, often abbreviated simply as ADK or sometime calls , is a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese advertising agency

Advertising agency

An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services...

. Headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo

Chuo, Tokyo

is one of the 23 special wards that form the heart of Tokyo, Japan. The ward refers to itself as Chūō City in English.Its Japanese name literally means "Central Ward," and it is historically the main commercial center of Tokyo, although Shinjuku has risen to challenge it since the end of World War II...

, the firm is Japan's third largest advertising agency, after Dentsu

Dentsu

is one of the largest advertising agencies in the world. Its headquarters are located in the Dentsu Building in the Shiodome district of Minato, Tokyo....

 and Hakuhodo

Hakuhodo

is Japan's second largest advertising agency, with gross sales of approximately 700 hundred million yen. It has its headquarters at Akasaka Biz Tower in Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo....

. The agency has 38 offices in over 15 countries. One of the offices, Asatsu-DK Europe, was established in 1993 in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

. The WPP Group

WPP Group

WPP plc is a global media communications services company with its main management office in London, United Kingdom and its executive office in Dublin, Ireland. It is the world's largest advertising group by revenues, and employs over 150,000 people in 2,400 offices in 107 countries...

 holds a 20% share in Asatsu-DK.

History

Asatsu Inc. was established in 1956 by current chairman Masao Inagaki. On August 1998, it entered into a professional tie-up with the WPP Group

WPP Group

WPP plc is a global media communications services company with its main management office in London, United Kingdom and its executive office in Dublin, Ireland. It is the world's largest advertising group by revenues, and employs over 150,000 people in 2,400 offices in 107 countries...

. It soon merged with fellow advertising agency Dai-ichi Kikaku Co., Ltd. (which was established in 1951) to form Asatsu-DK (where the DK stands for Dai-ichi Kikaku) on January 1, 1999.

Subsidiaries and interests

It owns a variety of interests and companies, including the production studio NAS

Nihon Ad Systems

, NAS for short, is a Japanese anime production and character merchandising company, a wholly owned subsidiary of the advertising agency Asatsu-DK. The "Ad" in its title is an abbreviation for "Animation Development". Along with animation studios Sunrise, Toei Animation and TMS Entertainment, it is...

, the animation studio Eiken

Eiken (studio)

is an anime studio in Tokyo, Japan. The company was formerly known as Tele-Cartoon Japan or TCJ before changing its name in 1969 to establish Eiken. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Asatsu-DK.-External links:...

, the publishing house Nihon Bungeisha Publishing, the film and print processing enterprise Taiyo Seihan, the production studios Sun Artist Studio, Supervision Inc., television commercial production house Prime Pictures, and creative services company Tokyo Ad Party.

Asatsu-DK is also involved in producing and providing its services to numerous anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 series, through itself as well as its numerous subsidiaries, including recent installments of Sunrise

Sunrise (company)

is a Japanese animation studio and production enterprise. It is a subsidiary of Namco Bandai Holdings. Its former name was Nippon Sunrise, and prior to that, Sunrise Studios...

's famous Gundam series, such as the latest series Mobile Suit Gundam 00

Mobile Suit Gundam 00

is an anime TV series, the eleventh incarnation of Sunrise's long-running Gundam franchise consisting of two seasons. It is directed by Seiji Mizushima and written by Yōsuke Kuroda, and features character designs by Yun Kōga. The twenty-five episode season was officially announced by Sunrise...

, Turn A Gundam

Turn A Gundam

is a 50 episode anime series that aired between 1999 and 2000 on Japan's FNN networks and on the anime satellite television network, Animax, which was created for the Gundam Big Bang 20th Anniversary celebration...

, Mobile Suit Gundam Seed

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED

is an anime series developed by Sunrise and directed by Mitsuo Fukuda. As with other series from the Gundam franchise, Gundam SEED takes place in a parallel timeline, in this case the Cosmic Era, the first to do so...

and Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny

is an anime television series, acting as a sequel of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED by Sunrise. It retains most of the staff from Gundam SEED, including Director Mitsuo Fukuda. Set two years after the original Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, the plot follows the new character Shinn Asuka, a soldier from ZAFT,...

, as well as several other anime.