habara has stated that Ashi Productions worked on episodes 3, 8, 13, 22, and 32 of The Transformers, although it's unclear if the episode numbers refer to production or Japanese airdate order. Episode 3 is comfortably "More than Meets the Eye, Part 3", and it's likely that episodes 8 and 13 refer to "S.O.S. Dinobots" and "The Ultimate Doom, Part 3" respectively. Those three episodes also share the same animation style as "Heavy Metal War", another episode confirmed to have been animated by Ashi Productions, with Habara stating that on this particular episode he worked on some of the scenes with Optimus Prime and Megatron fighting at the battle site.^[1]

In 1984, Takatoku Toys produced figures based on Ashi Productions' designs for Special Armored Battalion Dorvack (特装機兵ドルバック, Tokusō Kihei Dorubakku) anime series. Upon Takatoku Toys' bankruptcy, molds of two of the Dorvack figures were purchased by Bandai and subsequently licensed to Hasbro in 1985, where they were released as the Deluxe Vehicles, Roadbuster and Whirl. As a result of being based on toys from an Ashi Productions anime series, the Hasbro boxed versions of the two Deluxe Vehicles include a small "AP" (Ashi Productions) sticker on the packaging, in addition to an Ashi Production copyright marking on the figures themselves. This also meant that neither toy could be promoted on the cartoon despite Ashi being involved with both series.

Transformers series

• The Transformers - Animation services for Toei Animation for Seasons 1 and 2.
• Beast Wars II
  • Lio Convoy in Imminent Danger!
• Beast Wars Neo
• Transformers: Cybertron - episode and CGI Co-producer with GONZO for six episodes.

References

External links

• Ashi Productions' official site
• Ashi Productions at Wikipedia